16 years ago today: Apple quietly updated the Mid-09 MacBook

Quietly made available on May 27th 2009, the 13″ Mid-2009 MacBook was a silent upgrade to the lineup of portables, released without much fanfare or any press release, for that matter. This was the second “older-style” A1181 MacBook model sold after the debut of the Aluminum Unibody MacBook, and the final “older-style” MacBook before Apple […]

Apple IIc and IIc Plus: Compact Apples with Internal Floppy Drives

The Apple II family was known for its expansion options – eight slots for adding capabilities. Inevitably one held a floppy controller, typically one held a parallel printer card, and another might have a serial card for a modem or printer. Some bought Microsoft’s Z-80 SoftCard to run CP/M. But for most users, most slots remained empty.

Apple III Chaos: Apple’s First Failure

The Apple III was meant to be Apple’s bold entry into the business market; it ended as Apple’s first commercial failure and put the company into financial uncertainty. It was also responsible for sprouting both the Lisa and Macintosh projects, efforts that would save Apple. Wendell Sander, father of the Apple III. Photo courtesy of […]

2 Apple Failures: Apple III and Lisa

Realizing that the Apple II would not sustain Apple forever, the Sara project began. The main idea of Sara was to create a more powerful and capable Apple II. It would include 128 KB of RAM, an integrated floppy drive, and a high resolution display – 80 columns wide instead of the Apple II’s 40.

The Lisa Legacy

For most Mac users, Apple’s Lisa isn’t even a footnote in Mac history. The $10,000 computer is rarely remembered as the Mac’s mother – and those who do remember it also tend to recall how Apple dumped thousands upon thousands of unsold Lisas in a Utah landfill when the computer was discontinued.

Apple’s First Phone Design Never Made It to Market

2014 – If you were on the Mac Web in July 2007, you probably saw Fudder’s article, The Very First iPhone – or at least stories about the article or links to it. The mock-up (below) was created by Frog Design, built by Hertmut Esslinger, and bears more than a passing resemblance to the Apple IIc.

Michael Spindler: The Peter Principle at Apple

Michael Spindler was born during the last throes of Nazi Germany. The family was split up before Spindler was born, because his father was forced to work at a munitions plant. The absence of his father during his early childhood appeared to make Spindler even more motivated to prove himself. He excelled in school and […]