The Mac turned 30 today, unleashing a wave of nostalgia for people’s first Macs.
Mine was the Mac SE with a 20MB hard drive.
I bought it in December 1987, when I was a high school student taking classes at CU Boulder, thus qualifying for the discount at the bookstore. My dad tried to talk me out of the hard drive — it added $500 to the price — but having worked on the high school paper with a dual-floppy Mac, I was convinced it was worth it. (I was right. It made working with the computer vastly better.)
I don’t have the receipts, but thanks to this [handy price list](http://classicmacs.org/2012/02/mac-prices-in-1988/), I can estimate how much I paid.
| Mac SE w/20MB HD | $1749 |
| Keyboard | $86 |
| ImageWriter II Printer w/Mac Accessory Kit | $455 |
| Microsoft Word | $85 |
| HyperCard | $36 |
| TOTAL | $2,411 |
In adjusted dollars, that $2,411 would be almost $5,000 today. I paid for it with a cashier’s check from the credit union.
It was a great computer that served me well. My second Mac was the IIci, which I kept through grad school.