Photo: Benoît Prieur / CC0 / Wikimedia Commons · source
Macintosh Portable
The first battery-powered Mac, heavy but ahead of its time.
Overview
The Macintosh Portable arrived in September 1989 as the first Mac that could run away from a wall socket. Inside a gray case with a fold-up lid sat a 68000 processor, a full-size keyboard with a trackball that could be moved to either side, and a 9.8-inch black-and-white active-matrix display that was sharp but unlit at launch.
It ran for many hours on a sealed lead-acid battery, and one clever trick let the machine sleep and wake instantly. The price was the problem: at roughly 16 pounds and well over six thousand dollars, it sold poorly and was no real traveling companion.
A backlit model followed in 1991, but the design was already being overtaken by a radically slimmer line. The Portable is remembered less for sales and more as the experiment that taught Apple what a laptop had to become.
Why it mattered
Proved the Mac could be portable and taught Apple the weight and cost lessons that led directly to the PowerBook line.
At a glance
- Announced
- September 20, 1989
- Released
- September 20, 1989
- Discontinued
- October 21, 1991
- Launch price
- $6,500
- Chip / processor
- Motorola 68000, 16 MHz
- Display
- 9.8"
- Storage
- Optional 40 MB hard drive
- Status
- Vintage
Highlights
- First portable Macintosh
- Active-matrix 9.8-inch screen
- Lead-acid battery with long runtime
- Detachable trackball for left or right use
- Weighed about 16 pounds
Tech specs
Specifications as published at launch. Some values (like battery life) are manufacturer estimates.
Display
- Size
- 9.8-inch
- Type
- Monochrome active-matrix LCD
- Resolution
- 640 x 400
Chip
- Chip
- Motorola 68000, 16 MHz
Memory
- RAM
- 1 MB, expandable to 9 MB
- Storage options
- No hard drive, or 40 MB hard drive
Battery
- Battery type
- Sealed lead-acid
Ports
- Ports
- ADB, 2 serial, SCSI, floppy, modem slot
Design
- Weight
- About 7.2 kg (16 lb)
Software
- Launch OS
- System 6.0.4
