Everything about The Macintosh 128k totally explained
The
Macintosh 128K was the original
Apple Macintosh personal computer. Introduced by a single televised broadcast of the now famous US$1.5 million
Ridley Scott television commercial, "
1984" (which aired during the third quarter of
Super Bowl XVIII on
22 January,
1984 ), it had a selling price of $2,495 US. Its
beige case contained a 9-inch monitor and came with a keyboard and mouse. An indentation in the top of the case allowed the computer to be lifted and carried. After
its successor was introduced, it was
rebadged as the
Macintosh 128K to differentiate it.
Features
The Macintosh was designed to achieve adequate
graphics performance, which had previously required hardware over $10000, at a price accessible to the middle class. This narrow goal resulted in an elegant, efficient
design which traded off expandability but met or exceeded the baseline performance of its competitors.
Processor and memory
The centerpiece of the machine was an 8
MHz Motorola 68000 connected to a 128
KB DRAM by a
16-bit data bus. Lack of RAM proved to be a fatal constraint to much multimedia software, and although this baseline was similar to its competitors it couldn't be upgraded. A 64 KB ROM chip boosted the effective memory to 192 KB, but this was offset by the 22 KB
framebuffer, which was shared with the
DMA video controller.
Peripherals
The built-in display was a very sharp one-bit
black-and-white, 9-inch
CRT with a resolution of 512x342
pixels, establishing the
desktop publishing standard of 72
PPI. Expansion and networking were achieved using two standard
RS-422 DE-9 serial ports named "printer" and "modem", albeit they didn't support hardware
handshaking. An Apple floppy drive could be added using a proprietary connector. The keyboard and mouse used simple proprietary protocols, allowing some third-party upgrades. The
keyboard had no
arrow keys or numeric keypad — although later, a
numeric keypad could be purchased separately. As with the
Apple II and the
Apple Lisa before it, the
mouse had only a single button. Standard headphones could also be connected to a monaural jack. Apple also offered their 300 & 1200 bit/s modems originally released for the
Apple II line. Initially the only printer available was the Apple
ImageWriter. Eventually, the
LaserWriter and other printers were capable of being connected using
AppleTalk, Apple's built-in networking system.
Storage
The Macintosh contained a 400 kB, single-sided 3.5
inch floppy disk drive and dedicated no space to other internal mechanical storage. The Mac OS was disk based from the beginning, as RAM had to be conserved, but this "Startup Disk" could still be temporarily ejected. (Ejecting the root filesystem remained an unusual feature of the
Classic Mac OS until it was retired.) One floppy disk could be sufficient to store the System Software, an application, and the data files created with the application. Indeed, the 400 kB drive capacity was larger than the
PC XT's 360 kB 5.25 inch drive. However, more sophisticated work environments required separate disks for documents and the system installation. The Macintosh External Disk Drive (mechanically identical to the internal one, piggybacking on the same controller) was a popular add-on at $495. Third party
Hard drives were considerably more expensive and connected to the slower
serial port (as specified by Apple), though a few manufacturers chose to use the faster non-standard floppy port. The 128K can only use the original
Macintosh File System for storage.
Silence
The unit didn't include a fan; this made it quiet while in operation.
Steve Jobs insisted that the Macintosh ship without a fan, a marketing (not engineering) decision that persisted until the introduction of the
Macintosh SE in 1987, after Jobs was forced out of Apple. This was the source of many common — and very expensive — component failures in the first four Macintosh models, so much so that
Larry Pina wrote two very successful (and now highly sought-after) how-to repair manuals,
The Dead Mac Scrolls and
Macintosh Repair & Upgrade Secrets. The persistent overheating, and the design of the floppy disk drive, led to the nickname "The beige
toaster".
Software
The Macintosh shipped with the very first
System and
Finder application, known to the public as "System 1.0" (actually version 0.97 in the original release, followed by 1.1). The original Macintosh saw three upgrades to both before it was discontinued. Apple recommends System 2.0 & Finder 4.2, with System 3.2 & Finder 5.3 as the maximum. System 4.0 officially dropped support for the Macintosh 128K as evidenced by its distribution on 800K floppy disks, which the 128K couldn't use.
The applications
MacPaint and
MacWrite were bundled with the Mac. Other programs available included
MacProject,
MacTerminal and
Microsoft's
Word. The Macintosh also came with a manual and a unique guided tour cassette tape which worked together with the guided tour diskette as a tutorial for both the Macintosh itself and the bundled applications, since almost no one had ever used a mouse before, much less manipulated a
graphical user interface.
Following the release of the
Macintosh 512K which expanded the memory from 128 KB to 512 KB, the original Macintosh was nicknamed the 'thin Mac' and the new model the 'fat Mac'. The increased RAM allowed for powerful software applications such as the popular program
Microsoft Multiplan (eventually renamed
Microsoft Excel.)
Expansion
The Macintosh 128K was severely limited by a lack of upgrades. With cost as the dominant driving force behind its engineering, there was no provision for an upgrade card. Improving on the hard-wired RAM thus required a motherboard replacement (which unfortunately was priced similarly to a new computer), or a third party chip replacement upgrade, which wasn't only expensive but would void Apple's warranty. The difficulty of fitting software into its free memory discouraged software vendors from supporting it, leaving the 128K with a relatively small software library. Whereas the
Macintosh Plus, and to a lesser extent the
Macintosh 512K, are compatible with much later software, the 128K is limited to specially crafted programs. In fact due to the lack of memory, Apple intentionally chose to exclude the 128K from three of its most important early developments, effectively orphaning it from the rest of the Macintosh family: The
Hard Disk 20 (Apple's first
hard drive for the Macintosh), 800K floppy disk drive and
AppleShare (Apple's built-in networking file sharing technology), all of which required the
Hierarchical File System introduced in September 1985, which the 128K couldn't use with its limited
RAM. This made it more of an
appliance than the rest of the Macintosh series, to the chagrin of many customers who expected a well-rounded entry-level computer. As a result, the 128K generally "felt" like a hybrid between its 8-bit ancestors and more capable successors.
OEM Upgrades
Apple did provide an expensive "official" upgrade path for the 128K, which included a motherboard replacement effectively making it a
Macintosh 512K.
Additionally, Apple offered an 800K floppy disk drive kit, including updated 128K
ROMs, which required the 512K logic board upgrade, resulting in a
Macintosh 512Ke.
Finally, the upgraded 128K-to-512Ke could be upgraded to a
Macintosh Plus by swapping the logicboard as well as the case back (to accommodate the slightly different port configuration) and optionally adding the
Macintosh Plus extended keyboard. Any of the kits could be purchased alone or together at anytime, to upgrade the 128K piecemeal or all-at-once.
All upgrades were required to be performed by professional Apple technicians.
Credits
The original Macintosh was unusual in that it included the signatures of the Macintosh Division as of early 1982 molded on the inside of the case. The names were Peggy Aleixo, Colette Askeland,
Bill Atkinson, Steve Balog, Bob Belleville, Mike Boich, Bill Bull, Matt Carter, Berry Cash, Debbie Coleman,
George Crow, Donn Denman, Christopher Espinosa,
Bill Fernandez, Martin Haeberli,
Andy Hertzfeld,
Joanna Hoffman, Rod Holt,
Bruce Horn, Hap Horn, Brian Howard,
Steven Jobs, Larry Kenyon, Patti King,
Daniel Kottke, Angeline Lo, Ivan Mach, Gerald Manock, Mary Ellen McCammon, Vicki Milledge, Mike Murray, Ron Nicholson Jr, Terry Oyama, Benjamin Pang,
Jef Raskin, Brian Robertson, Dave Roots, Patricia Sharp,
Burrell Smith, Bryan Stearns, Lynn Takahashi,
Randy Wigginton, Linda Wilkin,
Woz, Pamela Wyman, Laszlo Zidek, and two others.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Macintosh 128k'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://macintosh_128k.totallyexplained.com">Macintosh 128K Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
