The Macintosh II is a

personal computer A personal computer, commonly referred to as PC or computer, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as Word processor, word processing, web browser, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and PC ...

designed, manufactured, and sold by

Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Computer Co ...

from March 1987 to January 1990. Based on the

Motorola 68020 The Motorola 68020 is a 32-bit microprocessor from Motorola, released in 1984. A lower-cost version was also made available, known as the 68EC020. In keeping with naming practices common to Motorola designs, the 68020 is usually referred to as t ...

32-bit CPU, it is the first

Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

supporting color graphics. When introduced, a basic system with monitor and 20 MB hard drive cost . With a 13-inch color monitor and 8-bit display card, the price was about . This placed it in competition with

workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or computational science, scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating syste ...

s from

Silicon Graphics Silicon Graphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and soft ...

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

, and

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California ...

. The Macintosh II was the first computer in the Macintosh line without a built-in display; a monitor rested on top of the case like the

IBM Personal Computer The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible ''de facto'' standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a ...

and

Amiga 1000 The Amiga 1000, also known as the A1000, is the first personal computer released by Commodore International in the Amiga line. It combines the 16/32-bit Motorola 68000 CPU which was powerful by 1985 standards with one of the most advanced grap ...

. It was designed by

hardware engineers Hardware may refer to: Technology Computing and electronics * Electronic hardware, interconnected electronic components which perform analog or logic operations ** Digital electronics, electronics that operate on digital signals *** Computer hardw ...

Michael Dhuey Michael Joseph Dhuey (born July 20, 1958, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States) is an electrical and computer engineer. Information He is chiefly known as the co-creator (with Ron Hochsprung) of the Macintosh II computer in 1987, the first Macint ...

(computer) and Brian Berkeley (monitor) and

industrial designer Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in advance of the manufactu ...

Hartmut Esslinger Hartmut Esslinger (born 5 June 1944) is a German-American industrial designer and inventor. He is best known for founding the design consultancy Frog Design, frog, and his work for Apple Computer in the early 1980s. Life and career Esslinge ...

(case). Eighteen months after its introduction, the Macintosh II was updated with a more powerful CPU and sold as the

Macintosh IIx The Macintosh IIx is a personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from September 1988 to October 1990. This model was introduced as an update to the original Macintosh II, replacing the 16 MHz Motorola 68020 CPU a ...

. In early 1989, the more compact

Macintosh IIcx The Macintosh IIcx is a personal computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Inc., Apple Computer, Inc. from March 1989 to March 1991. Introduced six months after the Macintosh IIx, the IIcx resembles the IIx and provides the same perform ...

was introduced at a price similar to the original Macintosh II, and by the beginning of 1990 sales stopped altogether. Motherboard upgrades to turn a Macintosh II into a IIx or

Macintosh IIfx The Macintosh IIfx is a personal computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from March 1990 to April 1992. At introduction it cost from to , depending on configuration, and it was the fastest Macintosh available at the time. ...

were offered by Apple.

Development

Two common criticisms of the original Macintosh, starting from its introduction in 1984, were the closed architecture and lack of color; rumors of a potential color Macintosh began almost immediately. The Macintosh II project was begun by Dhuey and Berkeley during 1985 without the knowledge of Apple co-founder and Macintosh division head

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...

, who opposed

expansion slot Expansion may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''L'Expansion'', a French monthly business magazine * Expansion (album), ''Expansion'' (album), by American jazz pianist Dave Burrell, released in 2004 * Expansions (McCoy Tyner album), ''Ex ...

s and color, on the basis that expansion slots complicated the user experience and that color did not conform to

WYSIWYG In computing, WYSIWYG ( ), an acronym for what you see is what you get, refers to software that allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed document, web ...

, as color printers were not common. Jobs instead wanted higher-resolution monochrome displays such as the ones chosen for his own " BigMac" project begun in 1984 to develop a Macintosh successor. Initially referred to as "Little Big Mac", the Macintosh II was codenamed "

Milwaukee Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...

" after Dhuey's hometown, and it later went through a series of new names. After Jobs was ousted by Apple in September 1985, the Milwaukee project could proceed openly (while Jobs' own BigMac project was cancelled). The Macintosh II was introduced at the AppleWorld 1987 conference in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, with low-volume initial shipments starting two months later. Retailing for US $5,498, the Macintosh II was the first modular Macintosh model, so called because it came in a horizontal desktop case like many

IBM PC compatible An IBM PC compatible is any personal computer that is hardware- and software-compatible with the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC) and its subsequent models. Like the original IBM PC, an IBM PC–compatible computer uses an x86-based central p ...

s of the time. Previous Macintosh computers use an all-in-one design with a built-in black-and-white

CRT CRT or Crt most commonly refers to: * Cathode-ray tube, a display * Critical race theory, an academic framework of analysis CRT may also refer to: Law * Charitable remainder trust, United States * Civil Resolution Tribunal, Canada * Columbia ...

. The Macintosh II has

drive bay A drive bay is a standard-sized area for adding hardware to a computer. Most drive bays are fixed to the inside of a case, but some can be removed. Over the years since the introduction of the IBM PC, it and its compatibles have had many form f ...

s for an internal hard disk (originally 40 MB or 80 MB) and an optional second floppy disk drive. It, along with the

Macintosh SE The Macintosh SE is a personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer, from March 1987 to October 1990. It marked a significant improvement on the Macintosh Plus design and was introduced by Apple at the same time as the ...

, was the first Macintosh to use the

Apple Desktop Bus Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) is a proprietary bit-serial peripheral bus connecting low-speed devices to computers. It was introduced on the Apple IIGS in 1986 as a way to support low-cost devices like keyboards and mice, enabling them to be conn ...

(ADB) introduced with the

Apple IIGS The Apple IIGS (styled as II) is a 16-bit personal computer produced by Apple Inc., Apple Computer beginning in September 1986. It is the fifth and most powerful model of the Apple II family. The "GS" in the name stands for "Graphics and Sound" ...

for keyboard and mouse interface. The primary improvement in the Macintosh II was Color

QuickDraw QuickDraw was the 2D graphics library and associated application programming interface (API) which is a core part of classic Mac OS. It was initially written by Bill Atkinson and Andy Hertzfeld. QuickDraw still existed as part of the libraries ...

ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * ...

, a color version of the Macintosh graphics routines. Color QuickDraw can handle any display size, up to

8-bit color 8-bit color graphics are a method of storing image information in a computer's memory or in an image file, so that each pixel is represented by 8 bits (1 byte). The maximum number of colors that can be displayed at any one time is 256 per pixel or ...

depth, and multiple monitors. Because Color QuickDraw is included in the Macintosh II's ROM and relies on 68020 instructions, earlier systems could not be upgraded to display color. In September 1988, shortly before the introduction of the

, Apple increased the list price of the Macintosh II by roughly 20%.

AnimEigo AnimEigo is an American entertainment company that licenses and distributes anime, samurai films and Japanese cinema. Founded in 1988 by Robert Woodhead and Roe R. Adams III, the company was one of the first in North America dedicated to licens ...

notably used the Macintosh II for subtitling their earliest releases, including '' MADOX-01'', ''

Riding Bean is a 1989 anime original video animation following the exploits of courier-for-hire Bean Bandit and his partner, gunwoman and ace investigator Rally Vincent. A manga was also published in the Japanese magazine that was left unfinished (due ...

'', and ''

Vampire Princess Miyu is a Japanese horror manga series by Narumi Kakinouchi and Toshiki Hirano, as well as an anime adaptation by the same creators. The anime was originally adapted as a 4-episode original video animation (OVA) series released in 1988 ...

'', and

Industrial Light & Magic Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is an American Film, motion picture visual effects, computer animation and stereo conversion digital studio founded by George Lucas on May 26, 1975. It is a division of the film production company Lucasfilm, which Lu ...

used the Macintosh II for image processing on films such as ''

The Abyss ''The Abyss'' is a 1989 American science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron and starring Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Michael Biehn. When an American submarine sinks in the Caribbean, a US search and recovery tea ...

''.

Hardware

CPU

The Macintosh II is built around the

processor operating at 16

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base u ...

, teamed with a

Motorola 68881 The Motorola 68881 and Motorola 68882 are floating-point units (FPUs) used in some computer systems in conjunction with Motorola's 32-bit 68020 or 68030 microprocessors. These coprocessors are external chips, designed before floating point math ...

floating-point unit A floating-point unit (FPU), numeric processing unit (NPU), colloquially math coprocessor, is a part of a computer system specially designed to carry out operations on floating-point numbers. Typical operations are addition, subtraction, multip ...

. The machine shipped with a socket for an optional

Motorola 68851 The Motorola 68851 is an external Memory Management Unit (MMU) which is designed to provide paged memory support for the 68020 using that processor's coprocessor interface. In theory it can be used with other processors such as the 68010 by simula ...

MMU, but an "Apple HMMU Chip" (VLSI VI475 chip) was installed by default and could not implement

virtual memory In computing, virtual memory, or virtual storage, is a memory management technique that provides an "idealized abstraction of the storage resources that are actually available on a given machine" which "creates the illusion to users of a ver ...

(instead, it translated 24-bit addresses to 32-bit addresses for the Mac OS, which would not be

32-bit clean Historically, the classic Mac OS used a form of memory management that has fallen out of favor in modern systems. Criticism of this approach was one of the key areas addressed by the change to . The original problem for the engineers of the Maci ...

until

System 7 System 7 (later named Mac OS 7) is the seventh major release of the classic Mac OS operating system for Macintosh computers, made by Apple Computer. It was launched on May 13, 1991, to succeed System 6 with virtual memory, personal file shari ...

Memory

The standard memory was 1

megabyte The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Its recommended unit symbol is MB. The unit prefix ''mega'' is a multiplier of (106) in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one megabyte is one million bytes ...

, expandable to 8 MB. The Mac II had eight 30-pin

SIMM A SIMM (single in-line memory module) is a type of memory module used in computers from the early 1980s to the early 2000s. It is a printed circuit board upon which multiple random-access memory Integrated circuit chips are attached to one or ...

s, and memory was installed in groups of four (called "Bank A" and "Bank B"). The Macintosh II does not have a PMMU installed by default. Instead, it relies on the

memory controller A memory controller, also known as memory chip controller (MCC) or a memory controller unit (MCU), is a digital circuit that manages the flow of data going to and from a computer's main memory. When a memory controller is integrated into anothe ...

hardware to map the installed memory into a contiguous

address space In computing, an address space defines a range of discrete addresses, each of which may correspond to a network host, peripheral device, disk sector, a memory cell or other logical or physical entity. For software programs to save and retrieve ...

. This hardware has the restriction that the address space dedicated to Bank A must be larger than that of Bank B. Though this memory controller was designed to support 16 Megabyte, 30-pin SIMMs in each available slot (for a total of up to 128 MB of RAM), the original Macintosh II ROMs have problems that limit the amount of RAM that can be installed into each slot to just 8 MB SIMMs. Although the later Macintosh IIx ROMs that shipped with the Macintosh II FDHD upgrade fixes this initial problem, these newer ROMs still do not have a 32-bit memory manager and cannot boot into 32-bit address mode, at least, not without software assistance in the form of "MODE32", thus limiting the ''total'' amount of RAM to a mere 8MB.

MODE32 MODE32 is a software product originally developed by Connectix for certain models of the Apple Macintosh. It was published in June 1991 and originally cost US$169; however, on September 5, 1991, the software was made available free to customers un ...

(originally published by

Connectix Connectix Corporation was a software and hardware company that released innovative products that were either made obsolete as Apple Computer incorporated the ideas into system software, or were sold to other companies once they became popular. It ...

, and later licensed by Apple) contains a workaround that allows for larger SIMMs to be installed in Bank B if a PMMU is also installed. With this configuration, the Macintosh II boot ROMs will believe that the computer has 8 MB or less of RAM installed. Meanwhile, MODE32 then reprograms the memory controller on the fly to dedicate more address space to Bank A, thus allowing access to the additional memory installed in Bank B. Since this makes the physical address space discontiguous, the PMMU is then used to remap the address space into a contiguous block.

Graphics

The Macintosh II includes a graphics card that supports a true-color 16.7-million-color palette and was available in two configurations: 4-bit and 8-bit. The 4-bit model supports 16 colors on a 640×480 display and 256 colors (8-bit video) on a 512×384 display, which means that

VRAM Video random-access memory (VRAM) is dedicated computer memory used to store the pixels and other graphics data as a framebuffer to be rendered on a computer monitor. It often uses a different technology than other computer memory, in order to ...

was 256 KB. The 8-bit model supports 256-color video on a 640×480 display, which means that VRAM was 512 KB in size. With an optional RAM upgrade (requiring 120 ns DIP chips), the 4-bit version supports 640×480 in 8-bit color. The video card does not include hardware acceleration of drawing operations. Display: Apple offered a choice of two displays, a 12" black and white unit, and a more expensive 13" high-resolution color display based on Sony's

Trinitron Trinitron was Sony's brand name for its line of aperture-grille-based CRTs used in television sets and computer monitors. It was one of the first television systems to enter the market since the 1950s. Constant improvement in the basic techno ...

technology. More than one display could be attached to the computer, and objects could be easily dragged from one screen to the next. Third-party displays quickly became available. The

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

reviewer called the color "spectacular." The

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fro ...

remained black and white even on color monitors with the exception of the Apple logo, which appeared in rainbow color.

Storage

A 5.25-inch 40 MB internal

SCSI Small Computer System Interface (SCSI, ) is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices, best known for its use with storage devices such as hard disk drives. SCSI was introduced ...

hard disk was optional, as was a second internal 800 kilobyte 3.5-inch floppy disk drive.

Expansion

Six

NuBus NuBus () is a 32-bit parallel computer bus, originally developed at MIT during between 1978 and 1979 as part of the NuMachine workstation project, it would subsequently be standardized by the IEEE in 1987. The first complete implementatio ...

slots were available for expansion (at least one of which had to be used for a

graphics card A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics accelerator, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or colloquially GPU) is a computer expansion card that generates a feed of graphics output to a displa ...

, as the Mac II had no onboard graphics

chipset In a computer system, a chipset is a set of electronic components on one or more integrated circuits that manages the data flow between the processor, memory and peripherals. The chipset is usually found on the motherboard of computers. Chips ...

and the OS didn't support headless booting). It is possible to connect as many as six displays to a Macintosh II by filling all of the NuBus slots with graphics cards. Another option for expansion included the Mac286, which included an

Intel 80286 The Intel 80286 (also marketed as the iAPX 286 and often called Intel 286) is a 16-bit microprocessor that was introduced on February 1, 1982. It was the first 8086-based CPU with separate, non- multiplexed address and data buses and also the f ...

chip and could be used for

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few op ...

compatibility. The original ROMs in the Macintosh II contained a bug that prevented the system from recognizing more than one megabyte of memory address space on a Nubus card. Every Macintosh II manufactured until approximately November 1987 had this defect. This happened because Slot Manager was not 32-bit clean. Apple offered a well-publicized recall of the faulty ROMs and released a program to test whether a particular Macintosh II had the defect.

Accessories

The Macintosh II and

were the first Apple computers since the

Apple I The Apple Computer 1 (Apple-1), later known predominantly as the Apple I, is an 8-bit personal computer designed by Steve Wozniak and released by the Apple Computer Company (now Apple Inc.) in 1976. The company was initially formed to ...

to be sold without a keyboard. Instead the customer was offered a choice of the new ADB

Apple Keyboard Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 ...

or the

Apple Extended Keyboard The Apple Extended Keyboard (AEK, model M0115) is a computer keyboard that was first sold separately alongside the Macintosh II and SE starting in 1987. It was replaced in 1990 by the Apple Extended Keyboard II (AEKII, model M3501) which was p ...

as a separate purchase. Dealers could bundle a third-party keyboard or attempt to

upsell Upselling is a sales technique where a seller invites the customer to purchase more expensive items, upgrades, or other add-ons to generate more revenue. While it usually involves marketing more profitable services or products, it can be simply ex ...

a customer to the more expensive (and higher-profit) Extended Keyboard.

Audio

The Macintosh II was the first Macintosh to have the

Chimes of Death The Macintosh startup sequence for Apple Inc., Apple Macintosh (or Mac) computers includes hardware tests and diagnostics which can trigger the startup chimes and/or other instances of success or failure of the startup routines. The startup seq ...

accompany the

Sad Mac The Macintosh startup sequence for Apple Macintosh (or Mac) computers includes hardware tests and diagnostics which can trigger the startup chimes and/or other instances of success or failure of the startup routines. The startup sequence provid ...

logo whenever a serious hardware error occurred. The new extensions featured for the Macintosh II at the time were A/ROSE and Sound Manager.

Models

The Macintosh II was offered in three configurations. All systems included a mouse and a single 800 KB 3.5-inch floppy disk drive; a

PMMU was available as an option and required for running

A/UX A/UX is a Unix-based operating system from Apple Computer for Macintosh computers, integrated with System 7's graphical interface and application compatibility. It is Apple's first official Unix-based operating system, launched in 1988 and disc ...

. * Macintosh II CPU: 1 MB RAM. * Macintosh II 1/40 CPU: 1 MB RAM, internal 40-megabyte SCSI HDD. * Macintosh II 4/40 CPU: 4 MB RAM, internal 40-megabyte SCSI HDD.

Timeline

References

External links

Mac II profile
on Low End Mac
Macintosh II technical specifications
at apple.com {{Authority control II II II II Computer-related introductions in 1987 Products and services discontinued in 1990