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

OWC: Plug & Play Hardware RAID up to 8.0TB. High Performance, Data Redundant Solutions. FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB2, or eSATA. Hot Swappable Bays, Data Rates over 200MB/s. Click here

Poker Mac 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.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

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.

25 Years of Mac

Macintosh History

1986: Mac Plus, 512Ke, HFS Disks, and the LaserWriter Plus

Dan Knight - updated 2008.01.14 - Tip Jar

Popularity: LEMLEMLEMLEM

After a whole year without a new model (unless you count repackaging the Lisa 2 as the Macintosh XL), Apple announced the Macintosh Plus, the first expandable Macintosh, on January 16, 1986.

Unlike earlier models designed with only 128 KB or 512 KB of memory and no expansion path, the Plus shipped with 1 MB of memory and could be expanded as far a 4 MB using SIMMs, 30-pin memory modules that were much easier to work with than the individual chips the industry had used in the past.

Not only that, but the Plus had an improved keyboard with features we take for granted today, such as arrow keys and a numeric keypad. (Function keys would have to wait until 1987 and the Apple Extended Keyboard.)

But it gets better. The only hard drives for the earlier Macs used the slow serial connection designed for external floppy drives. There was absolutely nothing fast about it, except in comparison to floppy disks themselves.

The Mac Plus introduced SCSI to the world just as the standard was being established. It would be possible to chain up to seven SCSI devices to the Plus: hard drives, scanners, printers, tape drives, etc.

One small change: The Plus used the same miniDIN-8 serial connector found on every subsequent Mac until the iMac. That and the 25-pin SCSI port were standard Mac features for 13 years.

Introduced simultaneously with the Plus, System 3 introduced the disk cache and the HFS filing system, which slowly gave way to the improved HFS+ system after Mac OS 8.1 was introduced in 1997. The biggest advantage of HFS was the ability to nest folders inside of folders, which became important as hard drives became an almost essential accessory.

Apple also moved to double-sided 800KB floppy disks with the Plus.

In April 1986, Apple discontinued the Macintosh 512K, replacing it with the 512Ke. This used the same 128KB ROMs and the same 800KB floppy drive as the Plus. However, it used conventional memory chips and had no SCSI port, seriously limiting its market.

While the Plus went on to become the longest-lived computer in the Macintosh line, staying on the active list until October 1990, the 512Ke was discontinued on August 1986, just four months after its introduction. Even at close out prices, the 512Ke was a hard Mac to unload.

Apple also introduced an improved laser printer, the LaserWriter Plus, along with the last new design of the Apple II line, the Apple IIGS.

The Competition

Led by Compaq, the PC world embraced the 16 MHz 80386 processor, which made both the 8-12 MHz 80286 and the 8 MHz Macintosh look pretty anemic.

Microsoft became a publicly traded company in 1986, and exiled Apple founder Steve Jobs started a company called NeXT.

Personal Perspective

My first experience with a Macintosh came in late 1986. The worship committee at church was putting out a small booklet on worship. A member of the church offered his Mac and LaserWriter as an alternative to typesetting. I used a 300bps modem to spurt the text files to from my Commodore to his Mac Plus (recently upgraded from a 512K), where we brought them into PageMaker 1.0 and designed the 54-page booklet.

Output was on his LaserWriter. If I recall correctly, we printed at something like 125% so it could be reduced for better sharpness when the booklet was printed. Although he had a ThunderScan (this was a scanner that replaced the ribbon on an ImageWriter), we chose not to digitize the pencil sketches, instead using conventional means of putting them in the book.

After years of doing layout with waxed typeset galleys, PageMaker was a very impressive tool. I never would have guessed then that six years later I'd work full time with a Macintosh doing desktop publishing. LEM

Next - 1987: Expansion Slots, Internal Hard Drives, and Color

Links for the Day

Recent Content

Recent Deals

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 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.

Custom Search

Amazon.com

Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Video Cards
Email Lists

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
B&H
MacMall
TechRestore
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.