Macintosh 512Ke
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Macintosh 512Ke | |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Apple Computer |
| Introduced | April 14, 1986 |
| Discontinued | September 1, 1987 |
| Price | US$2000 |
| CPU | Motorola 68000, 8 MHz |
| RAM | 512 KiB, built-in |
| OS | 3.0, later 3.2 |
The Macintosh 512Ke was introduced as a cheaper alternative to the top-of-the-line Macintosh Plus. It was the same as the Macintosh 512K but with the 800 kB disk drive and 128 KiB of the Plus. Like its predecessors, there was little room for expansion. Some companies did create memory upgrades that would bring the machine up to 2 MiB.
A Macintosh 512K could be upgraded to a 512Ke by purchasing and installing Apple's $299 Macintosh Plus Disk Drive Kit. This included the following:
- 800 kB double-sided floppy disk drive to replace the original 400 kB single-sided drive
- 128 KiB ROM chips to replace original 64 KiB ROM
- Macintosh Plus System Tools disk with updated system software
- Installation guide
Although the ROM allowed the computer to run much newer system and application software, it loaded more data into RAM and slightly decreased the amount of available memory.
After June 1986, the 512Ke shipped with System 3.2. After it was discontinued, Apple changed the recommended OS for the 512Ke to System 4.1. The maximum OS for the 512Ke is System 6.0.8.
[edit] External link
- Macintosh 512Ke technical specifications at apple.com
