

In practice this results in a 10-20 percent performance improvement. 25 percent greater speed when accessing RAM, resulting in a lower percentage of CPU time being spent drawing the screen.Better reliability and longer life expectancy (15 years of continuous use) due to the addition of a cooling fan.Improved SCSI support, providing faster data throughput (double that of the Macintosh Plus) and a standard 50-pin internal SCSI connector.First Macintosh to support the Apple Desktop Bus (ADB), previously only available on the Apple IIGS, for keyboard and mouse connections.First compact Macintosh that featured an expansion slot.First compact Macintosh with an internal drive bay for a hard disk (originally 20 MB or 40 MB) or a second floppy drive.Its notable new features, compared to its similar predecessor, the Macintosh Plus, were: The "SE" is an initialism for "System Expansion". The Macintosh SE was introduced at the AppleWorld conference in Los Angeles on March 2, 1987.

The Macintosh SE was replaced with the Macintosh Classic, a very similar model which retained the same central processing unit and form factor, but at a lower price point. The Macintosh SE was updated in August 1989 to include a SuperDrive, with this updated version being called the "Macintosh SE FDHD" and later the "Macintosh SE SuperDrive". An enhanced model, the SE/30, was introduced in January 1989 sales of the original SE continued.

The SE retains the same Compact Macintosh form factor as the original Macintosh computer introduced three years earlier and uses the same design language used by the Macintosh II. It marked a significant improvement on the Macintosh Plus design and was introduced by Apple at the same time as the Macintosh II. The Macintosh SE is a personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer, from March 1987 to October 1990. US$3,900 (equivalent to $10,000 in 2022) (with 20 MB hard drive)ġ MB RAM, expandable to 4 MB (150 ns 30-pin SIMM)
