Macintosh LC III - Performa 450

The LC III is a significantly faster computer than the LC II. Running at 25 MHz on a newly designed motherboard with a 32-bit data bus, the LC III offers nearly the same performance as the IIci and twice the performance of the LC and LC II. One big difference was that the LC III uses an extended version of the LC PDS slot - most cards were designed for 16-bit access, so adding a video card or ethernet port makes the computer run about 1/6 less efficiently than the IIci.

Significantly faster than the LC II, the LC III also broke the 10 MB RAM barrier, allowing expansion to 36 MB. This was the first Mac to use 72-pin SIMMs. The LC III supports 16-bit video on a 640 x 480 monitor without a VRAM upgrade if you select the 640 x 400 pixel mode under Options in the Monitors control panel and then restart the computer.

The Macintosh LC (meaning low-cost color) was Apple Computer's product family of low-end consumer Macintosh personal computers in the early 1990s. The original Macintosh LC was released in 1990 and was the first affordable color-capable Macintosh. Due to its affordability and Apple II compatibility the LC was adopted primarily in the education and home markets. Together with the Mac IIsi, it introduced built-in audio input on the Mac. The "LC" name was subsequently used for a line of low-end Macintosh computers for several years and spanned the 68k to PowerPC transition.

The original LC was an attempt at an affordable, modular, color-capable Macintosh. As such, when compared with earlier Macs Apple cut some corners on performance and features in order to keep the price down. The LC's system specifications nearly duplicated those of the 3 year old Macintosh II. Nevertheless, the machine hit a sweet spot and, with the pent-up demand for a low-cost Macintosh, it was a strong seller. In 1991 was succeeded by the LC II, which replaced the LC's 68020 processor with a 68030. It retained the original LC's 16-bit system bus however, making its performance roughly the same as the earlier model. The main benefit of the 030 processor in the LC II was the ability to use System 7's virtual memory feature. In spite of this, the new model sold even better than the LC.

The success of the LC II spawned a whole series of LC models, most of which later were sold both with the LC name to the education world and to consumers via traditional Apple dealers, and as Performa to the consumer market via electronics stores, and department stores such as Sears. (For example, the LC 475 was also known as the Performa 475.) The last official "LC" was the Power Macintosh 5200/75 LC, which was released in 1995 and discontinued in 1996. The LC 580 was notable for being the last desktop 680x0-based Macintosh of any kind. All subsequent Macintoshes used PowerPC processors and, later, Intel processors.

Related Links : wikipedia.org - lowendmac.com