Apple and the Tale of Its Special Cables Apple has given us incredible machines. From the first ever ‘Hello world’ to their latest beast of a machine, the Mac Pro, the technology has been magnificent. With the evolution in computers, there has been a tremendous change in the connectors that come with it.
The cables for Mac have often been ones that only Apple uses because of their need to control the ecosystem.
Back in 1984, the first ever Macintosh computer came with DB-9 ports for modem and mouse with a coiled phone cord for the keyboard.
Two years later, when the then latest Mac Plus arrived, it brought with it the mini Din-8 serial port for connecting the modem and printer. The caveat here, as with most Apple products, was that it didn’t work with printers not made by Apple. (Yes, Apple made printers too, at the time, it was the ImageWriter.) This connector was on the beige PowerMac G3.
These are just a couple of examples of how Apple has always seen it fit to use the connectors it deems fit and locking users into their ecosystem. After these connectors, we have seen plenty of connectors from Apple, like ADB, which was for keyboard and mice and designed by Steve
1