Apple’s Macintosh Plus launched with the same Motorola 68000 CPU as the original Mac, but buyers benefited from a default 1MB of RAM (expandable to 4MB with its 4x standard 30-pin SIMM slots), an 800KB 3.5-inch floppy drive, and a SCSI port for peripherals like HDDs and printers.
Though it appealed to graphic artists, largely due to the direction of its software library driven by the Mac’s pioneering GUI adoption, these machines (original and Plus) were built around a tiny 9-inch monochrome CRT with 512 x 342 pixels resolution. That’s why, even with the ‘Big Mac,’ the screen looks kinda small, while the keyboard is comically large in 2026.
The Macintosh Plus launched at $2,599 in 1986, for the configuration outlined above. That’s over $7,500 in 2026 money. Still, it was a workhorse fully supported by Apple System releases for a decade, with Mac OS 7.5.5 maintaining support for the little all-in-one when it was released in Sept 1996.
The Computer History Museum teases that more info on the Big Mac is coming next week. Its social media post tag suggests this computer will form part of its Apple at 50 celebrations, which kickoff in March.
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Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/premium
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/case-mods/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/case-mods/computer-history-museum-unveils-comically-large-scale-rendition-of-the-1986-apple-macintosh-plus-towering-all-in-ones-keyboard-looks-disproportionately-huge-today#main
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- The state of China's decade-long semiconductor push: still a decade behind, despite hundreds of billions spent and significant progress — examining the original
- The great Bench GPU retest begins — how we're testing for our GPU Hierarchy in 2026, and why upscaling and framegen are still out
- MIT-developed 3D printer can output a fully functional electric motor in a single process — team only needed to magnetize the linear motor after printing, motor
- ‘Mad scientist’ visualizes Atari 2600 fetching data from ROM for mesmerizing light show — signal propagation through the 8-bit circuits animated
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.