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Macintosh LC

Personal computer by Apple
For the product family, see Macintosh LC family.

The Macintosh LC is a personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from October 1990 to March 1992.

Macintosh LC
A Macintosh LC with accessories
Also known as"Elsie"
DeveloperApple Computer, Inc.
Product familyMacintosh LC
Release dateOctober 15, 1990 (1990-10-15)
Introductory priceUS$2,499 (equivalent to $5,828 in 2023)
DiscontinuedMarch 23, 1992 (1992-03-23)
Operating systemSystem 6.0.7 – 7.5.5
CPUMotorola 68020 @ 16 MHz
Memory2 MB, expandable to 10 MB (100ns 30-pin SIMM)
DimensionsHeight: 2.9 inches (7.4 cm)
Width: 12.2 inches (31 cm)
Depth: 15.3 inches (39 cm)
Mass8.8 pounds (4.0 kg)
SuccessorMacintosh LC II

Overview

The first in the Macintosh LC family, the LC was introduced with the Macintosh Classic (a repackaging of the older Macintosh SE) and the Macintosh IIsi (a new entry-level machine for the Macintosh II series), and offered for half the price of the Macintosh II but significantly lesser in performance overall.[1] The creation of the LC was prompted by Apple's desire to produce a product that could be sold to school boards for the same price as an Apple IIGS. It was designed for inexpensive manufacturing, with five major components that robots could assemble. The computer had a $2,400 list price; it and the new $600 12-inch color display were $3,500 less expensive than the Macintosh II.[2] Not long after the Apple IIe Card was introduced for the LC, Apple quietly removed the IIGS from its price list, forcibly retiring it, as the company wanted to focus its sales and marketing efforts on the LC.[3]

The original Macintosh LC was introduced in October 1990, with initial shipments to dealers following in December and January.[4] It was replaced by Macintosh LC II, which was largely the same but was built around a Motorola 68030 processor.

Hardware

 
Internal view of a Macintosh LC

The LC uses a "pizza box" case with a Processor Direct Slot (PDS) but no NuBus slots. It has a 16 MHz Motorola 68020 microprocessor which lacks a floating-point coprocessor (although one could be added via the PDS). The LC has a 16-bit data bus, which is a major performance bottleneck as the 68020 is a 32-bit CPU. The LC's memory management chipset places a limit of 10 MB RAM no matter how much was installed.

The LC shipped with 256 kB of VRAM, supporting a display resolution of 512×384 pixels at 8-bit color. The VRAM is upgradeable to 512 kB, supporting a display resolution of 512×384 pixels at 16-bit color or 640×480 pixels at 8-bit color. The LC was commonly purchased with an Apple 12" RGB monitor which had a fixed resolution of 512×384 pixels and a form factor exactly matching the width of the LC chassis, giving the two together a near all-in-one appearance. An Apple 13" 640×480 Trinitron display was also available, but at a list price of $999, it cost around half as much as the LC itself.[5] Until the introduction of the LC, the lowest resolution supported on color Macs had been 640×480. Many programs written for color Macintosh II family computers had assumed this as a minimum, and some were unusable at the lower resolution. For several years software developers had to add support for this lower screen resolution in order to guarantee that their software would run on LCs (as well as Color Classics, introduced 2½ years later, which use the same resolution).

Overall, general performance of the machine was disappointing due to the crippling data bus bottleneck, making it run far slower than the 16 MHz 68020-based Macintosh II from 1987, which had an identical processor but ran almost twice as fast. One difference between the Mac II and the Mac LC is the latter had no socket for a 68851 MMU. Therefore, it could not take advantage of System 7's virtual memory features.

The standard configuration included a floppy drive and a 40 MB or 80 MB hard drive, but a version was available for the education market which had an Apple II card in the PDS slot, two floppy drives, and no hard drive. The LC was the final Macintosh model to allow for dual internal floppy drives. The LC, as with other Macs of the day, featured built-in networking on the serial port using LocalTalk. Ethernet was also available as an option via the single PDS slot. If the single expansion slot was a limitation, multifunction cards were available combining Ethernet functionality with an MMU or FPU socket.

Apple IIe Card

Main article: Apple IIe Card

The Apple IIe Card for the PDS slot was offered in a bundle with education models of the LCs. The card allowed the LC to emulate an Apple IIe. The combination of a low-cost color Macintosh with Apple IIe compatibility was intended to encourage the education market to transition from aging Apple II models to the Macintosh platform instead of to the new low-cost IBM PC compatibles. Despite the LC's minimal video specs with a 12" monitor, any LC that supports the card can be switched into 560×384 resolution for better compatibility with the IIe's 280×192 High-Resolution graphics (essentially doubled) and 560x192 Double-High-Resolution graphics (doubled only vertically).

Reception

Computer Gaming World in 1990 criticized the LC as too expensive, stating that consumers would prefer a $2,000 IBM PS/1 with VGA graphics to a $3,000 LC with color monitor.[6] Although the Classic was more popular at first, by May 1992 the LC (560,000 sold) was outselling the Classic (1.2 million). More than half of LCs were used in homes and schools; Apple claimed that it helped the company regain educational market share lost to inexpensive PC clones, with the IIe Card used in about half of schools' LCs.[7]


Models

Introduced October 15, 1990:

  • Macintosh LC:[8] 2 MB RAM, 40 MB HDD.

Timeline

Timeline of Macintosh Centris, LC, Performa, and Quadra models, colored by CPU type
<timeline>

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    id:0302    value:rgb(1,1,0.5)
    id:0401    value:rgb(0.8,1,0.8)   legend:Motorola_68040
    id:0402    value:rgb(0.8,1,0.95)
    id:LC0401  value:rgb(0.75,0.85,1) legend:Motorola_68LC040
    id:LC0402  value:rgb(0.8,0.9,1)
    id:ppc601  value:rgb(0.8,0.6,0.9) legend:PowerPC_601
    id:ppc603  value:rgb(1,0.85,0.85) legend:PowerPC_603
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   color:ppc603 from:04/03/1995 till:04/13/1996 text:"Power Macintosh 5200 LC"
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   color:lc0401 from:10/21/1993 till:07/15/1996 text:"LC 475"
   color:lc0401 from:07/18/1994 till:04/01/1995 text:"LC 630"
   color:0301 from:06/28/1993 till:02/02/1994 text:"LC 520"
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   $skip
   color:lc0402 from:04/03/1995 till:03/02/1996 text:"LC 580"
   color:0302 from:02/02/1994 till:03/23/1995 text:"LC 550"

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   color:0302 from:10/25/1993 till:02/01/1994 text:"TV"
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   $skip
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   color:0302 from:09/14/1992 till:10/18/1993 text:"Performa 600"
   $skip
   $skip
   $skip
   $skip
   $skip
   color:0302 from:04/01/1993 till:03/01/1994 text:"Performa 250"
   color:0302 from:04/12/1993 till:11/01/1993 text:"Performa 405"
   color:0301 from:04/12/1993 till:11/01/1993 text:"Performa 430"
   color:0302 from:04/12/1993 till:11/01/1993 text:"Performa 450"
   color:0302 from:06/28/1993 till:02/02/1994 text:"Performa 520"
   color:0301 from:10/18/1993 till:11/01/1993 text:"Performa 410"
   color:0301 from:10/18/1993 till:11/01/1993 text:"Performa 460"
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   $skip
   $skip
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   color:lc0401 from:10/18/1993 till:04/01/1996 text:"Performa 476"
   color:lc0401 from:02/01/1994 till:04/01/1996 text:"Performa 575"
   color:lc0401 from:02/01/1994 till:04/01/1996 text:"Performa 577"
   color:lc0401 from:02/01/1994 till:04/01/1996 text:"Performa 578"
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   color:lc0402 from:07/18/1994 till:07/01/1995 text:"Performa 631"
   color:lc0402 from:07/18/1994 till:07/01/1995 text:"Performa 635"
   color:lc0402 from:07/18/1994 till:07/01/1995 text:"Performa 636"
   color:lc0402 from:07/18/1994 till:07/01/1995 text:"Performa 637"
   color:lc0402 from:07/18/1994 till:07/01/1995 text:"Performa 638"
   color:lc0402 from:04/01/1995 till:05/01/1996 text:"Performa 588CD"
   color:lc0402 from:05/01/1995 till:02/01/1996 text:"Performa 580CD"
   color:lc0401 from:05/14/1995 till:02/01/1996 text:"Performa 640CD"
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   color:ppc603 from:05/01/1995 till:07/01/1996 text:"Performa 5210"
   color:ppc603 from:07/14/1995 till:07/01/1996 text:"Performa 5215"
   color:ppc603 from:07/14/1995 till:07/01/1996 text:"Performa 5220"
   color:ppc601 from:07/17/1995 till:04/01/1996 text:"Performa 6116"
   color:ppc603 from:07/11/1995 till:04/01/1996 text:"Performa 6200"
   color:ppc603 from:07/11/1995 till:04/01/1996 text:"Performa 6216"
   color:ppc603 from:07/11/1995 till:04/01/1996 text:"Performa 6218"
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   $skip
   $skip
   $skip
   $skip
   $skip
   $skip
   $skip
   $skip
   color:ppc603e from:10/01/1995 till:05/01/1996 text:"Performa 5300"
   color:ppc603e from:11/01/1995 till:08/01/1996 text:"Performa 5320"
   color:ppc603e from:01/27/1996 till:08/01/1996 text:"Performa 6290"
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   color:ppc603e from:04/22/1996 till:02/01/1997 text:"Performa 5260"
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   color:ppc603e from:04/22/1996 till:02/01/1997 text:"Performa 5410"
   color:ppc603e from:04/22/1996 till:03/01/1997 text:"Performa 5420"
   color:ppc603e from:04/22/1996 till:02/01/1997 text:"Performa 5400"
   color:ppc603e from:06/19/1996 till:12/01/1996 text:"Performa 6260"
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   color:ppc603e from:08/01/1996 till:06/01/1997 text:"Performa 5400/180 (DE)"
   color:ppc603e from:08/07/1996 till:08/01/1997 text:"Performa 6400/180"
   color:ppc603e from:08/07/1996 till:08/01/1997 text:"Performa 6400/200 (VEE)"
   color:ppc603e from:10/01/1996 till:02/01/1997 text:"Performa 5260/120"
   color:ppc603e from:10/17/1996 till:10/01/1997 text:"Performa 6360/160"
   color:ppc603e from:11/12/1996 till:06/01/1997 text:"Performa 5280"
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   color:ppc603e from:11/12/1996 till:08/01/1997 text:"Performa 6420/200"

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   color:0401 from:10/21/1991 till:03/15/1993 text:"Quadra 700"
   color:0401 from:10/21/1991 till:05/18/1992 text:"Quadra 900"
   color:0402 from:07/18/1994 till:10/05/1995 text:"Quadra 630"
 barset:break
   $skip
   color:0402 from:05/18/1992 till:10/14/1995 text:"Quadra 950"
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   color:0401 from:02/10/1993 till:10/21/1993 text:"Centris 650"
   color:0401 from:02/10/1993 till:03/14/1994 text:"Quadra 800"
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   color:lc0401 from:10/21/1993 till:10/17/1994 text:"Quadra 605"
   $skip
   color:0401 from:10/21/1993 till:07/18/1994 text:"Quadra 610"
   color:0401 from:10/21/1993 till:09/12/1994 text:"Quadra 650"
   $skip
   color:0401 from:10/21/1993 till:09/12/1994              # Quadra 660AV
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   color:ppc603 from:07/11/1995 till:04/01/1996 text:"Performa 6220"
   $skip
   $skip
   color:ppc603 from:07/11/1995 till:04/01/1996 text:"Performa 6230"
   color:ppc603 from:08/28/1995 till:07/01/1996 text:"Performa 6205"
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   color:ppc603 from:08/28/1995 till:07/01/1996 text:"Performa 6214"

</timeline>

See also: List of Mac models

References

  1. ^ Poole, Lon (December 1990). "The Macintosh Family Evolves". Macworld. Vol. 7, no. 12. pp. 168–175.
  2. ^ Spencer, Cheryl (December 1990). "Mac LC - What's been missing from the Macintosh line? The reasonably priced Macintosh LC with 16-bit color and Apple II emulation abilities". Macworld. Vol. 7, no. 12. pp. 180–187.
  3. ^ Weyhrich, Steven (26 June 2010). "The Apple IIGS - The Beginning of the End". apple2history.org. Archived from the original on 6 October 2017. Retrieved 24 December 2017.
  4. ^ "MacBulletin - Some Macintosh LCs May Ship Early to Dealers". Macworld. Vol. 7, no. 12. December 1990. p. 17.
  5. ^ "Bite Of Apple - NY Times News Service November 25, 1990". Archived from the original on 2013-11-01. Apple also introduced a new color monitor recently, the 12-inch RGB Display. At $599, the new color monitor is $400 less expensive than Apple's slightly larger 13-inch color display.
  6. ^ "Fusion, Transfusion or Confusion / Future Directions In Computer Entertainment". Computer Gaming World. December 1990. p. 26. Retrieved 16 November 2013.
  7. ^ Heid, Jim (May 1992). "More for Less: An Updated LC and LaserWriter Duo". Macworld. p. 136.
  8. ^ "Macintosh LC: Technical Specifications". Apple. Archived from the original on 2013-11-05. Retrieved 2017-12-24.

External links

 
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