As to the computer itself, unpacked, it sits like a towering, square, robotic Cyclops, its single disk drive an off-center mouth. The machine definitely has personality, though its high profile, designed, no doubt, to reduce the amount of desk space needed, is a bit startling.

The first thing to take me by surprise as I sat down at the Macintosh was not the mouse pointer used to move the cursor on screen, which everyone has been expecting, but the size of the screen itself. With a scant nine-inch diagonal, it presents a diminutive five-by-seven viewing image. My personal dislike for small screens made me chalk up an immediate minus on the Mac's scorecard, particularly since I found myself, as I usually do when confronted with a miniscreen, hunkering right up to the computer, much closer than comfort called for, as I flicked it on. Then came the second surprise.

The Mac display makes all the other personal computer screens look like distorted rejects from a Cubist art school. With a 512-line horizontal by 342-line vertical, the display conveys an image that is refreshingly crisp and clear. The use of square dots rather than the standard rectangular ones at each of the almost 200,000 line crossings adds even more to the sharpness of the picture. After a couple of hours of looking at this screen, going back to the Apple IIe at home brought tears to my eyes. What the Mac adds in visual clarity, however, it takes away in chromatics. At present, only a black-and-white screen is available. Apple appears to be aiming this computer at the small-business and educational markets rather than the home entertainment segment, so perhaps the company feels that color is not necessary. Certainly the machine could not be delivered with the rainbow at the current price of roughly $2,495. Even so, I suspect the absence of color capability is a mistake, one which, along with the diminutive screen size, will hopefully be rectified eventually by add-ons for those wanting them. As it is, if you can live with the small screen, and the lack of color does not bother you, there is simply no personal computer that comes close to the Mac in display quality.

Another startling feature that I became aware of after a few minutes, although it may be a minor point to some people, is the absence of fan noise. The vacuum cleaner sound effects so annoying to many people and so prevalent in small computers is totally nonexistent. The reason is simple: The Macintosh has been engineered to cool itself. There is no fan to drown one's thinking. In fact, at 60 words per minute, the only sound you will hear is the clicking of the keyboard.

Keyboards are a very subjective matter. This one is certainly more comfortable and responsive than those to be found on the Apple II series. It is also light enough to rest comfortably on one's lap, which is what manufacturers seem to think people do with these things, although I personally have never seen anyone work that way. Furthermore, it solves one of the minor mysteries of personal computer engineering that has long bothered me; namely, why does the keyboard cord always have to plug into the rear of the computer so it inevitably becomes snarled coming around the side? The answer is that it does not. The Mac's keyboard plugs quite naturally into the front of the computer and never seems to get hung up.