The PM 7200 is weird.

[croissantking]

I was surprised to find out that some PM 7200s had a blank bezel where you'd expect the CD-ROM drive to be.

 

[macuserman]

All you need now is a blanking plug for the floppy, seriously why was this ever an option?

 

[Byrd]

Cost, a lot of these were used in academic situations and having some fancy CD drive was just another thing to get broken in the lab.

 

[joshc]

CD drives were still a relatively 'expensive' thing to add to a machine at this point, the 7200 was the base model so the base base model came without a CD drive. They did the same with the 610 and 6100 machines as well.

 

[MrFahrenheit]

According to Apple tech info database, every 7200 machine shipped with a CDROM drive. The base model shipped with a 4x.

https://tim.id.au/laptops/apple/legacy/powermac_7200_series.pdf

Either the database / PDF is wrong, or someone just put a blank there from another model. Seems very strange.

Edit: I checked Macworld October 1995, and the 7200/75 and 7200/90 both included a CDROM in the base model, and the 7500 had CDROM as optional on the base model. So it seems to me that someone just swapped out the CD on this 7200 with one from another model that shares the same case.

 

[joshc]

I've seen a lot of 7200s without a CD drive, though, so not sure how much I trust anything that says otherwise.

 

[MrFahrenheit]

I've seen a lot of 7200s without a CD drive, though, so not sure how much I trust anything that says otherwise.

You are correct:


7200/90 without CD being offered for sale. So I guess it really was an official configuration.

 

[cheesestraws]

Same, seen loads of 7200s with the blank bezel. Might be a regional thing (though Apple's own tech manuals are usually moderately good at noting regional things, so...)

Worth noting in this connection that the OP, @joshc and I are all in the UK.

 

[MrFahrenheit]

Same, seen loads of 7200s with the blank bezel. Might be a regional thing (though Apple's own tech manuals are usually moderately good at noting regional things, so...)

Worth noting in this connection that the OP, @joshc and I are all in the UK.

I seem to think that in North American stores, only the CD version was carried. I checked out catalog resellers in scanned spring 1996 catalogs, and most only show a CD included.

Like you mention, it may have been a regional thing, and perhaps some resellers carried a machine intended for UK here in North America? Or perhaps Apple offered an educational version without CD and some resellers carried that?

Admittedly, at the time, Apple was in turmoil over leadership and direction. Marketing and manufacturing might have intended to only sell a CD-equipped model and the tech database written around that, and then a change in offerings wasn’t communicated to all departments.

I do appreciate that people have scanned in magazines and ads so that we can verify things people see or say, with what was offered for sale. Even the review in MacWorld only mentioned that a CD was standard even in the base models.

By seeing what was SOLD verifies things. That’s how we can verify things like misinformation published on low end Mac.

 

[volvo242gt]

Also, the 650/7100 machines came with a no CD-ROM option as well. With the 650 series, you could have either a super base model version with 4MB RAM, no ethernet, and a LC040 chip, or an 8MB, ethernet, and full '040 version that had no CD-ROM drive. My current 650 was one of those. It has been upgraded to have a built-in CD-ROM drive, though.

On US model 7200s, I wouldn't be surprised if you could order one without through most resellers, but they typically stocked the CD equipped machines.

 

[MrFahrenheit]

Also, the 650/7100 machines came with a no CD-ROM option as well. With the 650 series, you could have either a super base model version with 4MB RAM, no ethernet, and a LC040 chip, or an 8MB, ethernet, and full '040 version that had no CD-ROM drive. My current 650 was one of those. It has been upgraded to have a built-in CD-ROM drive, though.

On US model 7200s, I wouldn't be surprised if you could order one without through most resellers, but they typically stocked the CD equipped machines.

By the time the 7200 shipped in 1995, it offered pretty good value compared to the PowerMacs before it. That added value was often “used up” by most people choosing to have a CDROM drive installed.

I upgraded from a Q605 to a 7200/75 in 1995. It was a nice machine for about 6 months before I traded it for a 7600/132.

 

[volvo242gt]

^Not bad. In 1999, a friend of mine gave me his 7200/75. Being someone who was pretty much committed to the 68K platform back then, I wound up rehoming it instead of replacing my original C650 with it. First PowerMac for me was a 7100/80. Replaced that in 2003 with a 7500 that had been upgraded to a 200MHz 604e.

 

[trag]

As long as we're on the "7200 is weird" topic, a careful reading of the Hardware Developer Note for the 7200 suggests that it supports up to 256MB DIMMs. I don't think anyone ever made a 256MB FPM DIMM of the necessary type, but in theory, the 7200 could go to 1 GB of RAM, if someone did make such a DIMM....

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Would it be theoretically possible to build your own DIMM by soldering on higher capacity chips?

 

[dcr]

Dang. Just checked and all my PM 7200s seem to have the bezels for CD-ROM drives. Was hoping this could be the ticket to sell some for inflated prices on eBay. You know, because they'd be a "***RARE*** No CD-ROM Power Macintosh 7200!!!"

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

How many do you have?!?