Mac Plus

Overview

Introduced in January 1986, two years after the original Macintosh, the Plus came with 1MB of RAM, a new double-sided 800KB floppy drive, and a built-in SCSI port for attaching external hard drives, scanners, or SCSI printers. Not only was 1MB more RAM than the PC-class machines could handle, but the Plus could be expanded to 4MB total RAM.

The original Mac Plus came in Apple beige; during 1987 the color was changed to platinum, the color of current Macs. There are unsubstantiated rumors that the power supply in the beige Plus was less reliable and prone to failure with 4MB configurations, a problem resolved with the "new" Plus.

The Plus was the last Mac not to use the ADB keyboard and mouse port. It was also the last to use DB-9 serial ports.

Details

• introduced January 1986 at $2,600; discontinued October 1990
• requires System 3.2 or later
• 8MH 68000 CPU
• 1MB RAM, expandable to 2MB, 2.5MB, or 4MB using pairs of 256KB or 1MB 150ns 30-pin SIMMs
• 9" b&w screen
• keyboard attached via coiled teleophone-like cable to front of case
• mouse attached via DB-9 connector on back of computer
• DB-9 serial ports on back of computer
• DB-25 SCSI connector on back of computer
• floppy connector on back of computer