Macintosh II



The Macintosh II was the first personal computer model of the Macintosh II series and the first Macintosh to support a color display.

The Macintosh II was the first "modular" Macintosh model, so called because it came in a standard desktop case. All previous Macintosh computers used an all-in-one design with a built-in black-and-white monitor. The Mac II allowed Macintosh users a choice of larger displays, color displays, and even multiple displays.

Introduced in 1987, the Mac II featured a Motorola 68020 processor operating at 16 MHz teamed with a Motorola 68881 floating point unit. Standard memory was 1 megabyte, expandable to 68 megabytes. RAM could be maxed out to 128 MB if the ROMS were upgraded to IIx. A 40 megabyte internal hard disk was optional, as was a second internal 800 kilobyte 3.5-inch floppy disk drive. Six NuBus slots were available for expansion (at least one of which had to be used for a graphics card, as the Mac II had no onboard graphics).

The Macintosh II was followed by a series of confusingly-named modular Macs including the Macintosh IIx and Macintosh IIfx, all of which used the Motorola 68030 processor. It was possible to upgrade a Mac II to a Mac IIx or IIfx with a motherboard swap.

Software Included with Macintosh II

 * System File 3.3
 * Finder 5.4
 * LaserWriter 3.1
 * A/ROSE 1.0
 * Sound Manager 1.0

Sources and References

 * apple-history.com
 * Low End Mac
 * Apple Mac II- Forevermac