1987 – 1990retired
Apple Extended Keyboard
“Alps switches, ADB ports on both sides — it left the desk with dignity”
“No screws, no fuss, no fanfare — it just snapped together and quietly left”
The Macintosh IIcx arrived in March 1989 as a slimmer, quieter sibling of the Mac IIx — seven inches narrower, ten pounds lighter, and gentler on the ears thanks to a smaller fan. The trade-off was three NuBus slots instead of six, but what won people over was the inside: RAM, cards, and the power supply all snapped into place without a single screw. It was a Mac you could open without bracing yourself.
Apple retired it in March 1991, but the IIcx never really left the building — its clever case, Apple's first designed to stand horizontally or vertically, carried on in the IIci and Quadra 700. The vertical orientation, one of the first minitower cases, was reportedly CEO John Sculley's idea, born of a crowded desk. Fitting that a computer named for compactness left behind a shape that outlived it.
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“Alps switches, ADB ports on both sides — it left the desk with dignity”
“The last Apple II — it did nothing new, but did everything it knew, one final time.”
“Low Cost, Low Color, full heart — the Mac that let everyone in.”