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The First Macs
On January 24, 1984, Apple announced the Macintosh to its Board of Directors - and to the world. The tiny computer was a radical departure from the large Lisa with it's 12" screen, just as the Lisa itself had been a huge departure from the Apple II series and the growing family of MS-DOS computers on the market. -
Mac Plus, 512Ke, HFS Disks, and the LaserWriter Plus
After a whole year without a new model (unless you count repackaging the Lisa 2 as the Macintosh XL), Apple announced the Macintosh Plus, the first expandable Macintosh, on January 16, 1986. Unlike earlier models designed with only 128 KB or 512 KB of memory and no expansion path, the Plus shipped with 1 MB of memory and could be expanded as far a 4 MB using SIMMs, 30-pin memory modules that were much easier to work with than the individual chips the industry had used in the past. -
Expansion Slots, Internal Hard Drives, and Color
•Apple built the one-millionth Macintosh.
•AppleShare file server software was introduced.
•Macintosh SE introduced with two internal floppies or an internal hard drive.
•Macintosh II introduced as first modular Macintosh, first color Macintosh
•ADB introduced to Mac for keyboards and mice
•No beige: Apple abandoned beige for platinum, a more businesslike gray -
Mac SE/30, IIcx, IIci, and Portable
In January 1990 (one of Apple's favorite months for new product releases), Apple unveiled the best ever compact Mac with a 9" b&w display, the -
Performas, Quadras, and PowerBook Duos
Apple addresses some little things with System 7.1, introduced in 1992. The biggest innovation was putting the Fonts folder within the System Folder. An entire generation of Mac users has now grown up never having had to move fonts to or from the System file using Font/DA Mover. On the hardware front, the 16 MHz 68020-based LC gave way to the 16 MHz 68030-based LC II in March, which made virtual memory available. Two months later, the 33 MHz Quadra 950 replaced the 25 MHz Quadra 900 - computer -
Apple DOS Cards, First Power Macs, System 7.5, and IDE Hard Drives
1994 marked the 10th anniversary of the Macintosh, and in an unexpected development, Apple introduced its first DOS products that year. The "Houdini" card turned a normal Quadra 610 into a dual-platform Quadra 610 DOS Compatible. At a keystroke, the user could switch between the comfortable Mac OS and the dominant Windows platform that was the only way to run certain apps. -
Quad Processor Clones, PowerBook 1400, and the Acquisition of NeXT
After 12 years making Macs using the Motorola 680x0 family of processors (and one year with the Lisa before that), Apple discontinued that last 680x0-based Mac in 1996, marking the end of the Vintage Mac era. -
Good-bye Newton; Hello OS 8.1, WallStreet, and iMac
After creating the PDA market with the Newton in 1993 and leaving it in 1998, Apple eventually returned to it with the iPhone and iPod touch. -
Pismo, the Cube, Dual Processor G4s, Slot-load iMacs, and New iBooks
We did see new portable Macs in February, notably the 'Pismo' PowerBook. Pismo came in 400 and 500 MHz models, added FireWire ports, and eliminated the SCSI port found on all previous PowerBooks. It was the first PowerBook to support up to 1 GB of RAM, and there have even been G4 upgrades for it. Many consider Pismo the pinnacle of PowerBook design. -
G4 iMacs, eMac, iPod for Windows, MDD Power Macs, and Mac OS X 10.2
At Macworld Expo in January 2002, Steve Jobs unveiled the flat panel 15" G4 iMac at speeds of 700 and 800 MHz, as well as the OS X-only iPhoto software. Apple also announced that from this point forward new Macs would ship with Mac OS X 10.1 as their default operating system, although they would also include the Classic Mac OS for those who needed to boot into it or use it for Classic Mode. -
iPod mini and photo, Faster 'Books and Power Macs, and the iMac G5
On February 20, the aluminum-encased iPod mini went on sale. The diminutive iPod used an even smaller hard drive than the regular iPod and stored 4 GB of data. It also introduced a new click wheel, which elimintated the need for four separate buttons in addition to the scroll wheel. -
The Mac Goes Intel
2006 was the year Apple moved from PowerPC processors, which it first started using in 1993, to Intel x86 CPUs. Apple had announced the forthcoming transition at the June 2005 Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) with the promise that the first Intel-based Macs would ship within a year. -
Mac Pro with 4-core Xeon, MacBook Air, Unibody MacBook and MacBook
Getting the Mac Pro out of the way allowed Apple to focus on its first Intel-based subportable at the Expo - and the first completely new model of the Intel Era. The MacBook Air is barely 3/4" thick and weighs just 3 lb. - that's with a full-sized keyboard and a 13.3" 1280 x 800 display. For the first time since the G3, there's no built-in optical drive; users can buy an external SuperDrive for $99 or use special software to "borrow" the hard drive of a nearby Mac or PC with WiFi
