The Macintosh SE/30 is a personal computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from January 1989 to October 1991. It is the fastest of the original black-and-white compact Macintosh series.
The SE/30 has a black-and-white monitor and a single Processor Direct Slot (rather than the NuBus slots of the IIx, with which the SE/30 shares a common architecture) which supported third-party accelerators, network cards, or a display adapter. The SE/30 could expand up to 32 MB of RAM (a significant amount of RAM at the time), and included a 40 or 80 MB hard drive. It was also the first compact Mac to include a 1.44 MB high density floppy disk drive as standard (late versions of the SE had one, but earlier versions did not). The power of the SE/30 was demonstrated by its use to produce the This Week newspaper, the first colour tabloid newspaper in the UK to use new, digital pre-press technology on a personal, desktop computer.
In keeping with Apple's practice, from the Apple II+ until the Power Macintosh G3 was announced, a logic board upgrade was available for US$1,699 to convert a regular SE to an SE/30. The SE would then have exactly the same specs as an SE/30, with the difference only in the floppy drive if the SE had an 800 KB drive. The set included a new front bezel to replace the original SE bezel with that of an SE/30.
Although this machine was succeeded in Q4 of 1990 by the Macintosh Classic, the SE/30 wasn't discontinued until 1991 by the Macintosh Classic II, which despite featuring the same processor and clock speed, was only 60% as fast as the SE/30 due to its 16-bit data path,[1] supported no more than 10 MB of memory, lacked an internal expansion slot, and made the Motorola 68882 FPU an optional upgrade.
Hardware
Mainboard of the SE/30
Although the Motorola 68030 in the SE/30 supports 32-bit addressing, the SE/30 ROM, like the IIx ROM, includes some code using 24-bit addressing, rendering the ROM "32-bit dirty". This limits the actual amount of RAM that can be accessed to 8 MB under System 6.0.8.[2] A system extension called MODE32 enables access to installed extra memory under System 6.0.8. Under System 7.0 up to System 7.5.5 the SE/30 can use up to 128 MB of RAM. Alternatively, replacing the ROM SIMM with one from a Mac IIsi or Mac IIfx makes the SE/30 "32-bit clean" and thereby enables use of up to 128 MB RAM and System 7.5 through OS 7.6.1.
A standard SE/30 can run up to System 7.5.5,[3] since Mac OS 7.6 requires a "32-bit clean" ROM.[4]
Additionally, the SE/30 can run A/UX, Apple's older version of Unix that was able to run Macintosh programs.[5]
Though there was no official upgrade path for the SE/30, several third-party processor upgrades were available. A 68040 upgrade made it possible to run Mac OS 8.1, which extended the SE/30's productive life for many more years.
Also extending the useful life of the SE30 were Micron Technology video cards. Three cards were available, which fit into the SE/30's Processor Direct Slot: the 8-bit Gray-Scale 30, the SE/306-48, 640x480 resolution 8-bit color, and SE/3010-78 1024x768 resolution 8-bit color. With the first, the internal display was 8-bit greyscale; the latter two were used with 13" and 14", respectively, external color monitors, while retaining 1-bit (black and white) on the internal monitor.[6]
Models
Macintosh SE/30:[7] Available in multiple configurations.
US$4,369 (equivalent to $10,740 in 2023): 1 MB RAM, No hard disk
US$4,869 (equivalent to $11,970 in 2023): 1 MB RAM, 40 MB hard disk
US$6,569 (equivalent to $16,150 in 2023): 4 MB RAM, 80 MB hard disk[8]
Reception
Nick Baran of BYTE in February 1989 approved of the SE/30's performance improvements over the SE and II, stating that the only reasons to instead buy a IIx were the latter's NuBus slots and official support for A/UX.[9]Bruce F. Webster wrote in Macworld in March 1989 that the SE/30 did not "break new ground. It does, however, establish Apple's commitment to the classic Mac product line, and it provides users with an Apple-supported alternative to either a small, slow Mac or a large, powerful one. More important, it fills a gap in the Macintosh family ... a new level of power and portability for the Macintosh community".[10]
In a January 2009 Macworld feature commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Macintosh, three industry commentators – Adam C. Engst of TidBITS, John Gruber of Daring Fireball, and John Siracusa of Ars Technica – chose the SE/30 as their favorite Mac model of all time. "Like any great Mac," wrote Gruber, "the SE/30 wasn't just a terrific system just when it debuted; it remained eminently usable for years to come. When I think of the original Mac era, the machine in my mind is the SE/30."
The SE/30 remains popular with hobbyists, and has been described as “the best computer Apple will ever make,”[11] with used models selling for a significant premium relative to other machines of the era. Contemporary PDS upgrades allowed an SE/30's internal monitor to be upgraded to support 256 shades of gray[12] (the only original-design Macintosh to support such an upgrade) or a 68040 processor, and the SE/30's standard RAM limit of 128 MB greatly exceeded even that of much later models such as the Color Classic and Macintosh LC II. In 2018, add-ons and software became available to add WiFi[11] and even make the SE/30 work as a remote control for Spotify.[13]
In the FX series It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the Waitress is seen with a Macintosh SE/30 on her bedroom desk in the episode "The Gang Gives Back".
In the film Watchmen, Ozymandias has an all-black TEMPEST-shielded SE/30 on his desk.[14]
^"Lowendmac". Archived from the original on July 2, 2015. Retrieved July 2, 2015. Minimum requirements for Mac OS 7.6 included a 68030 CPU, "32-bit clean" ROMs, 8 MB of RAM (12-16 MB recommended), and 70 MB of hard drive space. It no longer supported 24-bit addressing or classic Mac networking (it used OpenTransport exclusively).
^"A/UX FAQ". Archived from the original on October 8, 2011. Retrieved July 2, 2015. A/UX 3.0 works on the Mac II (with PMMU or 68030 upgrade with FDHD ROM's installed), IIx, IIcx, IIci, IIfx, SE/30, IIsi (with 68882 chip) and the Quadra 700/900/950 computers.
