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By Marc Spiwak and James Alan Miller
Comparing a Mac to a PC is like comparing apples to oranges. While you might prefer one, it is sometimes necessary to use both. The Power Macintosh 7200/120 PC Compatible packs both a Power Macintosh and a Pentium PC into a single case, for $2,799 (monitor, keyboard and Windows not included).
This system uses a 120MHz PowerPC 601 with a 100MHz Pentium PC Compatibility Card installed in a PCI slot. It also has 256KB secondary cache and 8MB to 72MB of RAM.
You can switch between DOS and Mac without rebooting, copy and paste between them, and even open folders.
You must obtain and load Windows 3.1x or 95, as Apple bundles only DOS. Installation went smoothly, basically creating a file that emulates a PC hard disk. Since the mouse has a single button, you're limited to keyboard commands for right-clicking.
The PC-compatibility card yields poor-to-good PC performance. Under Wintune, it earned a typical 100MHz Pentium score of 182.67MIPS. The hard disk score, 0.58MB per second, was poor, since it's not a real drive but a software-emulated facsimile. On our Word and Excel macros, it achieved a good Excel score of 22.67 seconds, and a mediocre score of 44.67 seconds on Word.
Altogether, this type of Mac/PC hybrid is a special-purpose machine with limited appeal. It offers a solution to those who do most of their work on the Mac, but need a foot in the PC door.
--Info File--
Apple Power Macintosh 7200/120
Price: $2,799 (without monitor and keyboard)
Pros: Simultaneous Macintosh and PC
Cons: No right-clicking under Windows; overall PC performance
Platforms: Windows 95, 3.1x, DOS, Mac OS
Apple Computer
800-462-4396, 408-996-1010
WinMag Box Score 3.0
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