Important Points About Macintosh

Source: Jef Raskin, "Important Points About Macintosh" (12 October 1979)-- in "The Macintosh Project: Selected Papers from Jef Raskin (First Macintosh Designer), Circa 1979," document 13, version 1.
Location: M1007, Apple Computer Inc. Papers, Series 3, Box 10, Folder 1.

1. The design assumes the existence of a network allowing nationwide communications. Macintosh is a communications device.

2. The cost of the main unit shall be $500, with hopes of lowering that cost to $300 in three years.

3. The design shall have peripherals that attach mechanically as well as electrically, making a unified package.

4. Some functions will be available in ROM, in particular, the network protocols, some word processing, and possibly a simple programmable calculator style language.

5. It will contain a modem/daa, an RS-232 port, a real-time clock, speaker and video and modulated outputs.

6. Disks, printers, a TV monitor, speech recognition and synthesis devices, and battery power supply are examples of possible peripherals, and will not be part of the main unit.

7. RAM size will be fixed, and probably 64K bytes. The processor will be a commercially available product, possibly a 6809.

Document created on 6 June 2000;