why the SE/30 display has only two colours?

[trag]

Its easy to see why Apple thought, "Uh, no, 1-bit is fine"

If one is capable of building a working video system at all (seems like getting the correct bit to the transistor when the gun is "pointed" at the corresponding pixel is the hard part), then adding support for shades or colors really isn't that much more effort.   It just adds some components.

 

[commodorejohn]

Yeah, but those components cost money, and if compact Mac users were already content with 1bpp video, why spend the extra $0.x/unit?

 

[Bunsen]

Exactly.  It was easier to move the extra component and RAM cost to an optional PDS video card.  They did put Color Quickdraw in the SE/30 ROM to make sure it could drive those cards, but that would have cost next to nothing.

 

[Paralel]

Makes sense to me, from an Apple POV.

 

[Scott Baret]

Don't forget they wanted to make the SE/30 a different kind of machine. There were no Apple laptops when it was introduced, so it was the small, all-in-one powerful machine. They probably feared a reduction in sales of the IIcx if the SE/30 could natively display color.

Using the same analog board as the SE (they are identical; I have swapped between SEs and SE/30s numerous times) also made it easier to produce (and, for SE owners, made upgrading easier, but using a single design on more than one computer is what Apple cared more about from a production standpoint). Having the same board also meant a lot of other components were the same (video board, cables to go to the logic board).