Compact Macs are those all-in-one Macs with built-in 9″ and 10″ screens, starting with the original Macintosh 128K, which was introduced in January 1984. Models are listed by MacBench score, which approximates real world performance.

The Mac Plus in Star Trek IV.

The Mac Plus had a minor role in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

Articles About Compact Macs

• The Compact Macs, Matthew Glidden, Profiles in Networking, ATPM, 2002.06. LocalTalk and ethernet networking for compact Macs.
• The Original Macintosh, Dan Knight, Online Tech Journal, 2001.05.29. An in-depth look at the original Macintosh and how it shaped future Macs.
• Macintosh SE Support Pages, Chris Adams. Good info for SE, SE/30 owners.
• Index of SE/30 video cards
• Macs That Kill: The Final Part of a Mac Family Saga, Stefano Scalia, The Mac Mind, 2000.11.07. The joy of Macs – until one hits you in the side, breaking your ribs in a car accident.
• Dove Enhanced Mac 512, b.b., MacArchaeologist. First upgraded from 128K, the Dove Mac Snap SCSI upgrade added SCSI and brought memory to a full megabyte.
• Mac System 1.0 Headquarters, Dan Vanderkam. See how far we’ve come.
• Get Your Compact Mac on the Web, Jag’s House. Seminal article on getting a Mac Plus, SE, Classic, Portable, or PowerBook 100 on the Internet.
• Classic Printing for Classic Macs, Manuel Mejia Jr, Mac Daniel, 6/15. Why the best printer for a classic Mac may be the venerable ImageWriter II.
• Games for ‘030s, Brian Rumsey, Low End Mac Gaming, 5/26. A look at games that run nicely on the old 68030-based Macs.
• What Can You Squeeze into a Compact Mac?, Adam Robert Guha, Apple Archive, 5/18. There’s still life in those little Macs.
• New Life for Old Compact Macs, Charles W Moore, Applelinks, 5/18. “If you have an old compact Mac that you would like to revive, say for a child or for a casual computer user who just wants a machine for email and word processing….”
• Web Access for System 6 Macs, Jag’s House. Any Mac the supports System 6.0.8 can access the Web.
• How To: Power Colour Classic, Stuart Bell. How to upgrade a Colour Classic to Power PC.
• Making a Video Adjustment Tool, Chris Lawson, 2000.03.24. Would you believe you can craft one from an old toothbrush?
• A Rescued Fat Mac, Jonathan Wise, My First Mac, 3/6. “I found my first Mac in the garbage….”
• Hands on: Sonnet Presto Plus, Mark Looper, Low End Mac, 3/2. It’s finally shipping, but how much does it improve performance (in this case, of a Color Classic)?
• System 6 for the Macintosh, Ruud Dingemans. If you have an older, slower, memory-limited Mac, System 6 is fast, stable, and still very usable.
• Cruising the web in black & white, John C. Foster, MacWeek, 10/20/1999
• Applied Engineering AE HD+ FAQ, Adam Takessian. The ins and outs of Applied Engineering’s 1.4 MB floppy for the 512Ke, Plus, and 800 KB SE.
• Venerable Old Macs (68000-based models)
• Best Sites for Classic Macs
• Email lists: Vintage Macs, Classic Macs Digest
• Classic Macs, Mike & His Mac
• Pseud040 lets 68030-based Macs run 68040 programs – I’ve even heard of Mac OS 8.1 Running on a Mac IIsi!
• Links to System 6.0.8 and 7.0.1
• Software Compatible with 68000 CPU

Benchmarks

• Mac Classic II. Was the SE/30’s replacement really as slow as many claim?
• Mac SE/30. We upgraded our SE/30 over the weekend and ran it through its paces. It holds up nicely for an eleven year old machine.
• Mac Plus. We upgraded our Mac Plus from 1 MB to 4 MB, allowing us to run System 7.5.5 and benchmark it. Also, Mac Plus with 16 MHz Brainstorm Upgrade.

RAM Charger from Jump Development ($40) lets you get the most out of your RAM – especially helpful on Macs with 10 MB or less. By launching applications using the minimum amount of memory they need, RAM Charger lets you run more programs. It also works well with RAM Doubler. You can even download a demo.