This is one of the best computers I have. Once because it’s almost as old as I am (and that’s ancient!), and secondly because it’s a freaking Apple Macintosh Plus! The third model in the Macintosh line, it comes with a back then whopping 1MB of RAM, expandable to 4MB (which are already installed on my machine)

Some features, besides the super cool factor, are the built-in monochrome CRT display (do millennials know what that is?), the electric diskette eject mechanism (which I’ve never seen before, or since), and A FREAKING 20 MEGABYTE EXTERNAL SCSI HARD DRIVE! I know it’s not much, but back in the day, a 20 MB hard drive meant about 50 floppy disks worth of storage. And that meant A LOT. A lot of space for games, apps, and others.

The keyboard and the mouse still work fine, which is impressive for a 35-year old computer. The hard drive, while slow and noisy, does its duty perfectly, the Rodime Systems Hard Disk 20 being pretty much the same thing as the Apple-branded Apple Hard Disk 20, the internal drive is identical.

The computer itself is loaded with Macintosh System Software 7.1, has some utilities pre-installed like StyleWriter II, Microsoft Works and some games, like Stunt Copter, Space Invaders, Lode Runner, and Hangman.Oh, and 3D TicTacToe, which is another proof I really suck at games

The photos were pretty challenging to take, as the CRT screen is pretty difficult to photograph while in operation, due to scan lines crossing over the screen. The best alternative I had was to mount my phone on a tripod and film the screen for about 10 minutes, while I did stuff and then just screenshot the interesting frames using VLC (which is shown in the filenames, because i’m too lazy to rename like 20 photos).

Over all, it’s definitely an outdated machine, but the nostalgia is strong with this one (both me, and the Mac) and there are still quite a lot of fun things that can be done with it, like text processing, playing games, or even connecting it to the Internet (some madman did it as a proof of concept, but it’s slow and realistically not usable).

I’m planning on writing a series of posts on it, but I’ll have to think about a theme (it’ll probably suck, but at least it’s gonna be fun), so if you have any ideas, hit me up with an email or a message on whatever platform you can find me.

Until then, I’m gonna go back and zap some Space Invaders and relax. 👾

Processor: Motorola 68000 @ 8Mhz
RAM: 1MB (upgraded to 4MB)
HDD: 20MB External Rodime Systems 20
Peripherals: Apple Keyboard and Mouse
Operating System: Macintosh System Software 7.1
Installed Software: Microsoft Works, StyleWriter II, some games

Oh, and as a side-note for myself, for whenever I need to assemble this back up again, the HDD lead goes from the connector on the rear of the computer to the top connector on the HDD case, and the SCSI selector needs to be in position 2.

More info about the Macintosh Plus: Wikipedia | Clinton Yelvington | My Old Computers

More info about the Rodime Hard Disk: Wikipedia | Apple Macintosh Hard Disk 20 | Radio e dintorni

For any software, games or other downloads, check the sanctuary at Macintosh Repository. Some other software can be found at Paul C. Pratt’s site