I haven't been on this board for about a week, and I
found an interesting discussion about Pluses that went
on. Here's what I think...
1. Apple needed a low-end when the SE and II were
introduced in March 1987. The Macintosh was their big
deal now, and they wanted more options for buyers.
Rather than create a third new model, they stuck with
the Plus as the low end. The Plus wasn't actually the
lowest model at the time. The 512Ke was made until
September 1987. Remember, the Plus wasn't even two
years old at the time, so it still had some life in
it. Apple finally stopped supporting it with system
software when 7.6 hit, so it did live a while--up to
1996. Apple also wanted to push the SE as a mainstream
business computer, not an entry level model. Keep in
mind that the SE was also going to use the 68020 at
one point.
2. It was also a marketing move of sorts, but didn't
work out in Apple's favor. External hard drives cost a
good deal of cash, and Apple figured they could sell
some 20SC drives by not upgrading the Plus to handle
them in 1987. What they instead opened up was a market
for external drive makers. Read an old Mac Bible
(second or third edition) and you'll find a good
number of pages talking about external drives. Buying
an Apple drive was like going to the Ford shop for
your brakes when Midas has the same stuff for a
fraction of the cost at the same or better quality.
(Of course, buying a Rodime drive was like getting the
brakes in a junkyard)
3. Hard drives weren't absolutely necessary at the
time. Some people used two floppy drives (another
marketing technique, since you needed a second drive).
Others used RAM disks if they took their hard
drive-less Mac up to 4MB. I used to do this on a lab
of upgraded 512s turned Pluses since RAM was cheaper
than a bunch of external drives. The RAM tests were
painfully slow but the speed was good. I'd load the
system into memory (usually 6.0.7) and run programs
from a floppy. It still gave me about 2.5MB to run a
program. Also, hard drives were a luxury of sorts to
some. My uncle bought my cousin a computer in 1990 (it
was an IBM PS/2) and it didn't have a hard drive.
Also, most Apple II users didn't have one.
4. If you read AppleDesign, you find there was no real
plan to phase the Plus out in 1988 as some wish it had
been. In fact, the Plus seemed to get a second life in
1988. The copyright on the Pluses that don't say "1MB"
is 1988. Had the Classic been introduced in 1988, it
wouldn't have been quite the same. The drive would
have undoubtedly been 800K, but some rumors say the
early Classics were going to have them anyway. The
Plus was a suitable low end design for 1988, 1989, and
1990. Also, keep in mind that the Classic would have
probably cost more than $1499 with 2MB and a 40MB disk
in 1988.
5. Someone mentioned Classics with 1MB. They do indeed
exist. They sold for $999 and had no hard drive,
either. The only real way to use these is to boot with
the ROM disk. A stock Plus also had this problem, and
Apple did this in a way so that if you didn't drop big
bucks on their hard drives, you would at least have to
buy an external floppy drive. There weren't many third
party competitors for these.
6. The Classic wasn't really a Road Apple. It was
simply the next generation Plus. Just as the Honda
Accord got redesigned in 1990, so did the Mac Plus.
With the ROM disk, hard drive, SuperDrive, and a lower
price (plus a power supply that self discharged) it
was an improved version. I also find the RAM very easy
to work with on Classics, and find the inside nicer
than an SE when dealing with the analog board.
7. I do think the SE SuperDrive should have lived on
though. I would have put a 16Mhz 68020 in it (like
they originally wanted to!) and made it basically a
low-end LC. Keep the same case design as the regular
SE SuperDrive (the August 1989 model) and just put in
a new board. This machine would have eliminated the
need for the Classic II and could have kept the SE/30
going for another few years. With the crippled 68030
in the Classic II, LCII, and CC, there would have been
little difference in performance between my "SE/20"
and the Classic II. Both SE models would have recieved
a 512K ROM though.
8. The Classic lived until September 1992. Without a
Classic II in the plan I came up with, they could have
kept it around for a little while longer but at a
really cheap rate. People could have bought it for
their children. In addition, I would have made a 68040
based SE to use as a server (think of the small space)
that would have replaced the SE/30 over time.
9. Had we gone with my timeline, the dates would be as
follows:
Plus: January 1986-October 1990
Classic: October 1990-February 1993 (replaced with CC)
SE SuperDrive: August 1989-October 1990
SE SuperDrive, 68020 model: October 1990-February 1993
(phased out with LCIII; this model would have been
Performa 200 starting in September 1992)
SE/30: January 1989-September 1993 (when Classic II
was discontinued)
SE/30 with 040 (Workgroup Server 200?): September
1992-January 1995
10. By going with this plan, the Plus would have been
phased out at the right time, the expandable SE series
would have been used longer than the unexpandable
Classics, a Classic II avoider would be made, and the
ideal server could have existed replacing those bulky
Quadra 950s that so many people used in the early
1990s.
11. On a final note, I like the Classic II despite
what you may think from reading this. However, I feel
it was a rushed product and that if anything, the
16Mhz 68030 could have been an option on the regular
Classic rather than creating a new model. I just feel
that a 68020 SE would have fit the void better.
12. One last thing--I said to use the SE rather than
SE/30 case on a 68020 SE, but one thing that I would
do is move the "Macintosh SE" to the left like it is
on every other Mac model. The positioning would have
also signified the second generation 020 model.
We can't turn back the clock to the 1980s and be on
Apple's staff, but we can dream of what could have
been....
Scott
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