Macintosh Portable

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Macintosh Portable

Manufacturer	Apple Computer
Introduced	September 1989
Discontinued	October 1991
Price	US$6,500
CPU	Motorola 68000, 16 MHz
RAM	1 MiB, expandable to 9 MiB, 8 MiB backlit version, SRAM
OS	System Software 6.0.4

The Macintosh Portable was Apple Computer's first attempt at making a portable Macintosh personal computer that held the power of a desktop Macintosh and included the capabilities of a professional business Macintosh such as the Macintosh IIci.

Released in 1989, it was received with excitement from most critics but with very poor sales to consumers. Seemingly no expense was spared in the construction of the machine. It featured a black and white active-matrix LCD screen in a hinged cover that covered the keyboard when the machine was not in use. The mouse function was handled by a built-in trackball on the right hand side of the keyboard. It used expensive SRAM in an effort to maximize battery life.

The machine was architecturally similar to a fast Macintosh SE, using a low power version of the 68HC000 running at 16 megahertz, with 1 MiB standard RAM, expandable to 6 MiB. Weighing in at 15.8 pounds (7.2 kilograms), due in large part to the sealed lead-acid batteries used, the machine was widely considered more of a "luggable" than a portable, and compared to the PowerBook 100 series introduced a few years later, lacked the ergonomic layout that set the trend for all future laptops. On the plus side, it had a full travel keyboard, and battery life was up to 10 hours. Unlike later portable computers from Apple and other manufacturers, the battery is charged in series with the supply of power to the computer. The computer cannot run on AC power, this means that if the battery can no longer hold a charge, the computer will not boot. As these batteries are all over 15 years old, it is very rare to find an original battery that will hold charge, and therefore boot. It is possible to repack the battery with new cells, or use alternative 6 V batteries, as described on this lowendmac webpage. The Mac Portable had a standard 1.44 MB floppy disk drive, an optional internal hard disk (a low-power 3.5" drive from Conner was used), and also offered the first optional internal modem in a Macintosh. The modular, 'snap together' physical design of the Portable made it easy to upgrade, customize and repair in the field. Memory, modem and special-purpose circuit boards could be inserted in seconds without special tools, simply by opening the large panel that covered the back of the computer. You could even move the trackball from the right to the left of the keyboard to accommodate left-handed users.

In February 1991, Apple added a backlit screen, changed the SRAM memory to pseudo-SRAM, and lowered the price, but discontinued the model in October of the same year.

Despite the machine's disappointing sales, it was a brave attempt at making a workable portable computer, at a time when it didn't seem obvious what form such a personal computer should take. The Portable was limited by the available battery technology of the day, including its heavy and large Lead-acid batteries, but it was a revolution for mobile workers in Mac-based environments. Prior to the Portable, the only 'mobile' options for Mac users were small desktop Macs (like the Mac SE) carried from location to location in large padded shoulder bags, or third-party computers like the Outbound Laptop, a Mac-compatible that, for copyright reasons, required the user to supply Mac ROMs (which usually meant having to buy a new or used Macintosh such as a Macintosh Plus as well, making it far more expensive than an equivalent Windows laptop).

The first truly modern portable computer was the PowerBook, but the Mac Portable was a significant step on the way, even if only to show what form such a machine shouldn't have. The Portable did not disappear completely with the release of the PowerBooks, however: the PowerBook 100 is in fact a Mac Portable compressed into a small enclosure. Apple sent the Portable plans to Sony, who miniaturized the components and manufactured the PowerBook 100 for Apple.^{[citation needed]}

The Macintosh Portable and PowerBook 100 can run Macintosh System 6.0.4 through System 7.5.5.

In May 2006, PC World rated the Macintosh Portable as the seventeenth worst tech product of all time. ^[1]