Features
The LC used a very small "pizza box" case with a PDS (processor direct slot) but no NuBus slots. It had a 16 MHz 68020 microprocessor which lacked a floating-point coprocessor (although one could be added via the PDS). The LC had a 16-bit data bus, which was a major bottleneck as the 68020 was a 32-bit CPU. The LC's memory management chipset placed a limit of 10MB RAM no matter how much was installed.
The LC shipped with 256KB of VRAM, only supporting a display resolution of 512x384 pixels at 8-bit color. The VRAM was upgradeable to 512KB though, supporting a display resolution of 512x384 pixels at 16-bit color or 640x480 pixels at 8-bit color. Most LCs were purchased with an Apple 12" RGB monitor which had a fixed resolution of 512x384 pixels, though an Apple 13" 640x480 Trinitron display was also available. Until the introduction of the LC, every color Mac had supported, at a minimum, 640x480. Many programs assumed this, and some simply would not function correctly on the LC at the lower resolution. For several years software developers had to add support for this smaller screen resolution in order to guarantee that their software would run on LCs.
Overall, general performance of the machine was disappointing due to the crippling data bus bottleneck, making it run far slower than it should have (e.g. the 16 MHz 68020 based Macintosh II from 1987, with an identical processor, ran almost twice as fast as the Macintosh LC). 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, as with a number of other Macs of the day, featured built-in networking via "PhoneNet" that used standard RJ11 phone cabling and connector boxes. Ethernet was also available as an option via the single PDS slot.
The successor model LC II's 68030 has a built-in MMU. The CPU was the only major change to the LC II; the bus remained 16 bits. A full 32-bit bus had to wait for the LC III successor a year later.
Read more about this topic: Macintosh LC
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