The Macintosh Portable: How Far We've Come
By James Grahame
Hey! I don't think I've ever profiled a Mac on Retro Thing. It's not because I don't love 'em -- I've owned three -- it's just that I tend to think of them as modern computers. We'll have to fix that. The original Macintosh debuted in 1984 at a price of $2495. It included a built-in 9-inch monochrome monitor, a (then) speedy Motorola 68000 16-bit processor, and a single built-in floppy drive. Oh, and don't forget the famed single-button mouse.
The Mac Portable was introduced in 1989. It was a stunning (and stunningly hefty) piece of engineering that featured massive lead-acid batteries capable of keeping it running for over eight hours. It weighed 7.1 kg and offered a non-backlit display (a backlit version was released over a year later). The CPU ran at 16MHz and it came with a minimum of 1MB memory. You could replace the numeric keypad with a trackball, if numbers weren't your thing. Oh, and let's not forget the price: a cool $6500 ($7300 with hard drive). Woot!
Macintosh Portable (Low End Mac)
