Say Hello to the Monster Mac!

The earliest origins of The Retro Roadshow was Huxley’s childhood passion for rescuing interesting technological items from yard sales, thrift shops, flea markets, etc. The supply of these treasures hidden in plain sight has certainly dwindled, but is not gone entirely. As proof, we’re proud to introduce one of the newer additions to our collection: The Monster Mac!

Huxley spotted this rough but intact Macintosh in a dusty corner of an East Bay secondhand shop where it had apparently been languishing for quite a while. We certainly can’t purchase every old gadget we see in the world, but given our mission of “preserving the history of the future,” a vintage Mac like this is definitely the sort of thing we love adding to our collection. Macs of this era are fairly resilient, and when they do have problems, they tend to fall into a few common categories: failed power supplies, failed capacitors, gummed-up floppy drives, etc., and those are fairly straightforward to repair or replace. Even in cases where repairs aren’t possible or practical, finding one of these machines physically intact is still helpful, as it could potentially serve as a ‘parts donor’ for other systems we exhibit.

HOWEVER. When Huxley spotted this lonely old Mac, one detail in particular made it a “must buy:” the “MonsterMac by Levco” sticker on the front of the machine.

The first generation of Macintosh computers represented an incredibly ambitious leap forward for consumer-level computing. However, one thing they were not was expandable. In sharp contrast to the earlier Apple II systems designed by Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs infamously decreed that the Macintosh eliminate any need (or even possibility) for the user to ever open the system. As such, the early Macintosh systems omitted the expansion slots that helped the Apple II become one of the most successful consumer products of all time. This was a pretty bold choice, because Jobs was effectively saying “the Mac comes with everything you’ll ever need.”

Of course, some of the people who actually purchased these machines soon became frustrated by the same limitations that Jobs was so proud of. In particular, early Macs suffered from a lack of RAM and a lack of storage options other than floppy disks. Fortunately, a small but extremely inventive cottage industry soon arose, offering clever workarounds and solutions for Mac users craving more than Apple was willing to give them. This is where Levco enters the story.

This magazine ad for the Levoco MonsterMac leans into the monster-theme while highlighting its impressive technical specs.

Founded in San Diego, California by brilliant engineer Stanislaw Lewak and three partners, Levco was a small engineering firm with a big vision: design and sell upgrades for non-upgradable Macs. Their first product was the Levco Prodigy, a $9,000 processor upgrade that boosted a Macintosh to previously-impossible CPU speeds. Sales of the Prodigy upgrade were limited ($9,000 in 1986 was more than $25,000 when adjusting for inflation) but the mere fact that a small team could design such a powerful upgrade got them considerable press coverage and free publicity, while also proving that there was a market for such upgrades - especially if they could be made more affordable.

Following on the Prodigy, Levco released the MonsterMac: an upgrade for the Macintosh that added a whopping 2 megabytes of RAM and an interface compatible with the emerging category of SCSI (‘Small Computer System Interface’, pronounced “scuzzy”) hard drives. When installed into a Macintosh, the MonsterMac literally clips onto the motherboard, connecting the additional memory and SCSI connectivity directly to the Motorola 68000 CPU. Although the MonsterMac upgrade offers impressive specs and real tangible benefits to its owner, one particular quirk of its design has made it far more memorable than most of its competitors: inspired by its “vampire” relationship with the Mac’s CPU, a MonsterMac-equipped Macintosh’s iconic “Happy Mac” boot image is subtly modified to feature fangs!

This mockup image created by The Retro Roadshow showcases the whimsical “fangs” added to the Mac’s boot image when equipped with a Levco MonsterMac upgrade

Our MonsterMac has earned itself a unique role when it’s exhibited during our Apple-themed “Tales From The Orchard” events. Rather than being one of our standard hands-on artifacts, the MonsterMac instead runs a continuous loop of the same self-running animation used by Steve Jobs when he was on stage introducing the original Macintosh to the public for the very first time. Our attendees have enjoyed seeing this rare and historic animation being displayed on such a fun and unique computer - a truly monstrous win/win!