Mac Hardware and Accessories

Apple, a company that released its first computer as a bare circuit board, has amassed quite a lot of hardware accessory production over the years. It all started with the 1978 release of the Disk II, which was designed and manufactured in house by Steve Wozniak. However, as Wozniak had no experience in designing the firmware to make the disk drive work with the computer, Apple had to outsource the development of the operating system to Shepardson Microsystems. Apple’s next accessory releases would happen in 1980, initially with their first printer, the Apple Silentype, and later with their first display, the Monitor ///, which was produced by Japanese manufacturer Sanyo. In 1983, Apple released their first external keyboard, which was simply a numeric keypad extension (the Apple II and II Plus built-in keyboards lacked number pads), known as the Apple Numeric Keypad IIe.

The release of the Lisa corresponded with Apple’s first full external keyboard offering, as well as their first mouse, dubbed the Lisa Keyboard and Lisa Mouse respectively. Both of these peripherals would be later adapted for use with the Macintosh line of computers, with their names changed accordingly. Apple would also introduce several port standards with these technologies, like the Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) and Apple Display Connector (ADC), some of which would influence industry standards, as we see in the switch to Thunderbolt (USB-C) today. All of these devices have since been improved over the years, with the introduction of bluetooth technologies into the keyboard and mouse, HD screens and updated case materials for the displays, and a transition from floppy disks to optical disk drives.

Apple has a plethora of hardware offerings, all of which can be identified by whether they bear the telltale Apple logo.

• Wikipedia - Timeline of Apple Products