Hypothesis: Apple intended to launch the LC475/Q605 in late summer 1993

[nickpunt]

I have a hypothesis: Apple intended to launch the LC 475 / Performa 475 / Quadra 605 sometime in late summer of 1993, such as August or Sept, rather than announcing in late October for sale in Nov-Dec.

This is an attempt to solve the mystery of many sightings of Performa 475's and LC 475's in the old snow white style topcase of LC I-III over the years, as well as a 'transition' espresso topcase. In fact, one is on eBay now (4/13/23), and one was just sold (4/1/23) - select images attached below. Officially these models were released Oct 18-21 1993, but both of these eBay listings have July 1993 build dates, as do other sightings. While one (serial # SG33017N1PT) shows an undistinguished 'Performa' label, the second (serial # SG33128Q12M) shows an 'LC 475' label, which is quite interesting, as it suggests Apple was ready to put these out in the market.



Reviewing all the possible hypotheses:

1. Replacements - they're upgrades/replacements/refurbs for older machines (discussed in a related thread).
2. Pre-production - They're just non-labeled EVT DVT PVTs.
3. Partners - They're from the initial production run meant for close partners (e.g. friendly software cos, schools, employees, etc), before the official launch.
4. Inventory - Apple wanted to switch from snow white to espresso ID but had a large inventory of old topcases and/or auto-inject floppies, so chose to start with this style.
5. Delayed Launch - They're from an initial but aborted production run. Perhaps this line was meant to be launched earlier, but was delayed several months.

Some facts to consider:

• Espresso transition - in 1993 Apple was transitioning from Snow White to Espresso ID. Several models were released earlier in the year like Centris 650, Color Classic, etc. This ID transition was gradual, as you can see systems that express some ideas of both.
• Espresso topcase revisions - The new espresso topcase went through two design revisions - one with the old style vertical lines, the other with a smaller number of curvier horizontal lines (see pic above). This may be supporting evidence for #5, as the 'transition' topcase could have been a hasty facelift due to the delay (e.g. new CEO Spindler says 'why are we still shipping snow white designs? redesign it before we launch!'), and they did so but they didn't have enough time to design & build tooling for the top until later.
• Floppy style change - sometime in 1993 apple switched from auto-inject to manual-inject style floppies. E.g. early Centris 650's had the auto-style + espresso, while later ones had the manual-style. If Apple wanted to do manual-style (e.g. due to inventory or customer complaints), that would have necessitated a hasty front facelift to add the cut-outs for pulling out floppies, supporting #4 and #5 above.
• Executive transition & layoffs - In June Scully left and Spindler became CEO. In July, Apple laid off 2500 (15% of staff). I think this strongly supports #5, as the product line may have been reconsidered, likely due to Apple's worsening finances. Any delay would also almost necessitate the Espresso change and the floppy change as manufacturing/inventory of both items dwindled (for either cost-cutting or just transition).
• Schools don't give a shit - An old topcase style wouldn't have bothered schools, lending slight credence to #3. However the existence of Performas (sold at retail) somewhat invalidates this.
• Time between manufacture and sale - There may be a 1-3 month delay between manufacturing and sale. Not sure how Apple was doing at that point, but it was definitely a pre-Tim Cook era supply chain with insufficient 'just in time' planning. This somewhat supports #4 as Apple may have been priming the manufacturing pipeline for later launch. However, 3+ months was a very long time in computing in this era.
• Pricing was possible - The Centris 610 came out in Feb 1993 @ $2520, tho by July 1993 was only $1688 (according to a MacUser ad). This depreciation was typical of the time, especially with Apple. The LC II (03/1992) was $1699, the LC III (02/1993) was $1349. Given this, it's plausible Apple could bring to market a cheaper LC-style 040 around July-August timeframe for ~$1200-1400. When it actually launched a few months later in 10/1993 it was only $1000. I think this supports #5, or at least doesn't rule it out from pricing end.
• Sold at retail - Among the previous sightings was @saybur 's discovery of a Performa with original packaging, suggesting an old topcase was sold that way (likely invalidating #2 and #3).
• LC III / III+ transition - LC III/III+ were also transitioned to new case design, lending credence to #4 as an inventory draw-down. If Apple was thinking, they would have just used the remaining inventory of old topcase styles on LC III/III+ systems (030 era ID with 030 era systems) rather than on the new 475/605 systems. Perhaps the exec shuffle got them to do this thinking and reroute old inventory to III/III+, which supports #5.
• WTF era - 1993 was peak 'WTF are they doing' Apple. They introduced and killed the Centris line, launched Newton, were prepping the PowerPC transition, transitioning ID, transitioning to CD-ROM era, adding DOS boards to systems, creating unnecessary SKUs (e.g. performa 475 and 476) so much it led to consumer confusion, etc. I love some of these systems but I think the inmates were running the Apple asylum at this time. A lot of the early talent was gone and they were in a leadership vacuum, so if anything, botching at least one launch because the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing was likely in 1993.

Questions

• Does anyone know when exactly the auto-inject to manual-inject floppy transition occurred?
• The manufactured date is on the bottom case, not the topcase. Perhaps others have early espresso models with pre-October dates? My Performa 450 (serial # F13303T00S5) doesn't have a manufacture date unfortunately.
• What's the latest date of manufacture of LC III and III+ that we know? Tho these were sold in early 1994, they may have been queued up far earlier and just been running down stocks. This might support #3 and #4.

References

• Performa LC 475 oddity? Pre-production? Demo? by @unity (2016) - has many sightings of old topcase 475/605 series systems. This thread has a lot of great details in it, including those being manufactured in 30th week of 1993 (aka July).
• Are all Macintosh models without a name badge prototypes? by @MrFahrenheit (2020) - discusses unlabeled (likely PVT) LC style systems
• Apple History, 1993 - good timeline of what was going on in this transitional year in Apple's history.
• List of Mac Models on Wikipedia - timeline of launches and how long they were on the market. Wikipedia doesn't have great pricing info tho, as street prices varied widely and magazines are the best source of info.

I thought this would be interesting for those with interest in this model (@Danamania @MrFahrenheit and others?).

---

In summary, my full hypothesis is the exec transition to Spindler led to a request to redesign the 475/605 in Espresso ID both for style alignment and to align with the new manual-inject style floppies to cut costs, which delayed the launch from Aug/Sept to Oct. The ID team hastily redesigned just the front to satisfy that request, and later revised the top design for the full Espresso treatment. A small number of older style units were already manufactured, so they just shipped them, because it was the WTF era of Apple.

 

[AndiS]

One clarification - the floppy transition was from "auto-inject" to "manual-inject" Thus the deeper notch which enables you to push the disk farther inwards. All of these auto-eject the disks.

 

[Forrest]

Good theories - the truth probably includes more than one single cause.
I’m guessing Apple was building in the summer of 1993 in anticipation of delivering a large number to schools in August, and some orders were canceled. The step up in performance over LC III was good, but either there was a school funding shortfall, or schools were opting for computers with CDROM drives. Ethernet was not built into any of these machines, so they couldn’t easily network to Macs with a CDROM drive.

 

[nickpunt]

Good point @Forrest, agree that schools would start having interest in CD-ROMs at the time, and that could have been part of the needsfinding Apple was doing behind the scenes. Apple did have a big education wing and likely discussed some unreleased models with schools. However I don't think this lines up with school procurement windows. Some things to consider:

• School tech procurement tends to happen around May-July, but that's for complete machines delivered. Schools need time to set machines up, do training, etc. These units at earliest were 30th week (end of July), and it's unlikely that machines coming off the assembly line just 1-3 weeks before school starts would be destined for schools.
• The LC III was launched in Feb 1993, very likely timed with the school procurement window for 1993-1994 school year. This fits with the LC II being launched in March 1992, and the LC in Oct 1990: you don't do mid-summer product launches for schools.
• The sale of LC 475's and continued sale of LC III/III+ into early 1994 suggests many schools were still buying without CD-ROMs. A difference in degree perhaps, but there'd still have been a market for the new model.
• The existence of Performas in the old style case, which suggests these were also destined for retail.

This does bring up two additional hypothesis:
6. Upmarket school model, delayed - perhaps the 475/605 was supposed to come out in late spring as an upmarket model to hit the school procurement window, but faced internal delays (team, where it fit in the product matrix, etc). In this hypothesis, perhaps it was a bit of a death march and the plan still moved forward even after it made no sense (manufacturing in end of July), which may have triggered execs to realize it was far too late for the school procurement window. This feels a bit early though, given the 610's launch in Feb, and schools typically not being up-market customers.
7. Back to school model - perhaps the 475/605 was meant to be a 'back to school' model, as parents and students can make decisions much faster. Typically back to school sales and product launches happen in July-August. This seems plausible as one additional reason for why Apple would want to ship in Aug (adding to hypothesis #5).

Regardless, I still think Apple's internal issues were the primary culprit and overpowered any particular market considerations; they were just really messed up at the time.

(also thanks @AndiS, fixed it!)

 

[Forrest]

There were way too many Apple Mac models in 1993-1994. I was looking to buy my first back then, and I remember looking at the IIvi, IIvx, Performa 600, 631, etc.

 

[NJRoadfan]

Was the LC 475 even initially slated to be released alongside the Quadra 605? I suspect last minute cost drops allowed them to make an affordable 040 based LC/Performa machine when they weren't planning on it. Also, the "transition" (vertical top vent) case seems to be the most common type out there. I have not seen the later style before this thread!

With regards to the manual inject floppy switchover, you'd have the find the earliest production date machine with the newer drives. I suspect September 1993 as a decent guess. I don't think any Quadra branded 610/660 machines have an auto inject drive.

 

[ymk]

However the existence of Performas (sold at retail) somewhat invalidates this.

I have one. The silkscreen by the logo reads "Macintosh Performa" and below, a sticker on the front stand says "Performa 475".

 

[MrFahrenheit]

Interesting hypothesis, @nickpunt

I think the Quadra 605 was meant to be the Centris 605 and be the retail “475” all along. Maybe the traditional 475 style case would have been used on education only to use up stock.


The 605/475 had the possibility of running at 20, 25, 33 and 40mhz. Perhaps Apple wanted to release an LC 475 at 20mhz and 25mhz (LC chip), and a Centris 605 (25mhz LC chip) and a Quadra 605 at 33mhz (full 040).

When Centris was cancelled they didn’t know what to do with the new 605 case and the product stack. So the went back to the 475 being the retail product, and the 605 they sold and shipped outside of the US (in Canada at retail for example).

I bought a brand new Quadra 605 at retail in late 94 for a whopping $600 USD (equivalent) at the time.

I think trying to speculate on what Apple was thinking in 1993 and 94 would drive anyone insane. Apple was all over the place, as evidenced by the Copland failure.

 

[volvo242gt]

Changeover from the MP-F75W auto-inject drive to the MP-F42 manual inject drive was in September 1993, IIRC. Espresso design started with the IIvx/IIvi/P600 machines in 1992.

The "late" Centris 650 is actually the Quadra 650. Same with the 610 machines. Both machines received a speed boost. 650 got boosted from 25MHz to 33MHz, using Quadra 800 boards that had a power LED added. 610 became 25MHz, after being introduced as a Centris model at 20MHz.

The only Centris machine that has the fish lips floppy slot is the 660av.

 

[MrFahrenheit]

Changeover from the MP-F75W auto-inject drive to the MP-F42 manual inject drive was in September 1993, IIRC. Espresso design started with the IIvx/IIvi/P600 machines in 1992.

The "late" Centris 650 is actually the Quadra 650. Same with the 610 machines. Both machines received a speed boost. 650 got boosted from 25MHz to 33MHz, using Quadra 800 boards that had a power LED added. 610 became 25MHz, after being introduced as a Centris model at 20MHz.

The only Centris machine that has the fish lips floppy slot is the 660av.

Which is so weird for a product line to be so fragmented, because the Centris 660av also had auto inject drives.



The Centris 610 used a 20mhz chip. Perhaps Apple had so many of those 20mhz chips that had to keep running the supporting Centris model even after they wanted to “end it”, just to use up the remaining chips. That likely pushed them to ship Centris 660av models with manual inject drives after they ran out of stock of auto inject drives (but still had lots of 20mhz chips).

 

[MrFahrenheit]

Boy this is confusing. The Centris 610 was 68LC040 at20mhz, the Quadra 610 was 68040 at 25mhz. Strangely, both the Centris 660av and Quadra 660av used a 68040 at 25mhz.

 

[joshc]

Welcome to early 90s Apple, clearly a wild time. Trying to make sense of anything they were doing back then is near impossible.

I still think it was mostly to do with poor supply chain management and too much inventory, hence having to reuse other case parts. Also I think LB upgrades meant a lot of machines ended up with weird badging.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

So many examples of weird stuff like this. Like how if you PPC upgrade a 68k mac it will call it the "Power Macintosh 700" instead of something more sensible, like "Quadra 700 w/ PPC Upgrade". It just goes on and on!

 

[volvo242gt]

That, plus it kinda looks like the 660av depicted above was badge engineered. Note the fact that the badge looks much cleaner than the case. Almost like the Quadra 650 I built a few years back, using a C650 case and floppy drive, but Q800 board modded into a Q650 board, and a Q650 badge. Something that's soon to be repeated, using my current C650.

 

[finkmac]

Which is so weird for a product line to be so fragmented, because the Centris 660av also had auto inject drives.

My Quadra 840AV has an auto-inject floppy drive, but I know there's units with manual-inject ones. Same for the Quadra 650, those generally have manual-inject floppy drives... but some still have auto-inject drives.

 

[NJRoadfan]

Fate certainly has a way. I now own an "late" Espresso cased Q605 with the curved horizontal lined top. The serial number sticker lacks a build date however and the model/regulatory information is molded into the case vs. being a sticker.

 

[Snial]

Welcome to early 90s Apple, clearly a wild time. Trying to make sense of anything they were doing back then is near impossible.

I still think it was mostly to do with poor supply chain management and too much inventory, hence having to reuse other case parts. Also I think LB upgrades meant a lot of machines ended up with weird badging.

There's a lot of that thesis in the book: "Apple: The Inside Story of Intrigue, Egomania, and Business Blunders", which I was given as a Secret Santa prezzie at my PC-loving workplace a couple of years ago. It's quite a powerful story of Apple disfunctionality ending at the low-point and wondering if Apple can survive at all.

But I'm not so sure that Apple's history at this point is primarily driven by the poor management. I think it's more that the industry was at peak transition and Apple was pulling in multiple directions to find a way through. For example:

1. The RISC revolution had super-charged CPU development, which meant that Motorola, with a much smaller CPU team couldn't keep up to speed with the 680x0, but had to change too (88000); while Intel, initially caught off-guard by RISC, did have the resources to compete. Hence Apple needed to go RISC (initially 88000), but then had to combine efforts with IBM to produce the PowerPC and their predictions about Intel turned out to be inadequate, because they failed to anticipate Intel's resource capability.
2. Multiple media revolutions: motion video hardware, video editing, audio / MIDI, DSPs, scanners, color printers, early digital cameras (I have a QuickTake 150!), mobile (i.e. cell) phones, CDs and the emergence of the world-wide-web / internet etc basically all appeared at the same time. Even though Apple was large, it was still far smaller than the PC industry's ability to pursue all of these without worrying if they would integrate.
3. The classic, single-tasking Toolbox™ era was already reaching its limit and Apple desperately needed a new direction. The fudge that was Switcher/Multifinder was only ever going to be a stop-gap and the monumental efforts in System 7 to get Mac OS through the 90s had to be matched by more forward-looking re-inventions (Pink, BeOS and ultimately NeXT Step). Microsoft also had to reinvent, but arguably they had two advantages:
   1. MSDOS was so archaic that PC users would leap onto Win 3.x when a usable GUI became mainstream, even though as a 16-bit GUI it was technically inferior to (my estimate) System 6.
   2. OS/2 2.x had already laid the ground work for a 32-bit GUI since 1992 and GEM had given mainstream PC users a taste for GUIs for specific applications since the late 1980s.
4. Computers were going mainstream so somehow Apple had to reach out from its super high-end market to the consumer market.

So, really the management issues and engineering fragmentation were to be expected. It was an exciting and wild time, as you say, but I'm not sure it could have been anything else. The same may happen in the near future for Apple when e.g. Cook leaves (as he will one day) and new tech (AR / Project Titan) force Apple to re-invent themselves again (note: reinventions tend to coincide with CPU jumps too ;-) ) !

 

[NJRoadfan]

The bottom case on the rightmost "full espresso" design is completely different from the common LC style. It has four individual feet like the 610/6100 case.

 

[volvo242gt]

The bottom case on the rightmost "full espresso" design is completely different from the common LC style. It has four individual feet like the 610/6100 case.

Yup, the Quadra 605 is the only one with legs.

 

[yuhong]

Apple was threatening MFM-only/manual eject floppies around the same time, though it never shipped.