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Computing becomes personal
Macintosh Classic II and Color Classic
Two generations of the compact Macintosh.
MakerApple
Era1990s
TypeGraphical personal computer
About this object
These compact systems combine a display and computer in one enclosure. Their monochrome and color screens make a useful comparison of successive Macintosh designs.
Inspect the original photograph
Technical record
Macintosh Classic II and Color Classic
| Introduced | Classic II 1991; Color Classic 1993 |
|---|---|
| Processor | Motorola 68030 at 16 MHz |
| Memory | Classic II 2–10 MB; Color Classic 4–10 MB |
| Display | Classic II 9-inch, 512 × 342, one bit |
| Display, Color Classic | 10-inch Trinitron, 512 × 384, 256 colours |
| Operating system | System 7 |
Architecture
The Color Classic is the compact Macintosh finally in colour, and the compromise shows: a 68030 on a 16-bit data path, which makes it slower than its clock suggests. What it preserved was the original idea of the machine as one object, screen and computer and disk in a single case you could carry with one hand.
Record & provenance
These compact systems combine a display and computer in one enclosure. Their monochrome and color screens make a useful comparison of successive Macintosh designs.
Reference: ATX-OBJ-082-IMG-5148
Source: collection inventory, photographs, and notes accompanying Serious Machines (Amir Husain, 2024).