About this machine

The compact Macintosh shares its small pool of memory with the monochrome display, so the picture on screen and the program drawing it compete for the same chips. Its Toolbox ROM holds the interface routines and cannot be written to, which is why it is counted apart from working memory.

Configuration

Original retail Macintosh

United States

Component Role Count Clock Capacity
Motorola 68000 Main CPU 1 7.8336 MHz Nominal clock
Macintosh video subsystem GPU 1 not applicable Nominal clock shared
Macintosh 128K RAM Shared with the display subsystem. System memory 1 128 KiB shared
Macintosh 128K ROM Read-only Toolbox ROM. System memory 1 64 KiB

Figures for the whole machine

Apple Macintosh 128K: system figures

provisional A figure marked provisional is recorded but not accepted: its evidence is unsettled. It may rely on one source, an unconfirmed announcement, or a digit read from a damaged scan. The reason appears under the figure. The catalog shows the figure but never uses it in a multiplier. How records are judged.

Metric Value Evidence Basis Method Source
Clock frequency cpu 7.8336 MHz Confirmed Vendor-rated Nominal clock Stated by the vendor Apple's hardware guide states this system clock frequency for the original compact Macs.
Memory capacity whole-system provisional 131 072 B Confirmed Derived Design capacity Computed here from figures the vendor stated Adds 1 memory-capacity figure obtained by design-capacity. Left out: 64 KiB of Toolbox ROM (read-only firmware, not memory the machine can write to). A total is only as trustworthy as the decision about what belongs in it, so both the terms and the exclusions are named records.
Rated power consumption whole-system 60 W Confirmed Vendor-rated Rated power Stated by the vendor This is Apple's maximum-watts specification, not a measured operating draw.
2 documented absences
Apple Macintosh 128K: system figures: documented absences
Metric Value Evidence Basis Method Source
Clock frequency gpu provisional not applicable Not stated Vendor-rated Nominal clock Stated by the vendor The compact Macintosh has display timing logic, not a separate graphics processor.
Memory bandwidth memory provisional unknown No compatible memory-transfer rate is published for this shared-DRAM design. Not stated Vendor-rated Theoretical peak Stated by the vendor The available sources describe shared DRAM and display fetches, but do not establish a transfer-rate figure compatible with this metric.

Figures for its components

1 documented absence
Motorola 68000: documented absences
Metric Value Evidence Basis Method Source
Peak FP32 rate cpu provisional not applicable The original Macintosh does not fit a 68881 floating-point coprocessor. Not stated Vendor-rated Theoretical peak Stated by the vendor Provisional record for macintosh-128k-68000:peak-fp32-rate: the cited primary manual is registered, but its page-level transcription and independent review are still pending.
Macintosh 128K RAM
Metric Value Evidence Basis Method Source
Memory capacity memory 128 KiB Confirmed Vendor-rated Design capacity Stated by the vendor Apple lists fixed logic-board memory for the Macintosh 128K.
Macintosh 128K ROM
Metric Value Evidence Basis Method Source
Memory capacity memory 64 KiB Confirmed Vendor-rated Design capacity Stated by the vendor Apple states the ROM size in the software specifications table.

Derived figures and comparisons

Computed by this project rather than read from a source, and recomputed from their inputs on every build.

131 072 B

Formula
a + b + … sum v1
Inputs
  • macintosh-128k-ram Memory capacity: 128 KiB
Rounding
none , 6 significant digits

Adds 1 memory-capacity figure obtained by design-capacity. Left out: 64 KiB (read-only firmware, not memory the machine can write to). A total is only as trustworthy as the decision about what belongs in it, so both the terms and the exclusions are named records.

Sources

Back to top