January 15, 1989: SE30 Launched

The form factor of the first Macintosh was an Apple staple for a long time. Cute, semi-portable and just fun to play with—the compact Macs were loved, but generally regarded as underpowered when compared to the Mac II, which featured better processors and a modular design.

The underpowered sibling charge was banished when Apple introduced the SE/30. The SE stood for "System Expansion" because the computer featured a single slot for accepting add-in cards. That slot was nothing new and the really interesting part of the SE/30 moniker was the 30. The number indicated the processor model, a positively wicked fast (compared to the rest of the compact Macs) 68030 processor running at a respectable 16 MHZ.

The SE/30 proved to be a very popular model despite the $4,400 price tag. Mac users had their first chance to get one this week in January 1989.