Why did the original Mac have a resolution of 512 x 342 pixels instead of 512 x 384 pixels?

The first model of Apple's Macintosh series, the '
Why the Original Macintosh Had a Screen Resolution of 512x342, and not 512x384 as One Might Expect - 512 Pixels
https://512pixels.net/2025/05/original-macintosh-resolution/
The Macintosh 128K is a personal computer released by Apple in 1984. It was sold at a relatively low price of $2,495 (about 360,000 yen) while being equipped with a large capacity of 128KB memory at the time and an intuitive UI that could be operated with a mouse. Below is a photo of the Macintosh 128K and Steve Jobs together.

The Macintosh 128K was equipped with a black-and-white display of 512 x 342 pixels. The later Macintosh series was equipped with a display with an aspect ratio of 4:3 of 512 x 384 pixels, but for some reason the Macintosh 128K was equipped with a display with an aspect ratio of half-hearted. Hackett considered the reason why the Macintosh 128K's display resolution was 512 x 342 pixels based on 'memory' and 'CPU'.
Memory
In addition, a post on the social news site Hacker News suggested that 'memory bandwidth, rather than memory capacity, may have also been a factor in determining display resolution.'
◆CPU
The Macintosh 128K's CPU was the Motorola 68000 , with a clock speed of about 7.83MHz. The Macintosh 128K's display had a vertical refresh rate of 60Hz, and many of the Motorola 68000's resources were allocated to screen drawing. If the display resolution was changed from 512x342 pixels to 512x384 pixels, the CPU resources allocated to screen drawing would increase, and there would be less room for applications to run.

The display on the

Related Posts:
in Hardware, Posted by log1o_hf