Inside Macintosh

Inside Macintosh is the name of the developer documentation manuals published by Apple Computer, documenting the APIs and machine architecture of the Macintosh computer.

The first documentation for the original 1984 Macintosh was available only in the form of photocopied sheets that could be obtained from Apple. A "telephone-book" version of Inside Macintosh was also available, which consisted of one 1000 page volume. It was sent as a promotional copy to developers. The 1000 page manual was sent out because the "real" version would take some time to print. In 1985, they were published by Addison-Wesley in the form of a hardcover book that was available to the general public. The first version had three volumes, which covered the original Mac 128K, Macintosh XL, and the Mac 512K ("Fat Mac") models. When the Macintosh Plus was released, a fourth volume was added, detailing the changes to the system software introduced with that model. A further "delta" manual, volume 5, was introduced with the Mac II line in 1987. This manual discusses color QuickDraw, as well as the Mac II and Mac SE hardware and other new software components.