Why didn’t Apple add the LC PDS slot to the Classic II/Performa 200 ?

[MrFahrenheit]

I have long thought about the release of the Classic II and how Apple basically just released it as an updated Classic with a 68030 CPU.

However, the Classic II shared more with the LC2 than the original Classic. It has the same RAM limit and even boots up with the same chime. Evidence that it’s an LC2 derivative.

Why couldn’t Apple have added the LC PDS slot to the Classic II? Imagine the possibilities… Ethernet, possible Apple IIe support, video output options, CPU upgrade possibilities.

I remember reading about and watching a YouTube video (long time ago, can’t remember where I saw it), that adding 256 gray scale support to the compact Mac actually wouldn’t have added much in cost at all. The circuitry change was a few dollars, apparently, but Apple left all of the compact Mac’s in 1 bit land.

Apple could have broken that mold and issued the Classic II as a really great machine. 8 bit grayscale support, LC PDS slot…. Those two things would have been worth the added cost to the consumer, and even to schools and such. The lower resolution of the display would still have kept it in the proper sales segment and not eroded sales of other models, and it would have made it a really good model to promote.

Basically a Color Classic in grayscale inside the original Classic housing.

Thoughts?

 

[joshc]

Interesting question. Cost, I think. Classic was a cut cost product, so was the Classic II. It was a case of doing the minimum possible, and making it so it didn't eat sales of any other Mac. Another possible answer is 'who knows, they probably didn't know either' as much of what they did back then didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.

 

[MrFahrenheit]

Interesting question. Cost, I think. Classic was a cut cost product, so was the Classic II. It was a case of doing the minimum possible, and making it so it didn't eat sales of any other Mac. Another possible answer is 'who knows, they probably didn't know either' as much of what they did back then didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.

I agree that it likely was a cost issue, which is sad considering it likely wasn’t by much.

The Classic II launched in October 1991 for $1900 USD. That’s more than the original Classic it replaced. The LC2 launched 6 months later, in March 1992, for $1700 USD.

If you look at the package as a whole, you can easily see that an LC2 with an Apple monochrome display, would cost about the same as the Classic II. I know at the store I worked at, customers leaned more on the LC2 than Classic II when buying, once that was an option. Like many models in Apple’s stack, it kind of didn’t make any sense.

I don’t know the cost to Apple for the enclosure, analog board, and CRT inside the Classic II, but if one could buy a LC2 and monochrome display for about the same cost as a Classic II, I think it may have been possible to have added the PDS to the Classic II setup.

However, it’s not always so simple.

 

[joshc]

Remember how the Classic didn't have a second ADB port? That's the level of cost cutting they were going to, saving pennies everywhere possible. I guess the mentality was the same for the Classic II and LC line.

 

[MrFahrenheit]

Remember how the Classic didn't have a second ADB port? That's the level of cost cutting they were going to, saving pennies everywhere possible. I guess the mentality was the same for the Classic II and LC line.

Yeah, that does make sense. If they could save $2.43 on 1 bit video instead of grays, and $12 not having a PDS slot, even if it meant charging $50 more for the machine for the added features, they didn’t do it.

I wonder why sound input was implemented, unless it was part of the Macintosh ROM at that point, and removing the ability would have cost more than adding the port.

 

[Phipli]

Yeah, that does make sense. If they could save $2.43 on 1 bit video instead of grays, and $12 not having a PDS slot, even if it meant charging $50 more for the machine for the added features, they didn’t do it.

I wonder why sound input was implemented, unless it was part of the Macintosh ROM at that point, and removing the ability would have cost more than adding the port.

They may have been pushing it as a feature in sales. You want to minimise cost while maximise saleable features. Hence 32bit processor!!! But 16bit bus.

 

[MrFahrenheit]

They may have been pushing it as a feature in sales. You want to minimise cost while maximise saleable features. Hence 32bit processor!!! But 16bit bus.

I worked at a reseller when Apple did the misleading move of marketing 25 and 33mhz machines as 50mhz and 66Mhz without them being that.

Look up the marketing for a machine like the 630, which says it’s a 66Mhz system. I honestly don’t know how Apple was able to get away with that lie. How did someone not sue them?

Anyone can pull out the logic board of a 630 and verify there isn’t a 66Mhz CPU on it. We had customers who were confused by such marketing, at a time when Intel offered the 486 DX 2/66 and it reported 66Mhz.

 

[Phipli]

I worked at a reseller when Apple did the misleading move of marketing 25 and 33mhz machines as 50mhz and 66Mhz without them being that.

Look up the marketing for a machine like the 630, which says it’s a 66Mhz system. I honestly don’t know how Apple was able to get away with that lie. How did someone not sue them?

Anyone can pull out the logic board of a 630 and verify there isn’t a 66Mhz CPU on it. We had customers who were confused by such marketing, at a time when Intel offered the 486 DX 2/66 and it reported 66Mhz.

Their argument was something like the chip took a 66MHz clock input, or was doubled onboard or something. But yes, the core ran at 33MHz and the chips were labelled as 33MHz. I forget exactly how the 040 clocks work. So many multiplies from the 12.5mhz clock that came on my Centris

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

It's all about targeted market segment.

There was nothing about Classic development related to anything but its $999 target price as the lowest of the low end of the product line.

At release of Classic II, LCII was in the pipeline as noted. Margins for LCII in an established, upgrade ready market in education were higher.

Keeping the Classics free of Apple II card compatibility was a must. Classic would have been all but perfect for moving the remaining Apple II education base to Macintosh I think? That's a no brainer, especially so given complexity and costs of modification to the Classic's case/chassis to support PDS upgrade card.

Zero development cost incurred by using the ludicrous, Neolithic, out of spec, tightly timed mid-early 80's 128K A/B display/PSU subsystem. Any development effort/cost for its display was spent on reducing complexity, parts count and cost.

Retrograde move, re-integrating PSU on A/B was a brilliant cost cutting measure negatively affecting Power/Cooling budget for expansion.

Who needed a second ADB port by that time on something like the Classic?

Updating Classic to 16MHz 68030 wasn't about upgrading Classic performance. It was about support of a code base that had left the 68000 behind to die with a clock bump to negate the ill effects of bloat.

Dunno, that's all I can think of offhand.

IMO, YMMV

 

[LaPorta]

I’m not even sure why there even were second ADB ports. My family went from a Mac Plus to a Quadra 605 and then 660av, so I never even saw machines with two ADB ports until I started collecting and saw SEs, etc with them. I think the only extra ADB devices I had were all pass through connectors, and the mouse plugged into the keyboard, so you were always good to go with one.

Back on topic, I feel that it was just low cost for those who literally didn’t care: 9” B&W was fine, classic form was fine, etc. it was the last way to eek out the initial investment in the form factor. However, the Classic with 68000 was looking paltry by then. So I’m sure the strategy went something like “look, a compact with the same processor as the SE/30 for so much cheaper!”. Most people who it was aimed at (not professionals) probably would have bought into that logic and rolled with it despite the hobbling specs otherwise. No need for expansion cards. Especially since it’s one less way to compete with the new LC series.

 

[Phipli]

I’m not even sure why there even were second ADB ports. My family went from a Mac Plus to a Quadra 605 and then 660av, so I never even saw machines with two ADB ports until I started collecting and saw SEs, etc with them. I think the only extra ADB devices I had were all pass through connectors, and the mouse plugged into the keyboard, so you were always good to go with one.

I have had ADB devices from that era without a passthrough, not unreasonable given machines had two ports, but absolutely unworkable on newer machines.