Mac286

The Mac286 was an Intel 80286-based MS-DOS coprocessor expansion card for one of Apple Computer's first expandable Macintosh computers, the 1987 Macintosh II. It was developed by Phoenix Technologies under contract to Apple Computer and sold by AST Research in an effort to close the gap between the Macintosh and IBM PC computing worlds. AST also introduced the related Mac86 card for the Macintosh SE.

By 1989, AST had left the Apple market and sold the rights and technologies for the Mac286 and Mac86 cards to Orange Micro. Orange Micro would later make a successful line of coprocessor cards based on the 80x86 processor family, before leaving the coprocessor market to concentrate on USB and FireWire products.

In 1992, Orange Micro discontinued the Mac286 board. Support for the card was discontinued sometime later.

The Mac86 was designed for the Macintosh SE PDS slot, and integrated a 10 MHz Intel 8086 CPU. The Mac86 did not include its own RAM, instead sharing up to 640 KB of the host Macintosh's RAM. A floppy drive controller was integrated, including an external bracket to connect an Apple PC 5.25 Drive.

There are three distinct versions of the Mac286 hardware:

Of the three versions, the AST appears to be the most common.

The Mac286 software provides emulation of the following additional hardware:

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