The Fabulous Macintosh LC III

[uniserver]

I was re-capping one yesterday, and it hit me.

Bam, Everything you need is on this tiny PCB.

I mean heck if flash had come along sooner, I'm sure they would have soldered a couple hundred meg's of flash on there too.

A nice socket , ready for a 68882, preferably a 33mhz one, then you can take the cpu up to 33mhz with moving that one 000 Ohm Resister.

or just leave it be, A 25mhz 68030, capable of: 832 x 624 @ 16bit /w 256k more of vram.

I mean as a mac running vintage apps, /w System 7 installed... What more could you want?

It was well made, very upgradeable, quite inexpensive (compared to other mac's)

LC III introduced 1993.02.10 at $1,350

I mean this thing really rocked socks!

The IIci was defiantly a bad to the bone machine! Yes with out a doubt! especially with a cache card installed!

But it was, big,

Had nifty nubus slots!

Super expensive, $8,800 with 40 MB hard drive

Stuck at 25mhz

And sucked down 159 Watts of power compared to the LC-III Sipping a mere 50 watts.

It just seems to me, the LC-III was like a sit down had happened, and they really tryed to have a WWSJD moment, and this is what the came up with.

It's really a quite nice machine. And not to mention the LC-III even has a mic in port

 

[tecneeq]

Combine it with a fast, modern hard drive and use lots of disk cache and you get a real sprinter.

 

[beachycove]

and they really tryed [sic] to have a WWSJD moment

Do you mean the "Society of Jesus?" I have to confess that I didn't know the Jesuits were real big on computer engineering. Versatile lads, those Jesuits, and often ahead of their time (e.g., they bought Galilean science to China).

I say this because we actually know pretty much what Steve Jobs would have done: cancelled it and put a NeXT box in its place — so no LCIII as we know it!

 

[uniserver]

cancelled it and put a NeXT box in its place

WWSJD, What Would Steve Jobs Do

Ah yes, however, What they did was second best.

It's really a shame good people get caught in the middle of corporate cross fire.

The Macintosh really started something. Even though their leader bailed on them.

I would like to think, bits of his thinking carried on. Maybe the NEXT would have been the best?

And the LC-III was the best they could come up with, Not Acutely having SJ around...

One thing it(the LC-III) sure was affordable compared to any NeXT product.

I remember reading the story of the pineapple pizza. Steve was the energy that made these guys keep going.

If it was anyone else they would have went home, Cracked open a beer and called it a day.

http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Pineapple_Pizza.txt&characters=Steve%20Jobs&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Jesuits on average are much brighter, many are more creative and some have been far more adventurous than SJ could have ever hoped to be . . .

. . . YOMV. }

 

[uniserver]

The Jesuits are a Military Religious Order of the Roman Catholic Church

"When a Jesuit of the minor rank is to be elevated to command, he is conducted into the Chapel of the Convent of the Order, where there are only three others present, the principal or Superior standing in front of the altar.

http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/jesuits.htm

-- Wow that is some pretty heavy stuff

 

[ClassicHasClass]

At the risk of actually being on topic, the LC III was really the first LC I thought was worth anything. The first LC wasn't bad for what it was, but Apple really phoned it in with the LC II.

Still, I'll always pick the LC 475/Q605 any day.

 

[Macdrone]

I loved the LC 475 I got as it always seemed snappier than the 6100 with accelerator that I had. It took up way less space, although it didn't have a cd drive everything I had was on floppy.

 

[JRL]

I'm a big fan of my LC III because of the easy upgradability among other things that made me love all the pizzaboxes. Though it does get overshadowed by my 475 with the 9.1 GB 50-pin drive, it definitely was a step in the right direction.

 

[Bunsen]

Even though their leader bailed on them.

Jobs didn't "bail" on Apple: he was forced out.

 

[beachycove]

Yes, the LCIII was a great machine. I can remember being surprised that it had a 68030 chip when I first used one years ago.

These days, I prefer the 475/605 when its pizza-box time, but I learned something from the encounter with the LCIII all the same. The rough equivalent of the LCIII is the LC550, the logic board of which I have in a Color Classic, and which makes a very nice, pleasingly fast compact Mac. I prefer that upgrade over the Mystic. The LC520 logic board is nearly as good.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

What do you like better about the LC 550 board? I have a Mystic in my CC with a custom backplate and a full '040. In 7.1 it sizzles. I really need to get NetBSD on it, it was the reason I got the '040 in the first place.

 

[beachycove]

The backplate is the same, there is no need for hacking, and it just seems fitting to have a 68030/68882 in the thing.

 

[uniserver]

yeah the lc520 and the lc550, is like the LCIII and the LCIII+

I wish there was a way to get the LC520 to oc to 33mhz, Seems the only difference between the LC520 and LC550 is a little extra MHZ.

ALSO, I herd you can install the LC575 board in your Color Classic, w/o any modification if you are using MacOS 8.1, - will allow the native REZ of the screen to work... Any info on this? - I Tried this, it didn't seem to work.

 

[Macdrone]

Only 550 board will support native color classic resolution without motherboard or analog board modification.

 

[uniserver]

I posted this in February.

I just re-capped another LC-III,

More about, Why I think the LC-III is Fabulous and why everyone should own one:

- They are CHEAP! you can pick up one on the bay for cheap ... Way Cheaper then a LC475/q605

- That Zero Ohm Resistor from one spot, to another takes it to 33mhz, a substantial free speed boost.

- Rob the ram... Rob the VRAM,, SO what? its still going to work, boot it up and run your vintage apps. (VRam/Ram slot empty).

- You can toss a LC-III in any pizza box case, if all you have is a LC-III main board laying around.

- 7.1 capable

- A Re-Cap is so simple on these. Very straight forward, Cap count is low.

- Per. last point, because of the low cap count, like 99% of the time

just doing a re-cap, makes it good to go, they are robust! Leaking cap goo almost never screws one up.

A great 68k mac to have in your collection, and to use frequently.

 

[LCGuy]

My first Mac was an LC III (the one in my avatar, actually). It was the machine that made me get into computers in the first place. The only reason it didn't make the move to Sydney was due to space constraints. (its safely stored at my parents' house back in Queensland, along with the other 98% of my collection) They were a great machine when new, and were a good value used Mac for a few years, with the fast CPU, full 32 bit bus, ability to take up to 36MB of RAM and drive displays at up to 832x624 in 8 bit colour (with max VRAM), in addition to Portrait Displays.

 

[oldmacs]

My LC III is sitting and waiting for me to organise its replacement of caps

I like the LC III but my real love is for the 475 (It was my first machine)

 

[uniserver]

I have not tested this. I wonder if one can install a 128 meg ram simm in the LC-III

(when over clocked to 33mhz) the LC-III makes much less heat than the LC-475/Q605 @ 33mhz

Pretty sure the power demands on the PSU is less as well.

One feature I like better about the LC-III over the 040 pizza box variant.

is that the LC-III has built on VRAM.

I think if you wanted to make a server out of an OC'd LC-III it might work out very well.

(pop a fpu in) to run A/UX.