???? – 1990retired
ARPANET
“The first network hung up so the whole world could log on.”
“First Mac to see in color — and it never stopped looking good.”
Introduced in March 1987, the Macintosh II was Apple's first Mac with color graphics, built on the Motorola 68020 32-bit CPU. It was also the first Mac without a built-in display, with a monitor resting on top of the case like the IBM PC and Amiga 1000. Color did not come cheap: a basic system ran US$5,498 (about $15,580 in 2025), putting it in the company of workstations from Silicon Graphics, Sun Microsystems, and
Eighteen months in, a more powerful CPU bumped it aside as the Macintosh IIx, and in early 1989 the more compact Macintosh IIcx arrived at a similar price. By the beginning of 1990, sales had stopped altogether. But its legacy was already on every desk it graced: the machine that taught the Macintosh to see in color.
Spotted something wrong? Every fact on this page traces to a dated source. Fixes make the graveyard better for everyone.
“The first network hung up so the whole world could log on.”
“Gone in 1990, remembered longer.”
“It quadrupled memory capacity and quadrupled the future along with it.”