The Macintosh Portable turns 18 years on the 20th September 2007 !
MacUser commented that this was "By far the most complex piece of machinery devised by sale by Apple computer"(Nov. 1989)
"Do not trust a computer that
you cannot lift." Steve Jobs, 1984
In April of 1986, the Apple board decided to create
a battery-powered BookMac. After Jobs left later
in the year, the project continued, until the
Macintosh Portable was released in September 1989.
Portable Prototype
The Macintosh Portable was portable, but no lightweight. Introduced 1989.09.20 at $6,500 and $7,300 with hard drive. There was one problem with the Portable which unfortunately led to its demise, it just wasn't very portable. Being rather large and weighing 16 lbs, few people had the patience to lug it around anywhere, despite all of its great features.
The Macintosh Portable was Apple Computer's first attempt at making a portable Macintosh personal computer.
It had a crystal clear 9.8" 1-bit 640 x 400 pixel active matrix screen, a 16 MHz 68000 CPU, and a front-mounted handle (which doubled as a lock to keep the lid down). The best thing about the Portable was probably the up-to-ten-hour lead-acid battery. (No memory effect!) Options included an internal modem and either a numeric keypad or trackball. The Portable was the first Mac to ship with a preformatted hard drive and a preinstalled operating system.
When the Mac Portable was introduced, it had the same clock speed as the fastest prior Mac (it was introduced at the same time as the 25 MHz Mac IIci). At that time, many Mac users who needed a field computer were buying Compaq 286-based laptops with DOS 4.01 (and sometimes Windows 2.1). The Macintosh Portable and PowerBook 100 can run Macintosh System 6.0.4 through System 7.5.5.
The Portable featured a clamshell design with
the same easy-access style of case that other
Mac's of that time had. Pressing two places on
the rear of the computer allowed the rear half
of the case top to come off, revealing (from left
to right) the battery compartment, expansion slots,
and 40MB hard drive.
The Portable came with a Lead-acid gel/cell battery,
similar to those found in car batteries, that
could run a anywhere from 6 -12 hours! This is
unheard of even today, as you it is hard to get
even 2 hours of usage from today's PowerBook batteries.
The Portable also included a 40 MB SCSI HD manufactured
by Conner. The HD could spin down and sleep, but
sacrificed price for performance, costing twice
as much as a desktop HD of the same size. It supported
to internal hard drives, and an external one.
Macintosh portable in space ejecting floppy disk ...
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