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Second Class Macs & Road Apples

Mac Classic II/Performa 200

two

Dan Knight - 1998.01.10

Second Class Macs are Apple's somewhat compromised hardware designs. For the most part, they're not really bad - simply designs that didn't meet their full potential. (On our rating scale, the more brown apples, the worse the hardware.)

Mac Classic Take the 16-bit motherboard of the LC, replace the 68020 CPU with a 68030, strip out the expansion slot, and put it into a Classic case - and you have another Second Class Mac.

Problems the Classic II shared with the LC and LC II are a 32-bit CPU hobbled by a 16-bit data bus and a 10 MB RAM ceiling.

Apple tried to position the Classic II as a replacement for the venerable SE/30. However, the 16-bit data path gave it about 60% as much horsepower as the SE/30. On top of that, the Classic II had a 10 MB RAM ceiling, while the SE/30 could handle 128 MB. Finally, the SE/30 has a PDS expansion slot, but the Classic II had none.

Still, it was a nice step up from the Plus, SE, or Classic, all of which ran an 8 MHz 68000 and were limited to 4 MB RAM. Compared with them, a 16 MHz CPU and up to 10 MB of RAM was quite a step up.

The Classic II wasn't a terrible Mac, just a compromised one.

Details

introduced October 1991 at $1,900; discontinued September 1993 (Performa discontinued April 1993)
requires System 7.0.1 to 7.6.1
CPU: 16 MHz 68030
FPU: 6882 (optional)
performance: 1.8 (relative to SE)
RAM: 2 MB, expandable to 10 MB using two 100ns 30-pin SIMMs
9" b&w screen, 512 x 342 pixels
ADB: 2 ports for keyboard and mouse
serial: 2 DIN-8 RS-422 ports on back of computer
SCSI: DB-25 connector on back of computer
expansion slots: none

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Mac of the Day: 17" MacBook Pro Core Duo, Apr. 2006 - The top-end MacBook Pro includes a 1680 x 1050, 2.16 GHz Core Duo CPU, and supports Apple 30" Cinema Display.
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