The Macintosh Plus built upon the original Macintosh further with some notable technical enhancements including an increase to 1MB RAM as standard (expandable to 4MB), 800k floppy disk drive, and an external SCSI port.
Physically, the Macintosh Plus featured some design refinements: a more tightly cropped Apple logo on the front with “Macintosh Plus” printed alongside.
Initially shipping in the same beige colour of the original Macintosh – retrospectively known as “putty” – the Macintosh Plus changed to the new grey colour called “Platinum” during its production.
This exhibit displays the following items:
- Macintosh Plus computer
- An all-in-one “classic” Macintosh design very similar to the original Macintosh.
- Featured here in “Platinum” grey.
- Macintosh Keyboard
- Similar to the original Macintosh keyboard but extended to feature a number pad and arrow keys.
- Macintosh Mouse
- A version of the original Macintosh mouse in “Platinum” to match the Plus.
- Macintosh 3.5″ Drive
- A floppy disk drive capable of reading 3.5″ 800k floppy disks.
Noteworthy remarks:
- The Macintosh Plus was available for nearly 5 years – the longest of all “compact Mac” models – from January 1986 through to October 1990.
- The inclusion of the external SCSI port – something which stayed with all Macs up until the iMac in 1998 – meant the Plus could connect to faster and larger external hard disk drives.
- Apple released upgrade kits for earlier Macintosh models which included a replacement board and rear case – this meant some Macintosh Pluses may look like a Macintosh 128k or Macintosh 512k from the front.
Working status:
In good working order, and presents as a good example of the “Platinum” colour case with not too much discolouration.
Exploring the Macintosh Plus:
- This Macintosh Plus is set up to use its internal floppy drive to boot into the operating system, and then use the external floppy drive to load programs.
- Browse through the 3.5″ disks in the box alongside the Macintosh Plus and insert it into the external floppy drive.
- The disk will load onto the desktop of the Macintosh Plus.
- Double click the disk icon on the desktop to explore the disk and use the programs.