The design team in the Missouri History Museum’s (MHM's) Exhibitions and Research division is composed of longstanding Apple users. All of what a visitor sees in the galleries of the Museum was started on the pages of a sketch pad and then some version of a Mac. Having been at MHM for nearly 15 years, I’ve worked on a number of computers in the Mac line and now travel to meetings with one in tow, it having become a vital tool in my day-to-day work and play. Like many other people, I am also amazed when reflecting on how this relatively small machine has changed my life over the years.

A Macintosh Plus from 1986. Missouri History Museum.

A few years back, one of our Museum staffers wanted to donate an early model of the Macintosh to MHM's collections. Purchased fresh in 1986, this Macintosh Plus was only the third computer in the Macintosh line when it was unveiled in January of that year. At the time, it was considered a huge improvement over the previous two versions, touting a whopping 1 MB of memory standard! The Petersen family used this computer for more than 14 years before it “crashed and was too costly to repair.” While we were deciding on whether the artifact was a good addition to our collections, we displayed the computer in a new case featuring media collections. There, next to so many earlier versions of machines designed to record or playback media, it seemed to fit right in, and we accessioned it.

—Margaret Koch, Director of Exhibitions and Research