• Hello MLAers! We've re-enabled auto-approval for accounts. If you are still waiting on account approval, please check this thread for more information.

What's the story of the Macintosh ED?

funkytoad

funkytoad

68000
They had a few at a school auction a while back. ...and a bunch of Pluses, SE/30's, SEs, 512ks, someone offered them to me for FREE but I was about 11 and my mom wouldn't hear of it.

 
So really, I hear about the Macintosh ED form time to time, and I wonder. What is it's story. Why do you never see them? ... It looks a lot like a Mac Plus I guess.
Click to expand...
You began another thread in which the present question was addressed. Twenty and more years after the release of the Macintosh, the only evidence is what the Web and good sense can cobble together.

Wiki does list the ED variants as Macintosh ED and Macintosh Plus ED, but only as footnotes. One can be seen at the link that you posted. Some of the enlisted here have M0001ED machines, in beige and platinum, that mention ED only on the bucket, not the bezel.

The few pictures with legend on the bezel are all of platinum cases. Perhaps it was a late inspiration by Apple. Perhaps many of them live in the fabled landfill in Utah. Perhaps they were quietly junked from educational institutions when the 68030 processor machines appeared. Perhaps ... ?

de

 
Equill, I concur. This thread has to be about the most ludicrous waste of server space as any I've seen on this site. Starting a new thread when a decent answer has been posted before your very eyes in another thread is quite frankly not much different than SPAMing the forum. If you weren't satisfied with the answer given in the other thread, you should have posted such in that other thread. And starting new threads only to bring more attention to a post in another thread is unethical at best.

 
Spam (noun) a label for anything which you don't agree with. Meant to connote extreme undesirability and even criminality of the person who created the spam.

Give me a break. It was a thread, and there was nothing that can be considered reasonably offensive about it. If you don't like it, don't read it. But don't get on peoples backs about it when I create a lot of other drivel on these forums. Erm, when there is a lot of other drivel on these forums. ;)

 
I believe there were actually two versions... one which was a rebadged 512ke (the Macintosh ED) and another that was a rebadged Plus (the Macintosh Plus ED).

 
Any idea on why they would just rebadge a machine? Were they sold at a discount, and Apple wanted to discourage non-educational institutions from buying them? Were they bought by institutions that wanted to discourage people from stealing them?

 
Any idea on why they would just rebadge a machine? Were they sold at a discount, and Apple wanted to discourage non-educational institutions from buying them? Were they bought by institutions that wanted to discourage people from stealing them?
Click to expand...
It's called niche marketing. Even if the changes are merely cosmetic, it makes the customer feel they are getting a machine made just for them, even if it is the same as every other 512 and Plus out there.

 
The ED was like the LC versus the Performa/Quadra/Centris/Power Mac lines.

Mac ED : Mac Plus/512 :: Mac LC 475 : Mac Quadra 605

 
Any idea on why they would just rebadge a machine? Were they sold at a discount, and Apple wanted to discourage non-educational institutions from buying them? Were they bought by institutions that wanted to discourage people from stealing them?
Click to expand...
As was also remarked in the prior thread, many, if not most of the 'declared' (on the front) ED machines seem to have had an association with the Apple & Other consortiums. My 512Ke (an undeclared ED in beige) had two extra labels on the bucket. An extra hand-lettered serial number and purchase date, with the same conditions of purchase listed on both labels (no resale for 12mo.; first refusal at resale to the Consortium; no support from Apple Dealers; only one Mac to each buyer; obligatory 3-mo. warranty service) suggest that there may have been a considerable price markdown to those able to avail themselves of ED Macs.

None of this runs against the additional possibility that this was also a way for Apple to run down surplus beige Mac inventory. With the platinum Macs about to be released, it probably made sense to cultivate a niche market with real potential for exploitation (in its neutral sense of taking advantage of opportunity by both parties to the sales). The subsequent badging of platinum Mac ED and Mac Plus ED may have been a response to a pleasing increase in sales generated by the ED models.

ED was not necessarily an abbreviation of 'education'. E was for 'extended', and only the D signified 'educational', according to one previously quoted source.

de

 
I have never seen a badged one, and I presume a non-badged "Macintosh Plus ED" is no different to a standard "Macintosh Plus. :-)

Having been deeply immersed in a Macintosh saturated education sector in Australia right through the relevant period, I can only assume there's a good possibility they were never released here in their badged form.

Appears to be a European thing.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

davidg5678
What chips can a Classic boot without?
Replies
5
Views
1K
zachlapidus
Z
PB145B
Finally got a Macintosh II!
2
Replies
32
Views
6K
PB145B
PB145B
zigzagjoe
Macintosh 68060 Redux
4 5 6
Replies
103
Views
13K
croissantking
croissantking
jmacz
Macintosh 512K Flup Flup Flup
Replies
4
Views
1K
jmacz
jmacz
obsolete
Tiny Turbo Development: Like Spicy O'Clock for Power Macs (or anything with a half-can oscillator)
Replies
4
Views
391
obsolete
obsolete
Back
Top