Apple Macintosh 512k Overview

A E S T H E T I C

It's been a minute right guys? I'm back with more crap dug up out of someone's attic for this post and I got more things coming soon. Finals have been killing me lately but I will also say in advance I won't be blogging for about a week because I'll be in California, I might post about how that goes later on. Anyways I've taken up flipping computers as kind of a side gig and this hunk of 1980's yellowed plastic is the latest thing to land on my doorstep. In case your aren't the type that spends your days listening to vaporwave, this is a Macintosh 512k and it's chuck full of history. Let's take a look.

Back of the unit is pretty uneventful. It's got a headphone jack at least.

The Macintosh was one of the first all-in-one computers ever built and it's become kind of an icon over the years. The 512k stands for the amount of RAM in the system, and to our modern standards that's a fucking tiny amount of RAM. But apart from the RAM size, the 512k and the more sought after 128k are pretty much the same. The main unit itself is rather compact and only a bit over a foot tall, housing a 9" inch black and white CRT and a 3.5" inch floppy drive.

The clock battery is a standard AA battery.

In the back, you get a multitude of ports that I don't even know the technical details of. Previous owner of this unit had the port's function scribbled in pen on the back because apparently the printer goes where the phone port should? I don't know, perhaps the motherboard inside this 512k isn't original. Also interesting is the clock battery on the 512k is a full fledged AA battery that sits under a cover above the power switch.

Naturally something was wrong with the computer and it wound up being a gear in the floppy drive had disintegrated. I didn't document this but I had to crack this sucker open and it's was a high voltage nightmare that involved me discharging the CRT which I had never done before. Once my replacement gear arrived and I went to seal the thing back up, the screws wouldn't go back in as if the metal unthreaded itself overnight. I had to tap the screw holes and eventually I got it sealed back up without a hitch. A funny little easter egg I found is that the signatures of all the developers are molded into the inside of the case. Interesting, but of course with those Torx screws most people would never get to see that.

Clackity clack.

The old keyboard is... well a keyboard. There are a few things us modern folk would find odd such as the lack of function and arrow keys, as well as the fact the keyboard plugs into the Macintosh using what looks like a modified phone cable. The switches in this board are old school mechanical meaning they make that oh so satisfying sound when they bottom out. Unfortunately three of my switches didn't work, so I cracked it open to see what could be done. Note to self, never open up a 30 year old keyboard without expecting some nasty shit on the inside. There was probably enough hair trapped in this thing to make a wig... damn, just typing this makes me want to gag.

The tool of artists... with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

The mouse on the other hand was in fantastic cosmetic condition. No yellowing at all; it looks pretty much brand new, however it sure as hell doesn't feel brand new. In a world full of fancy ergonomic mice with a million function buttons, a few dozen scroll wheels, and six billion DPI, here sits this archaic, wired block with a ball stuck in the bottom, and one button on top. It's not particularly nice to use, especially after being accustomed to a Razer Mamba for the past few years, not to mention it tracks left a little iffy but you gotta give it credit where it's due. At least it's a better fit in the hands than a Magic Mouse 2.

So how does the 512k work exactly? Well, not as you would expect. Modern computers just boot right into their OS and access all their stored files and programs off a hard drive with one or two terabytes of space. The Macintosh on the other hand requires a boot disc: a floppy drive that contains the operating system itself and can then be ejected to load your programs and files, also on floppy drives. If you had deeper pockets, you could splurge on a Hard Disc 20 that had a whopping 20 MB to take the place of all those other floppies. The 512k relies almost entirely on floppies to work, it's just that the GUI makes things so much user friendly than most other computers of the era.

I happen to own a boot disc with some old ass version of macOS on it. Surprisingly a lot of it is quite familiar even through that black and white CRT. Finder is there, and it serves more or less the same purpose of opening and moving files around. The UI also shares a lot of elements with even the latest macOS versions, the menu bar on top being the most prominent feature. It's kind of amazing to think that everything we are so used to using today, be it Windows 10 or macOS Sierra evolved from this and at it's deepest core, not much has really changed. 

The 512k was a nice trip into history for me. Despite the machine's age and somewhat different operating procedures, a lot of it felt familiar in some sort of strange time warp effect. It was effectively one of the first steps in giving us the computers we are so accustomed to today. Of course by today's standards this thing makes an iMac G4 look like fucking GlaDOS in comparison but as it is and for it's time, the Macintosh was a remarkable piece of hardware and made the computer a whole lot less daunting to the majority of people. The Macintosh is an icon for sure and it was quite the experience being able to work on one.