Vintage Macs: Compact Macs

Clear Macintosh SE

Overview

As documented by Charlie Springer on his web page, the SE in a clear plastic casing is a very rare find. Only a small number (reportedly 20) of transparent cases were made from the case molds before they were textured - and only 10 of these were built into working computers.

The clear SE was never sold by Apple; it used as a promotional item for SE team members. The one in the photo was acquired from an engineer who received two of these nearly unique computers. (This one was for sale when we first published this article. If you'd like to know if it's still available, contact charlie (at) regnirps (dot) com or visit his page for more information.)

Looking at this today, I can't help but wonder if this in some way planted the seed that grew into the iMac's translucent casing.

The owner of the unit pictured here has gorgeous art prints available for those who could never afford to own the actual computer.

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Mac of the Day: Mac LC II, introduced 1992.03.23. The LC gets 4 MB base RAM, gains virtual memory thanks to 68030 CPU.
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