Macintosh History: 19881988 was not a year of breakthroughs for Apple, but a
year of evolution. January saw the introduction of the LaserWriter II
family, a trio of printers sharing the same 8 page per
minute engine but different processors. In February, Apple released its first version of Unix for
the Macintosh, A/UX, which required a Mac II. The first Apple CD-ROM shipped in March, making Apple one
of the earliest computer makers to embrace the emerging
technology. The Mac IIx provided a few
enhancements over the Mac II: the 68030 processor could
handle virtual memory and the high density floppy drives
could handle 1.4 MB disks. At the same time, a revised version of the SE using high
density floppies was introduced. With the right software, these two models could read and
write 3.5" DOS disks, a feature we almost take for granted
today. The Mac operating system inched forward, becoming System
6 by the end of the year. The CompetitionThe Wintel world claimed 30,000,000 MS-DOS users,
Microsoft released Windows 2, and something called a
computer virus infected 6,000 computers connected to
something called the internet. NeXT shipped their first computer, the NeXT cube, in
October. Steve Jobs, always one to push the envelope,
equipped it with an optical drive instead of a floppy and
made a 17" 4-shade grayscale monitor standard equipment.
There wasn't even an optional floppy drive. Sound familiar? 
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