Macintosh 128K
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Template:Mac specs The Macintosh 128K Personal Computer was the original Apple Macintosh. Introduced in January 1984, it had a beige case and was fully self-contained. An indentation in the top of the case allowed the computer to be lifted and carried.
This Macintosh model was not expandable; it was intended as a stand-alone "appliance," to be purchased in the same way that people purchase refrigerators or vacuum cleaners. Its 128K memory initially seemed large compared to the 64K available in some other desktop computers of the time. It had ports only for the mouse, a printer (ImageWriter or, later, the LaserWriter), a modem, an external floppy drive, and a monophonic speaker -- all of which used new, proprietary connectors, different for each device. This was an advantage over previous device connections, which were often the same type for different devices; with the new connectors, an amateur user could connect a device only to the correct port. The disadvantage was that initially only Apple products could be used. (See Macintosh 512K for a photo of the back panel connectors.)
It contained a 400K, single-sided floppy disk drive and had no internal hard drive or other internal storage. At the time, one floppy disk was sufficient to store the System, the application you wanted to use at the time (the choices were essentially MacWrite and MacPaint) and the data files created with the applications. Indeed, the 400K drive capacity seemed large compared to the basic 160-180K floppy drives in other computers at the time. However, most users write-protected their System/Application disks and found themselves swapping the system and data diskettes interminably. The Macintosh External Disk Drive (also a single-sided 400K floppy), was a popular add-on even at $495.
An all-in-one unit, the original Mac had a one-bit, 9" black & white display with a resolution of 512 by 342 pixels, establishing the desktop publishing standard of 72 PPI. The keyboard had no arrow keys or numeric keypad--although later you could purchase a numeric keypad separately--and the mouse had only a single button, as does every mouse Apple has ever sold. It had no fan, making it extremely quiet in operation. Steve Jobs's insisted that the Macintosh ship without a fan, a marketing (not engineering) decision that persisted until the introduction of the Macintosh SE in 1987, after Jobs was forced out of Apple. This was the source of many common -- and very expensive -- component failures in the first four Macintosh models, so much so that Larry Pina wrote two very successful (and now highly sought-after) how-to repair manuals, The Dead Mac Scrolls and Macintosh Repair & Upgrade Secrets.
The applications MacPaint and MacWrite were bundled with the Mac.
Full Macintosh 128K specifications (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=112162), Apple Computer Macintosh 128K profile (http://www.lowendmac.com/compact/128k.shtml), Low End Mac. Many links to other resources.fr:Macintosh 128K it:Macintosh 128K