‘Performa Month’ will explore the ‘sad state of the Macintosh line in the 1990s’

Stephen Hackett at 512 Pixels is doing something pretty fun for August: “Performa Month.” Throughout August, he’ll be “exploring the sad state of the Macintosh line in the 1990s.”

In a blog post today, Stephen explains:

From 1992 to 1997, Apple shipped over 40 Macintosh models wearing a Performa badge. In the years since, the word has become an anathema to many Mac users who were around in that era.

At its heart, the Performa line is the fruit of badge engineering. This is often found in the car market, perhaps most famously in the Chrysler K-car platform that debuted in 1981. Over 14 years, Chrysler, Dodge, and Plymouth shipped a dizzying array of front-wheel drive cars, all based on the same platform. Features, options, and prices ranged between them, but under the covers, these were all the same car, more or less.

Apple did something similar with the Performa, taking Macs from other lines, tweaking their features, and selling them under the Performa lineup.

In the car world, companies do this sort of work to reach different market segments without needing to create a new product for each type of consumer. In the case of the Performa, Apple wanted to sell computers to reach new users.

When Stephen told me about this idea a few weeks ago, I was intrigued. As he helpfully points out in a footnote to today’s story, I missed out on basically the entire Performa era. But while I’m excited to learn more, some long-time Mac users are dreading the festivities:

Jason Snell begged me not to write this series, saying “Those of us who lived it just want to forget. Why won’t you let us forget?”

On the other hand, Chance Miller encouraged this, saying “those of us who weren’t alive then need to be educated.”

Head over to 512 Pixels to follow along with what’s sure to be an exciting month – even if it’s a bit upsetting for some people. Stephen has set up a single page that will include all the posts he publishes throughout Performa Month.