30 years ago, Apple ™ CEO John Sculley announced the launch of "the new Macintosh family member", the portable Mac, the first laptop created by Apple ™. Expensive, even by today's standards, this was not exactly what we could call a success, but it opened the door to what would later become the MacBook we have today.
According to Sculley, the main purpose of the company he was running was to create a Mac that you can "use anywhere, anytime" without having to give up resources. That's how this Mac Jr. came up with a limited set of applications, but considered basic. Apple ™ had to face many challenges, from creating a new "input" method, since "a mouse doesn't work well when you hold a laptop in your lap", until you miniaturize your hard drive.
The portable Mac, the ancestor of the MacBook, was equipped with a
Motorola 68000 processor with 16 MHz, 1MB RAM, 1.44 MB floppy disk drive and "monochrome display". As an additional option, the user could opt for a 40 MB hard drive. While all of these may seem extremely modest specifications by today's standards, at the time it was the same configuration as a Mac desktop at the time, a Macintosh SE.
Batteries used lead and acid-based technology, just like car batteries, and their service life was 10 hours, a respectable range even today. However, great care was needed in use, as these Macs would simply die if they were ever fully downloaded.
The mouse, synonymous with Mac and something extremely rare at the time on PCs, was replaced with a trackball, a kind of "inverted mouse", where the user directly manipulated the mouse sphere to move the cursor. All in one "portable package", weighing not less than 7.2 kilograms and measuring 38.7 x 36.5 centimeters. The thickness of the ancestor MacBook was 10.28 cm. To give you an idea, it was as difficult as five MacBook Airs today, and the thickness was the equivalent of six MacBook Airs stacked today.
But thickness and weight were not impediments then. For those getting into the target of the portable Mac, the mere idea of taking a computer with them anywhere and anytime, even on the plane, was enough to convince them to pay the equivalent of $ 14,000 on such a "laptop"
However, the portable Mac didn't last long in the market. After only two years, it was replaced by the PowerBook 100, which had a similar configuration, but at a third of the price, and the dimensions and weight were much reduced. The PowerBook lasted until 2006, when it was replaced by the MacBook family, which continues today.
In fact, at exactly three decades away, Apple ™ launches a 16-inch MacBook Pro, which will have the same specifications as a 15-inch MacBook Pro, but with a larger display, obtained from the lowering of the frames. So, the new MacBook Pro will have a 2.4GHz Intel Core i5 quad-core processor, up to 4.1GHz Turbo Boost with 128MB of eDRAM memory, up to 512GB of storage, 8GB of storage RAM and Intel Iris Plus 645-655 graphics cards.
Here's the details about today's MacBooks (Air, Pro) - or even closer to 2019 :-).
