In addition to building the first commercial portable Mac, the WalkMac, Chuck Colby also developed the first Mac tablet, which he called the Colby Classmate™ Portable Computer. It was introduced at the August 1991 Macworld Expo in Boston.

The Classmate is built around a Mac Classic logic board. It has a built-in trackball and membrane keyboard, setting it apart from every other Mac clone. You could buy the Classmate preassembled for $2,999 or have your dealer order a $1,599 kit into which you could transplant the logic board from a Mac Classic – or you could send your Classic logic board to Colby for installation at the same $1,599 price.

Because the Classic can accept a Classic II logic board, it should be easy to upgrade the Classmate to a 16 MHz 68030.

Details

• Introduced 1991.08.06 at $2,999 with 2 MB RAM, floppy drive, and 20 MB hard drive.
• CPU: 8 MHz 68000
• Memory: 2-16 MB
• Hard drive: 20 MB (some sources say 40 MB), up to 200 MB available as a build-to-order option
• Floppy drive: 1.4 MB, removable
• Display: 512 x 342 pixels (some sources say 640 x 480)
• ADB: yes
• SCSI: yes
• Weight: 6.4 lb.
• size: 13.6″ x 10.2″ x 1.8″

Further Reading

• Classmate Portable Computer
• The Unusual World of Mac Prototypes, Benj Edwards, Macworld, 2012.11.23
• Macworld, September 1991
• MacWEEK, 1991.08.06
• Milwaukee Sentinel, 1991.06.12

Keywords: #colbyclassmate #classmatetablet #mactablet

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