Developer Transition Kit

The Apple Developer Transition Kit (DTK), sometimes called Developer Transition System (DTS), was the first Intel-based computer to be released outside of Apple Computer, though only to Mac OS X developers.

History
Steve Jobs had made the surprise announcement at Apple's 2005 Worldwide Developers Conference that the company's Macintosh product line would be making a rapid transition from PowerPC to Intel processors. He stated that the PowerPC G5 was having trouble keeping up with Apple's product road map. To provide developers an early Intel-based system before consumer products became available, Developer Transition Kits became immediately available to lease for US$999. These units were expected to be returned by the end of 1996, when Apple's Intel-based products were expected to ship.

When the first Intel-based iMac shipped in 1996, it was offered as an exchange item to encourage developers to return their Developer Transition Kits. However, some units remained unreturned, even being used as Windows XP systems. The DTKs have since become rare collector's items.

On June 22 at the 2020 Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple announced a new Developer Transition Kit based on a Mac mini running macOS Big Sur on an Apple A12Z processor to enable developers to create new software during the transition to Apple processors.

Specifications
Apple's official internal designation for the system is Apple Development Platform (ADP 2,1). The unit is housed in a Power Mac G5 case, but with a much smaller logic board. It requires the Apple-supplied developer DVD-ROM to be in the optical drive in order to boot. Unlike shipping Intel-based Macs which used GUID-partitioned drives, the DTK booted from a MBR volume.
 * 3.6 GHz Pentium 4
 * Mac OS X 10.4.1 for Intel (preview release)
 * Xcode 2.1 with universal binaries
 * Universal binary porting guide