Michal Marek Ken Landau was convinced that general spring cleaning does not always have to be boring and lifeless. While cleaning the attic, he found a piece of computer history and a great rarity - the Colby Walkmac, the first battery-powered Macintosh and at the same time the first portable Mac with an LCD display.
Not many people know about the existence of the Walkmac device. This is a computer that was not built by Apple engineers, but by computer enthusiast Chuck Colby, who founded Colby Systems in 1982. The Walkmac was an Apple-approved device built using the Mac SE motherboard. It was already on the market in 1987, i.e. 2 years before Apple introduced the Macintosh Portable at a price of 7300 dollars. Later models of Colby computers were already equipped with the SE-30 motherboard and had an integrated keyboard.
How did Ken Landau get such a rare piece? He worked for Apple between 1986 and 1992, and as part of his duties and responsibilities, a copy of the Colby Walkmac was sent to him directly from Colby Systems.
Founded by Chuck Colby, the company sold thousands of its portable computers between 1987 and 1991. Before Apple announced the Portable, it directed anyone interested in a portable Mac directly to Chuck Colby. Colby Walkmac also enjoyed some success after the launch of the Macintosh Portable, because it had a faster Motorola 68030 processor. At that time, Apple only equipped its portable computer with a processor clocked at 16 MHz and labeled 68HC000. However, Colby Systems soon fell out with Sony, who considered the Walkmac name too similar to its Walkman. Colby was forced to rename his device the Colby SE30 and never followed up on the previous sales successes.
Here are the parameters of the found Walkmac:
- Model: CPD-1
- Year of manufacture: 1987
- Operating system: System 6.0.3
- Processor: Motorola 68030 @ 16Mhz
- Memory: 1MB
- Weight: 5,9 kg
- Price: around $6 (nearly $000 adjusted for inflation)
Today, Ken Landau is the CEO of Mobileage, an iOS app developer. The Walkmac he found in the attic is said to be missing some parts. However, it is said to be possible to turn it on.
