The Apple Mac Classic is one of the most famous and easily recognizable personal computers ever manufactured. First introduced in 1990, the Mac Classic was Apple’s low-end under $1,000 computer, which made it very popular with the education market. In the next few weeks, we’ll be Cracking Open this classic computer to examine what makes it tick.
Our Mac Classic arrived inside its very own carrying case. This case must have been designed specifically for the Mac – it fits perfectly.
The bag has compartments for the keyboard, mouse, software, and books. I think I like this solution better than the portables we cracked open earlier:
The shape of the Apple Mac is an icon of personal computing. You can’t mistake it.
The back of the Apple Mac Classic is where you find your peripheral ports – standard practice even today.
Moving in on the ports, you can see our Mac has some sticky substance leaking from the vents. We will have to investigate that when we Crack It Open.
Working left to right we have the keyboard/mouse port, a port for an external floppy drive, and a SCSI port for a scanner (or other device).
Again working left to right, we have the SCSI port, ports for a printer and modem, and an audio jack.
Our Apple Mac Classic was manufactured in July 1990.
The famous one button mouse. My Logitech MX810 Gaming mouse I have at home has eight buttons.
It works. The Mac boots up no problem and welcomes me to cult.
The Macintosh has a monochrome display, but my XT clone ran 16 colors at that time I believe. (Maybe it was only eight.) I would guess color would raise the price too much for the market the Classic was trying to reach.
So we meet again my old nemesis.
I had Chessmaster 3000 at one time and it used to kick my butt regularly.
The Apple Macintosh Classic is just that — classic. With its small desktop footprint I can understand why it would appeal to many. The IBM XT I had at this same 1990s time period was huge, made out of steel, and weighed a ton.
Mark W. Kaelin has been writing and editing stories about the information technology industry, software, hardware, gaming, finance, accounting, and technology geekdom for more than 30 years.
