Macintosh 512K - Upgrades

Upgrades

An updated version replaced the Mac 512K and debuted as the Macintosh 512K enhanced in April 1986. It differed from the original 512K in that it had an 800 kB floppy disk drive and the same improved ROM as the Macintosh Plus. With the exception of the new model number (M0001E), they were otherwise cosmetically identical. The stock 512K could also use an 800 kB floppy disk drive as well as the Hard Disk 20, the first hard disk manufactured by Apple exclusively for use with the 512K, but required a special system file (not required by the 512Ke) that loaded the improved ROM code into RAM, thus reducing the available RAM for other uses. Apple offered an upgrade kit which replaced the floppy disk drive and ROMs essentially turning it into a 512Ke. One further OEM upgrade replaced the logicboard and the rear case entirely with that of the Macintosh Plus.

As with the original Macintosh, the 512K was designed with no slots for upgrade boards, so the few internal upgrades that were available for the 512K had to plug directly into the 68000 processor socket. These included "snap-on" SCSI cards, internal hard drives (such as the 10 MB General Computer hard disk, priced at US$ 2,195), and RAM upgrades of as much as 2 MB or more.