PROJECTS AND ARTICLES The Macintosh Portable

I wanted to talk about the Apple Macintosh portable a little bit because...well, because I love this machine.

I used to own both models. The non-backlit screen version (M5120), and the slightly later, and much rarer, backlit model (M5126 pictured below). Unfortunately both machines are long gone, having sold them a number of years back.

The Macintosh Portable was released in 1989, and was Apples first lug-able computer. It was big and heavy. Coming it at 7.5kg, it wasn’t something you’d want to carry around for too long. One interesting aspect of the machine was that it used a lead-acid battery similar to those found in cars. This gave the machine a very substantial uptime when, but added substantially to the overall weight. Nowadays all these old batteries are long dead, although you can’t ditch them to lighten the load as the machine will not run without the battery installed. Although it seems even a dead battery is fine.

In general I found the Macintosh Portable to be very unreliable and difficult to keep working It seemed that every time I wanted to have a play with it, it would refuse to boot. It would take quite a bit of tender loving care to keep them operating...I guess this was ultimately the reason why I decided to part with them. As my obsession with old computers grew, my desire to collect older and older machines became obvious, and unfortunately a 1989 computer just doesn’t cut it any more.