

With the introduction of the low cost troika ( Classic, LC, and IIsi – each one a Second Class Mac), Apple wanted to position the LC specifically for the home and education markets. After all, System 6 couldn’t use more than 10 MB, and it was limited to 8 MB on most Macs. With 2 MB on onboard memory and a pair of SIMM slots that support 4 MB modules, this wasn’t seen as much of a limitation at the time. To add insult to injury, Apple programmed the ASICs to support no more than 10 MB of RAM.

This is because of the LC’s 16-bit data bus.Īnd where the 68030 can fully support virtual memory, the 68020 doesn’t have that capability built into the CPU. (At the time, the 68020 was considerably less expensive than the 68030.) The. It runs a 32-bit 68020 CPU on a 16-bit data bus, making memory access slower than it should have been – all to save the cost of a couple SIMM sockets and keep the motherboard a bit smaller.Īlthough Apple had moved from the 68020 CPU in the Mac II to the 68030 in the IIx in September 1988, it reintroduced the 68020 with the LC in November 1988.
#Mac lc emulator full
For the most part, they’re not really bad – simply designs that didn’t meet their full potential. The Macintosh LC is the oldest Compromised Mac, one of four models sharing the same problems.ĭesigned specifically to be the cheapest color Macintosh to date, Apple cut some corners when designing the LC. Second Class Macs are Apple’s somewhat compromised hardware designs.
