The Apple Pippin is a defunct open multimedia technology platform designed by Apple Computer, and marketed as PiPP!N.
Pippin is based on the Apple Macintosh platform, including the classic Mac OS architecture.
Apple licensed the Pippin technology to third-party companies. Bandai Company Ltd. developed the ATMARK and @WORLD models, and focused them on the gaming and entertainment business in Japan and the United States.
The word "pippin" was used by Apple prior to the Apple Pippin platform. The Apple ProFile, an external hard disk drive for the Apple III and Apple Lisa, used the code name "Pippin" during development.
In 1993, Bandai wanted to deliver a scaled-down version of the Macintosh purely for CD-ROM game-playing. Bandai President and CEO Makoto Yamashina chose the Macintosh platform over other platforms available at the time.
The Apple Pippin platform was based on the PowerPC Platform, a platform designed and supported by IBM and Apple.
The address bus of the PowerPC 603 can theoretically access memory up to 64 MB. However, the operating system's maximum addressable memory size is 37 MB.
Apple encouraged hardware developers to produce PCI compatible peripherals that could be added to the Pippin.
It sold only 42,000 units and was discontinued in summer of 1997.
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