September 20, 1989: Apple releases the Macintosh Portable, the first battery-powered Mac you could take on the road.
At a time when Tim Burton’s Batman movie is flying high in theaters, and Madonna is shocking audiences at the MTV Video Music Awards, this ahead-of-its-time product lays the groundwork for Apple’s looming laptop revolution.
August 28, 1991: Astronauts send the first email from space using a Macintosh Portable and AppleLink software.
Sent by the crew of the Atlantis space shuttle, the message reads, “Hello Earth! Greetings from the STS-43 Crew. This is the first AppleLink from space. Having a GREAT time, wish you were here,…send cryo and RCS! Hasta la vista, baby,…we’ll be back!”
The 40-year history of Macintosh computers is a roller coaster of ages golden and dark.
Anything that lasts so long in the forefront of technology has to change to stay relevant. This once-plucky computer that began as an antithesis to the IBM PC, which dominated the world in 1984, is now itself a dominating force, ever pushing the needle in the world of technology.
How did this all happen? Let’s walk through 40 years of Macintosh.
Today marks 35 years since the launch of the original Macintosh computer, the product which most defined Apple until the iPod and iPhone came along years later. The Mac changed the course of personal computing history, and started a product line which Apple continues today. But which Macs along the way rank as the biggest game changers?
We went right back to the start to bring you our picks for the top 20 most important Macs of all time.
It’s easy to think that the constant leaks about upcoming Apple products started during the age of Cupertino-obsessed blogs like, well, the one you’re reading right now. However, a recently digitized news report from February 1988 — concerning a “Macintosh Portable” leak — serves as a reminder that Apple rumors have been around for a long time.
Check out the vintage report, from a San Francisco news station, below.
Think you got enough Apple stuff? Cult of Mac’s resident vintage expert Adam Rosen has collected so many Apple products over the last three decades, he converted part of his house into a museum to showcase them all.
Assembling your own collection of Mac gear isn’t easy, but the Vintage Mac Museum in the Boston area has managed to get its hands on some really neat — and odd — items, like a cutaway Mac Plus, a rare black Mac and more Apple memorabilia than any sane person should own.
Here’s a look at an incredible assortment of Apple products at the Vintage Mac Museum. Plus, find out what Adam thinks you should keep or toss.
You probably already know the Macintosh Portable, Apple’s first Mac laptop released for $7,300 in 1989, which looked and weighed about as much as a small suitcase full of dark matter. No joke: you could ship an entire crate of MacBook Airs inside of one.
But can you believe that there was an even bigger, more unwieldy Mac laptop that preceded it? It wasn’t an official Cupertino joint, to be sure, but meet the Walkmac: a 1987 modded Mac SE with a working LCD screen and a battery pack.
Ah, the venerable old Macintosh Portable. First introduced in 1989, the $6,500 wasn’t just a milestone in that it was the first battery-powered portable Mac, but it was also the first laptop ever used to send an email in space.
I’ve always been fond of the cute, suitcase-y design of the Portable Macintosh, so I’m delighted to see that some industrious hacker has given it a new life by gutting it and transplanting the innards of a Toshiba NB100 netbook inside. Some truly advanced soldering later, and you have, for all appearances, a pristine Macintosh Portable that can also run OS X Mountain Lion.
Check out this full video tour…
You might think that the new MacBook Pro with Retina display breaks the bank as far as computers go, but compared to some of Apple’s older machines, it’s just a drop in the bucket. Apple has never had the most economical options for computers, but they’ve come a long way towards being affordable to most consumers. Don’t believe me? Forbes has compiled a list of the five most expensive Apple computers of all time.
Still got a lump of cash around after Christmas? An eBay seller has just posted a rare prototype of the first portable Macintosh for sale to the highest bidder.