Quadra 800, Must have been a special order?

[uniserver]

I just won this Q800.

Just realized, they came with a CD-ROM.

So this one has a Blank Plate where the CD-ROM would have been.

I wonder if this was a S/O maybe used as a server?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Macintosh-Quadra-800-1993-/330928929808?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEWNX%3AIT&nma=true&si=bbqvcP1Nd6seBg%252BZj1y3OcYEvaU%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

LEM says here they came with CD-ROM's

The Centris 650 and Quadra 800 were the first Macs to ship with a bootable CD-ROM.

http://lowendmac.com/quadra/quadra-800.html

 

[Charlieman]

Special orders with/wo CD-ROM drives were available for education etc, but they tended to be for low end models. See also variants such as the twin floppy drive LC.

It's a mystery but you should be able to tell from scratch marks and cabling whether a CD-ROM drive was ever fitted.

 

[mcdermd]

Mine also came from the factory with no CDROM:

http://applefool.com/applefool/Quadra_800.html

I think the CDROM was an optional thing.

 

[uniserver]

i like it

 

[Anonymous Freak]

I know I saw them both with and without CD-ROM drives back when they were new.

I'm sure most were ordered with, simply because if you're paying that much, you might as well pay a little more for the CD-ROM drive. But likewise, I'm sure there were people who skipped. Either didn't think they need it, or had an external that they just bought so figured they were okay just using that.

I know the one that was bought as soon as it came out for my high school yearbook didn't have a CD-ROM drive.

And the "first CD-ROM" part was specifically referring to the fact that it had a bootable CD-ROM drive, not that it shipped with it. (Sort of like how they say that the PowerBook 500-series was the first to support PCMCIA - it didn't come with the PCMCIA adapter.)

 

[Unknown_K]

I think one of mine came that way as well, I just stuck a tray loading CDROM and bezel into it. I think the caddy loading drive and bezel were the correct parts for that model, same with the 840av.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Yep, it's just a case of ambiguity in the phrase . . .

". . . ship with a bootable CD-ROM" . . .

. . . which says that they were the first Macs to have that capability . . .

. . . nobody from that era would have thought it meant that the CD was anything but pricey optional equipment if that quote came from a trade mag.

Was the 840AV's CD an option? Was the TAM the first Mac ever to have a standard equipment CD?

edit: I think you're correct, my 840AV has a Caddy Loader, but was the CD-ROM drive stock?

 

[mcdermd]

My 840av is younger and shipped with a tray-loader. I've seen them with both caddy and tray before.

Here's a box label I found in my stuff noting specifically that this Quadra shipped with CDROM. You would think that demonstrates that it was an option:

 

[Anonymous Freak]

There were standard-equipment CDs before the TAM, that's for sure. Most of the Power Macintosh line was CD-standard, only removal was optional. I've never seen a Power Mac 7500+ without a CD drive, and I own over half a dozen of that series (7500/7600/7300) that were all "low-end corporate desktop" purchases, so if they were to go sans-CD, they would have.

I do have a Power Mac 7100 that doesn't have a CD drive, (the original 66 MHz model that can run System 7.1,) so it would appear that the "standard" happened at the 7500.

 

[Charlieman]

Thanks Mcdermd for that photo. I like the line below computer description: "Domestic".

I believe that the first Mac to ship with a built-in (perhaps optional) CD-ROM drive was the the IIvi/IIvx after October 1992.

 

[dougg3]

I'd just like to add something slightly relevant that I also posted in a different thread a while ago...

When Apple switched from caddy-loading to tray-loading CD-ROM drives, they continued selling the same models with the same names; they just started making them with tray-loading drives instead. It was indicated with a /B rather than /A model number:

http://tidbits.com/article/2242

So some models with CD drives came stock with either a caddy or a tray drive, depending on when they were manufactured. I'd assume this would apply to all/most Mac models that were in production in the early 1994-ish period of time.

 

[James1095]

I remember those caddy drives. I think the idea was that you'd have a caddy for each CD you owned. I never knew anyone who did that though, caddies were relatively expensive so we just had one and stuck a CD into it to use it. Silly things.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

My first CD-ROM drive was the refurb PowerCD, the second was either the one in the Quadra 630 (that might have been standard equipment now that I think about it) or my Philips OmniWriter CD-R/RW. So I never really dealt with the caddies until a friend was cleaning the old Mac stuff out and gave me one of those loooong HEAVY externals from Apple along with a few caddies.

That's interesting about the 840AV having either bezel, I may snag the trayloader bezel for mine. I wish I had that one for the 950, but now I've got a caddy loader for behind that bezel in there too.

IIvx, IIvi and Q650 and C650 were all VERY common with the blank front bezel. It sure would be silly if Apple had shipped the AV Macs without a CD-ROM Drive!

 

[dougg3]

My 840av has the tray loader bezel (manufactured in Feb. 1994, so I'm assuming it's stock), but unfortunately the tabs that hold it in broke off...stupid plastic! Sadly, that bezel is almost impossible to find now.

 

[mcdermd]

Doesn't the tray loader bezel from a Q800 or PM 8500 fit the 840av? It's the caddy-loader bezel that I'd be afraid of breaking.

 

[dougg3]

Very true that the caddy one is probably harder to find. Sadly, even the tray one is pretty hard to find, but maybe I'm just not looking hard enough I wonder if I could rig something up to fix the broken clips on mine.

 

[Unknown_K]

Even if you find a bezel with the clips in place good luck making it match the same yellowed color of the rest of the case.

 

[James1095]

That's easy if you de-yellow the case. I've had the best success by far just mixing a bit of oxy-bright in some drugstore peroxide in a spray bottle and setting the item out in the sun. Mist it with a few squirts every few minutes and it cleans right up, shouldn't take more than 20-30 minutes depending on the intensity of the sun. Works much better than a blacklight.