Macintosh XL(1985)

Background

Macintosh XL was a modified version of the Apple Lisa personal computer. In the Macintosh XL configuration, the computer shipped with MacWorks XL, a Lisa program that allowed 64 K Macintosh ROM emulation. An identical machine was previously sold as the Lisa 2/10 with the Lisa OS only. The Macintosh XL had a 400K 3.5" floppy drive and an internal 10 MB proprietary Widget hard drive with provision for an optional 5 or 10 MB external ProFile hard drive with the addition of a Parallel interface card. The machine used a Motorola 68000 CPU, clocked at 5 MHz together with 512 KB RAM. Because of its roots as a Lisa — and unlike all other Macintosh computers — the Macintosh XL did not use square pixels. The resolution of the Macintosh XL was 720x364. Square pixels were available via a physical screen upgrade that changed the resolution to 608x431. The maximum upgraded RAM with conventional add-in cards was up to 2 MB - four times larger than the maximum capacity of earlier Macintosh computers.