The free Apple Macintosh papercraft pattern can be found at the end of this post.
The Macintosh came out in January of 1984, just one year after Apple launched the ill-fated Lisa computer. While Lisa introduced early adopters to modern computing, the Macintosh brought these concepts to the masses. Using a graphical interface with a mouse and keyboard is something we take for granted today but in 1984 it was bleeding edge.
The side of the Mac is interesting. I have been informed there is a programmer interrupt switch which can be clipped through the vents. This monitors machine code and is useful in programming. I thought it was a power switch but the community has spoken! :)
I can’t pretend I have a lot of experience with these early Macs. We had Apple II’s in my elementary school and when I was in high school we learnt on XTs and later on 386s. The first time I saw a 128K Mac with my own eyes was in 1996 at my university in one of the computer labs.
Despite have no hands on experience, there is no denying the appeal of this Mac’s form factor. Many of the innovations that appeared in the Lisa a year earlier are back - refined and ready for prime time. It is easy to see how this machine would help usher in a new era in modern computing.
The Mac 128K came with Macwrite and Macpaint. Neither of these are around these days but they served as inspiration for software we commonly use today.
Apple’s packaging also received a more modern look when compared to the Lisa materials. Brand standards were tightened up some to provide a more consistent look and feel throughout. The time-honoured tradition Apple of including Apple stickers with their products seems to have been born with the Mac 128K release. Also, Apple was happy to help you finance your new Mac purchase with their very own Apple credit card (Apple Pay was not the first).
Possibly the most interesting items, were the cassette tapes that Apple provided as a quick start guide for the Mac OS, and the included MacWrite and MacPaint. A multi-media experience was much more literal in 1984 and so creativity (and a cassette player) was required.
Disk drive and disks.
Mac from the back.
Keyboard with optional number pad.
The Mac mouse will have been the first mouse many people will have ever used.
Once again, special thanks goes to my buddy George. He assembled and photographed all the items in this post. With the pandemic keeping me at home, I don’t have access to all the things I need to make these posts. George is both a professional photographer and master paper folder which makes him a valuable and highly skilled ally. You’re the best!
I did my best to limit the game selection to ones that ran on a 128K machine.
I hope you enjoy building this Macintosh 128K. The Apple community has always been super-supportive of my efforts so I am always happy when I can give something back.
For my next papercraft projects, I am working on a highly-requested British computer, and then a highly-requested US computer, followed by another non-computer (but retro) papercraft just to mix things up a bit!
You can download the Apple Macintosh 128K papercraft model here.