Macintosh SE (1987)

The Macintosh SE is similar to the original Macintosh models that came before it with a new front case design and the addition of either a second 3.5-inch floppy drive or Apple’s first offering of an internal hard drive. The floppy disk drive (or drives) read 800 k disks and the hard drive was available in 20 MB or 40 MB options. The internal RAM available was 1 MB or 2MB. Like the original Macintosh, the Macintosh SE had a 9-inch black and white (monochrome) display made by Sony.

This particular Macintosh SE originally shipped with two 800k floppy drives, but was later upgraded with a hard drive. To accomplish the upgrade, the upper floppy drive was removed and replaced with a Maxtor-brand hard drive.

Also like the original Macintosh, the signatures of the team that developed the original Macintosh were engraved inside the back case. New vents were added to the back of the Macintosh SE, but the signatures were not moved to reflect the placement. Thus, some signatures have been partially obscured. The signature of “Steven Jobs” is visible near the center.

This Macintosh SE was purchased from a family in the town where I live and it exhibited a curious rattle when I picked it up. During the restoration process, I opened the case and found several items inside, likely inserted through the slot left from the removed floppy drive. The rogue items included a comb, a custom metal printing plate, about 20 flash cards on the topic of electronics, a slide rule calculating concrete volume, a metal ruler, a protractor, a handwritten personal note, $1.02 in change (two fifty-cent pieces and 2 pennies), staples, a curtain hook, and a Polaroid photo of two children (perhaps depicting the perpetrator of this minor offense).

Source: EveryMac

Apple Keyboard (M0116, 1987)

The Apple Keyboard was also referred to as the Apple Standard Keyboard and was offered in addition to the lighter and slimmer Apple Desktop Bus Keyboard. The name Apple Keyboard would later be applied to different Apple keyboard designs, but this was the first use of this name.

This Apple Keyboard used Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) connections. The keyboard offered two ADB connections allowing the user to connect an Apple Desktop Bus Mouse to the keyboard (or directly to the back of the computer). This keyboard was both sold separately and included as an option with the Macintosh II and SE in 1987.

This keyboard also included a power button, a feature that would remain on Apple keyboards until the early 2000s. (The original Apple USB keyboard included with the original iMac was the last Apple keyboard to include a dedicated power button.)

This particular keyboard is damaged in the right side, but its performance is not affected.

Source: Wikipedia

Apple Personal Modem 300/1200 (1987)

An Apple white paper summarized the Apple Personal Modem 300/1200 features:

“The Apple Personal Modem is a compact, 1200/300-baud modem that provides a cost-effective data communications solution for any Apple personal computer system. With the modem and appropriate software, your Macintosh or Apple II computer can communicate with other personal computers, minicomputers, and mainframes to send reports and graphs between offices, access data bases and commercial information services, find out the latest stock prices, or shop and bank from your own home.”

At the time of its release, the modem worked with several types of Macintosh and other Apple computers: Macintosh (128K, 512K, 512K Enhanced), Macintosh Plus, Macintosh SE, Macintosh II, Apple II GS, Apple IIe, Apple III, Macintosh XL, and Lisa. The modem did not ship with cables because several different interfaces were in use at the time: Apple System/Peripheral-8 Cable (Macintosh Plus, Macintosh SE, Macintosh II, or Apple IlGS); Macintosh Peripheral-8 Cable (Macintosh 128K, 512K, 512K Enhanced); Apple IIe Peripheral-8 Cable; Apple Ile Modem-8 Cable (Apple Ile, Apple II Plus, Apple II, Apple III, Macintosh XL, Lisa); and other computers with an RS-232 port.

This modem in my collection appears to have never been used, and all original paperwork, manuals, and packaging was included in the box. Thus, I was able to provide an “unboxing” of a 1987 product. Note that the internal packaging is mostly styrofoam and the Apple logo is embossed in two different locations in the styrofoam.

Source: Apple (PDF)