Macintosh Classic - Design

Design

The Macintosh Classic was the final adaptation of Jerry Manock's and Terry Oyama's Macintosh 128K industrial design, bringing back some elements of the original, while retaining little of the Snow White design language used in the Macintosh SE's design. The only remnant of the SE was the stripe across the front panel (bezel) for the floppy drive; the distinctive front bezel lines of the SE were not used on the Classic, and the vertical lines around its base were replaced by four horizontal vent lines, more reminiscent of the original design. Also, the curve of the front bezel was increased to the same 50-inch (1.3 m) radial curve as on the front of both the Macintosh LC and Macintosh IIsi. The screen brightness dial on this bezel was also removed in favor of a software control. This curved front bezel became a signature of Apple product design for much of the 1990s.

The logic board, the central circuit board of the computer, was based on the Macintosh SE design. Its size, however, was reduced using surface mount technology to 9×5 inches (23×13 cm), half the size of the SE board. This redesign, and the absence of expansion slots, kept manufacturing costs low. This lack of expansion abilities, along with the small screen size and Macintosh's popularity in the burgeoning field of desktop publishing led to such oddities as video displays which connected through the SCSI port by users seeking to connect a larger full- or dual-page display to their Mac. The Classic design was used once more in 1991 for the Classic II, which succeeded the Classic and replaced the Macintosh SE/30.