Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Vintage Macs: Compact Macs

Dayna MacCharlie

Overview

MacCharlie

Although PC compatibility isn't a big deal since Apple's transition to Intel CPUs in 2006, there is a long history of PC emulation and DOS cards that let Macs run PC operating systems and software. Dayna's MacCharlie was the first solution to the "problem" of PC compatibility.

Introduced on April 2, 1985, MacCharlie was taken by many to be an April Fools joke. MacCharlie was essentially a DOS PC that clipped to a Macintosh. The MacCharlie device had 256 KB of RAM, a double-sided 5-1/4" floppy drive, and a "keyboard extender" that added all of the "missing" keys from a PC keyboard to the Mac's keyboard. MacCharlie could be expanded to 640 KB of RAM (the most PCs of that era could handle) and by adding a second 5-1/4" floppy drive, which is the configuration of MacCharlie Plus.

There is only one cable connecting MacCharlie to the Mac (only the original 128K and later 512K "Fat Mac" are supported), a 9-pin serial cable that goes from the Mac's printer port to an RS-422 port on MacCharlie, which also has a pass-through printer port for Apple's ImageWriter.

While MacCharlie has PC hardware on the inside, it uses the Mac's keyboard, mouse, and crisp display thanks to the MacCharlie software, which also allows transfer of files between the Mac and PC. Problem is, MacCharlie only supports text, not graphics, although reports are that it had a beautiful 80 character per line monospaced font.

MacCharlie sales brochure The beauty of this approach is that very little information needed to go from the PC side, which ran at 4.77 MHz, to the Mac - just the ASCII code for the text on the screen.

We have no information regarding how long MacCharlie was in production or how many were sold.

Details

introduced 1985.04.02, shipped 1985.05.25 (and taken by s at US$1,195 ($1,895 for MacCharlie Plus)
CPU: 4.77 MHz 8088 CPU
ROM: 16 KB
RAM: 256 KB, expandable to 640 KB
serial: 2 RS-422 ports, 1 RS-232 port
floppy: 5-1/4" double-sided, optional second drive
size (HxWxD): 13.8" x 14.7" x 10.8"

Online Resources

Dayna MacCharlie, Vintage Mac World. The first page on the Web dedicated to the Mac's first DOS compatibility hardware.
MacCharlie ads, Mac Mothership. Scans of ads and brochures for MacCharlie.
Meet MacCharlie, Cyrus Farivar, Mac User, 2006.04.11. "So I just came across something called the MacCharlie, a device built in 1985 that allowed the Macintosh of the day to run DOS."
Personal Computers; Linking Mac to the IBM PC, Erik Sandberg-Diment, New York Times, 1985.09.24. "MacCharlie will accept only software that does not use graphics. I didn't expect to see color on the Macintish monochrome monitor, but a Mac without graphics?"
Peripherals; Best of Both Worlds, Peter H. Lewis, New York Times, 1985.04.02. "MacCharlie will accept only software that does not use graphics. I didn't expect to see color on the Macintish [sic] monochrome monitor, but a Mac without graphics?"
MacCharlie, Wikipedia.

Go to Vintage Macs Index or the Compact Macs Index.

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2010 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.