While the Mac 512K may not have been a quantum leap forward in computing (simply increasing the Mac 128K's memory four fold), the 512Ke did give users some new toys to play with. The Mac 128K was still continuing to happily sell solidly and the Mac 512K was doing good business too but there was little actual difference between the two. The Mac 512Ke ('e' standing for enhanced) offered a slightly different 'upgrade' to the world's favourite all-in-one machine. The CPU, the screen, the interface and indeed a great of the machine was the same, but the Mac 512Ke gave users an unheard of 800 Kilobytes of storage in the form of an upgraded double-sided 3.5" floppy disk drive (replacing the original single sided 400Kilobyte model) and a new and improved ROM that would allow the machine to last much longer than its predecessors when it came to System software.

The Mac 128K and 512K were both good machines but their ROMs limited them somewhat and as newer and better versions of the System software were released the machines soon lacked the facilities to run them. The Mac 512Ke sported a ROM which allowed it to run far better versions of the System software. While the older Macs would eventually drop out of favour with the System software (the Mac 128K will run System 1.0 through 3.3, while the 512K will run System 1.0 through 4.1) the Mac 512Ke would be supported for far longer (running System software all the way up to version 6.0.8) as it offered features and facilities that would become de rigeur in Macs for years to come.

The improved ROM didn't just extend the life of the 512Ke but also allowed its other new 'toy' to work. While the original Mac 128K had required 'improved' drives over the Apple II (who's 143 Kilobyte 5.25" disks simply weren't big enough in terms of storage), users now drove the need for bigger capacity. The 400K drives were fine for storing the basic System 1.0 but users now had other applications to run and, more importantly, had data to store. The 400K disk simply wasn't big enough - enter the 512Ke and the 800Kilobyte drive 3.5" drive (which would later be replaced by an even more outrageous 1.4Megabyte drive, and then CD ROMs drives etc.).

Note: Although to the consumer market the Mac 512ke was known as just that, in the education market, the machine was branded as the 'Macintosh ED'. Beneath the hood though it was exactly the same.