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Second Class Macs & Road Apples

Macintosh LC II

a.k.a. Performa 400-430

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.)

The LC II was a slightly less crippled version of the LC. Instead of running a 32-bit 68020 CPU on a 16-bit bus, it used the 32-bit 68030 CPU on the same 16-bit bus. This made virtual memory a real, albeit slow possibility.

Of course, using a modified LC motherboard instead of a new design kept costs down - and the letters LC meant Low Cost.

The biggest improvement was boosting base RAM from 2 MB to 4 MB. The downside to this was that the only way to reach the 10 MB limit was by adding two 4 MB SIMMs. Yes, that's right - you had to have 12 MB in the LC II so you could use 10 MB!

Still running a 32-bit CPU on a 16-bit data bus and limited by design to no more than 10 MB of RAM, the 68030 did offer virtual memory. The LC II benchmarks at about 60% the performance of the Mac IIx, even though both use the same 16 MHz 68030 CPU. Again, this is due primarily to the 16-bit memory bus.

As a cost-cutting measure, Apple eliminated the internal connector for a second floppy drive that had been present in the original LC (fewer than 5% of LCs were sold with two floppies). The video circuitry was tweaked to better server those using VGA and multisync monitors.

Although no faster than the LC, the LC II is what the LC could have been if Apple had avoided the old 68020 CPU. (Most benchmarks show the LC II is slightly slower than the LC!)

Still, it wasn't a horrible Mac, just a compromised one. LEM

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