The Macintosh LC is a personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from October 1990 to March 1992.
76-733: The first in the Macintosh LC family , the LC was introduced with the Macintosh Classic (a repackaging of the older Macintosh SE ) and the Macintosh IIsi (a new entry-level machine for the Macintosh II series ), and offered for half the price of the Macintosh II but significantly lesser in performance overall. The creation of the LC was prompted by Apple's desire to produce a product that could be sold to school boards for
152-598: A DE9 output jack. The Apple II video output is really a monochrome display based upon the bit patterns in the video memory (or pixels). These pixels are combined in quadrature with the colorburst signal to be interpreted as color by a composite video display. This results in a 16-color composite video palette, based on the YIQ color space used by the NTSC color TV system. High resolution provides two pixels per Colorburst cycle, allowing for two possible colors if one pixel
228-644: A PowerPC -based replacement of the LC 500 series. In August, the Power Macintosh 5300 LC was released which kept the same motherboard design but included a more powerful PowerPC 603e CPU, as well as a "Director's Edition" with similar design and features to the Macintosh TV. Unlike previous education models, which prepended the model number with "LC", the 5200 / 5300 models use the Power Macintosh designation of Apple's main workstation line of
304-502: A 16 MHz Motorola 68020 microprocessor which lacks a floating-point coprocessor (although one could be added via the PDS). The LC has a 16-bit data bus, which is a major performance bottleneck as the 68020 is a 32-bit CPU. The LC's memory management chipset places a limit of 10 MB RAM no matter how much was installed. The LC shipped with 256 kB of VRAM, supporting a display resolution of 512×384 pixels at 8-bit color. The VRAM
380-428: A 55 percent profit margin. This policy led to a series of ever more expensive computers. This was in spite of strenuous objections within the company, and when a group at Claris started a low-end Mac project called "Drama", Gassée actively killed it. Elsewhere at the company, two engineers, H.L. Cheung and Paul Baker, had been working in secret on a pet project, a color Macintosh prototype they called "Spin". The idea
456-484: A color signal. On monochrome monitors, or if the Colorburst signal was turned off, the display would reveal these bit patterns. There are two equivalent grey shades as 5 (0101) is equivalent to 10 (1010) based on how the colors mix together; the "on" bits are polar opposites of each other on the quadrature color signal, so they cancel each other and display as grey. This mode is mapped to the same area of memory as
532-471: 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 was the final Macintosh model to allow for dual internal floppy drives. The LC, as with other Macs of the day, featured built-in networking on the serial port using LocalTalk . Ethernet was also available as an option via
608-403: A fraction of a second, repeating until the self-diagnostic color pattern began to fill the first line of text in the upper left corner. Since the self-diagnostic progressed from $ 0000 upward, once the beginning address of text page 1 ( $ 400 ) was clobbered, so then was the checksum of the reset vector ( $ 3F4 ), which meant that a subsequent rapid press of Control + Reset would force
684-522: A list price of $ 999, it cost around half as much as the LC itself. Until the introduction of the LC, the lowest resolution supported on color Macs had been 640×480. Many programs written for color Macintosh II family computers had assumed this as a minimum, and some were unusable at the lower resolution. For several years software developers had to add support for this lower screen resolution in order to guarantee that their software would run on LCs (as well as Color Classics, introduced 2½ years later, which use
760-409: A new code name, "Elsie", a homonym for the "LC" (i.e. low-cost color) name the computer would later be sold as. Elsie prototypes at this point resembled an Apple IIc where the keyboard was integrated into the unit, and it had a single 800 KB floppy drive with no hard drive. The team ended up with a problem — the machine was cheap, but it wasn't a good computer, especially because the 68000 CPU
836-569: A printer. Second, the SCRN (pixel read) function did not work properly. However, there was a program in the March 1990 issue of Nibble that took care of this problem. At least one commercially available BASIC compiler , ZBASIC from Zedcor Systems, was known to support Double Lo-Res graphics. The composition of the Double Hi-Res screen is complicated. In addition to the 64:1 interleaving,
SECTION 10
#1732765460168912-523: A program and escape to the monitor or Applesoft command prompt. The use of Control + Open-Apple + Reset would force a reset at the expense of a small amount of memory corruption. Creative configuration of some soft switches at the monitor or at the prompt enabled immediate viewing of images from interrupted programs. Favorite scenes from games could be then recorded. On the Apple //e and //c, use of Control + Open-Apple + Reset would result in
988-413: A remainder of eight bytes left after the third row is stored. But these bytes are not left empty. Instead, they are used variously by motherboard firmware and expansion card firmware to store important information, mostly about external devices attached to the computer. This created problems when the user loaded a text or a lo-res graphics screen directly into video memory—replacing the current information in
1064-543: A rough NTSC , PAL , or SECAM composite video output (on non-NTSC machines before the Apple IIe this output is black-and-white). This enabled the computer to be connected to any composite video monitor conforming to the same standard for which the machine was configured. However the quality of this output was unreliable; the sync signaling was close enough for monitors, but did not conform closely enough to standards to be suitable for broadcast applications, or even input to
1140-614: A sequence of two or more turned-off horizontal pixels would display as black. There was no built-in command to extract the color of a pixel on the Hi-Res screen, or even to determine whether it was on at all. Several programs to determine if a pixel was lit were written, and a program to extract the pixel's true color was published in the April 1990 edition of Nibble . Just as there are two text screen pages (and two Lo-Res graphics pages), so there are also two Hi-Res pages, mapped one right after
1216-478: A simple power of two, such as eight, this would have only needed a sequence of bit shifts, which would have been much faster.) The Hi-Res mode on the Apple II was also peculiar for its 64:1 interleave factor. This was a direct result of Steve Wozniak's chip-saving design. The 64:1 factor resulted in a "Venetian blind" effect when loading a Hi-Res screen into memory from floppy disk (or sometimes RAM disk ) with
1292-435: A time. By contrast, the Apple offered eight colors for high-resolution graphics or actually six, since black and white were both repeated in the scheme. Each row of 280 pixels was broken up into 40 blocks of seven pixels each, represented in a single byte. Each pair of adjacent pixels generated a single color pixel via artifact color , resulting in an effective resolution of 140×192. The lower seven bits of each byte represented
1368-700: A video recorder, without intervening processing. The exception was the Extended Back version of the Bell & Howell branded black II Plus, which did provide proper video sync, as well as other media oriented features. In addition to the composite video output jack, the IIc, IIc Plus, and the II GS featured a two-row, 15-pin output . In the IIc and IIc Plus, this connector was a special-purpose video connector for adapters to digital RGB monitors and RF modulators . In
1444-442: Is a direct result of Apple founder Steve Wozniak 's chip -saving design. Many home computer systems of the time (as well as today's IBM PC compatibles ) had an architecture which assigned consecutive blocks of memory to non-consecutive rows on the screen in graphic modes, i.e. interleaving. Apple's text and graphics modes are based on two different interleave factors of 8:1 and 64:1. A second peculiarity of Apple II graphics,
1520-558: Is deferred to the operating system, with PRINT CHR$ ( 4 ) to avoid disconnecting it from BASIC. This is followed by a PRINT command to send a null character, because the newly assigned output device doesn't get initialised until the first character is sent to it—a common source of confusion. Once this was done, the Double Lo-Res screen was displayed and cleared, and the PLOT , HLIN , and VLIN commands worked normally with
1596-471: Is on, black if no pixels are on, or white if both pixels are on. By shifting the alignment of the pixels to the colorburst signal by 90°, two more colors can be displayed for a total of four possible colors. Low resolution allows for four bits per cycle, but repeats the bit pattern several times per low resolution pixel. Double high-resolution also displays four pixels per cycle. The blocky, but fast and colorful Lo-Res graphics mode (often known as GR after
SECTION 20
#17327654601681672-409: Is that while any pixel could be black or white, only pixels with odd X-coordinates could be green or orange. Likewise, only even-numbered pixels could be purple or blue. This is where the so-called "fringe benefit" comes in. The Apple video hardware interprets a sequence of two or more turned-on horizontal pixels as solid white, while a sequence of alternating pixels would display as color. Similarly,
1748-423: Is upgradeable to 512 kB, supporting a display resolution of 512×384 pixels at 16-bit color or 640×480 pixels at 8-bit color. The LC was commonly purchased with an Apple 12" RGB monitor which had a fixed resolution of 512×384 pixels and a form factor exactly matching the width of the LC chassis, giving the two together a near all-in-one appearance. An Apple 13" 640×480 Trinitron display was also available, but at
1824-573: The LC 475 was also known as the Performa 475 .) The last official "LC" was the Power Macintosh 5300/100 LC, which was released in August 1995 and discontinued in April 1996. The LC 580 was notable for being the last desktop 680x0 -based Macintosh. In mid-1993, Apple introduced the Macintosh LC 520 , which combined the traditional all-in-one form factor popularized by the compact Macintosh family, with
1900-490: The LC III , which used a 25 MHz version of the 68030 and had a higher memory limit of 36 MB, instead of the 10 MB of the LC and LC II. The LC III spawned a whole series of LC models, most of which later were sold both with the LC name to the education world and to consumers via traditional Apple dealers, and as Performa to the consumer market via electronics stores, and department stores such as Sears. (For example,
1976-477: The Macintosh II for half the price. Part of Apple's goal was to produce a machine that could be sold to school boards for the same price as an Apple II GS , a machine that was very successful in the education market. Not long after the Apple IIe Card was introduced for the LC, Apple officially announced the retirement of the II GS , as the company wanted to focus its sales and marketing efforts on
2052-472: The Macintosh IIsi (a new entry-level machine for the Macintosh II series ). Due to pent-up demand for a low-cost color Macintosh, the LC was a strong seller, and in 1992, the original Macintosh LC was succeeded by the LC II . The updated machine replaced the LC's Motorola 68020 processor with a 68030 and increased the soldered memory to 4 MB to make it more suitable for System 7 . However, it retained
2128-546: The Macintosh TV , a variant of the LC/Performa 520 that, while not branded as an LC, uses a black-coloured version of the LC 520's case, a logic board similar to the LC 550 and a TV tuner card. The compact Color Classic series shares many components, and is able to swap logic boards, with the early 500 series machines. The Power Macintosh 5200 LC was introduced in April 1995 with a PowerPC 603 CPU at 75 MHz as
2204-455: The eMac in 2002. Apple II graphics#High-Resolution (Hi-Res) graphics Apple II graphics debuted on the original Apple II in 1977 and were used throughout the computer series of the same name . The graphics consist of a 16 color low-resolution mode and a high-resolution mode where visuals are dependent on artifact color . The Apple IIe added "double" versions of each of these, most prominently "double high-resolution" with twice
2280-552: The BASIC command) was 40 pixels wide, corresponding to the 40 columns on the normal Apple II text screen. This mode could display either 40 rows of pixels with four lines of text at the bottom of the screen, or 48 rows of pixels with no text. Thus two pixels, vertically stacked, would fill the screen real estate corresponding to one character in text mode. The default for this was 40×40 graphics with text. There are 16 colors available for use in this mode (actually 15 in most cases, since
2356-476: The Double Hi-Res screen easier by making the first 8 KB file saved to /RAM store its data at 0x012000 to 0x013fff by design. Also, a second page was possible, and a second file (or a larger first file) would store its data at 0x014000 to 0x015fff . However, access via the ProDOS file system was slow and not well suited to page-flipping animation in Double Hi-Res, beyond the memory requirements. Despite
Macintosh LC - Misplaced Pages Continue
2432-659: The Hi-Res mode, just like in Lo-Res mode; however, this hid the bottom 32 lines, resulting in a 280 × 160 picture. The ROM routines could still modify the bottom, even though it was hidden. The Apple II's Hi-Res mode was peculiar even by the standards of the day. While the CGA card released four years after the Apple II on the IBM PC allowed the user to select one of two color sets for creating 320×200 graphics, only four colors (the background color and three drawing colors) were available at
2508-479: The II GS it was an output for an analog RGB monitor specially designed for the II GS . Numerous add-on video display cards were available for the Apple II series, such as the Apple 80-Column Text Card . There were PAL color cards which enabled color output on early PAL machines. Some other cards simply added 80-column and lowercase display capabilities, while others allowed output to an IBM CGA monitor through
2584-481: The IIe Card used in about half of schools' LCs. Introduced October 15, 1990: Macintosh LC family The Macintosh LC is a family of personal computers designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1990 to 1997. Introduced alongside the Macintosh IIsi and Macintosh Classic as part of a new wave of lower-priced Macintosh computers, the LC offered the same overall performance as
2660-525: The IIgs, RAM was demarcated into banks of 64K. For example, bank 0xE0 consisted of the range 0xE00000 through 0xE0FFFF. The Apple IIgs had a chip called the "Mega II" which allowed it to run most programs written for other Apple II computers. The IIgs architecture mapped the screen data to memory bank 0xE0. However, in IIe emulation mode, screen data was stored in bank 0x00. This presented a problem. The designers of
2736-479: The LC as too expensive, stating that consumers would prefer a $ 2,000 IBM PS/1 with VGA graphics to a $ 3,000 LC with color monitor. Although the Classic was more popular at first, by May 1992 the LC (560,000 sold) was outselling the Classic (1.2 million). More than half of LCs were used in homes and schools; Apple claimed that it helped the company regain educational market share lost to inexpensive PC clones , with
2812-477: The LC. The original Macintosh LC was introduced in October 1990, with updates in the form of the LC II and LC III in 1992 and early 1993. These early models all shared the same pizza box form factor , and were joined by the Macintosh LC 500 series of all-in-one desktop machines in mid-1993. A total of twelve different LC models were produced by the company, the last of which, the Power Macintosh 5300 LC ,
2888-455: The MSB for each block of seven pixels in this case. "Green" and "orange" pixels are represented the same way in memory; the difference is in the setting (or clearing) of the MSB. Another side effect is that drawing a pixel required dividing by seven. (For the Apple's 6502 processor, which had no division hardware, dividing by seven was relatively slow. If drawing a pixel had only required dividing by
2964-602: The Mega II included routines to copy most screen data to bank 0xE0 to ensure that Apple IIe-specific programs worked properly. But they forgot about the rarely used Text Screen 2. This was not discovered until the Mega II chips had made it into the IIgs machines. So the firmware designers added a CDA (classic desk accessory—accessible from the IIgs Desk Accessories menu, invoked with Apple + Control + Escape ) called "Alternate Display Mode", which performed
3040-526: The Text Screen 2 space unless the computer is instructed to load a program elsewhere in memory. By contrast, some commercial software programs for the Apple II used this memory space for various purposes, usually to display a help screen. Unlike the other Apple II machine types, the Apple II GS featured a processor (the 65816 ) which could address more than 64K of RAM without special tricks. In
3116-579: The commands HGR for the first screen or HGR2 for the second. The Applesoft BASIC ROM contained routines to clear either of two Hi-Res screens, draw lines and points, and set the drawing color. The ROM also contained routines to draw, erase, scale and rotate vector -based shapes. There were no routines to plot bitmapped shapes , draw circles and arcs , or fill a drawn area, but many programs were written; many appeared in Nibble and other Apple II magazines. The user could "switch in" four lines of text in
Macintosh LC - Misplaced Pages Continue
3192-473: The company wanted to focus its sales and marketing efforts on the LC. The original Macintosh LC was introduced in October 1990, with initial shipments to dealers following in December and January. It was replaced by Macintosh LC II , which was largely the same but was built around a Motorola 68030 processor. The LC uses a "pizza box" case with a Processor Direct Slot (PDS) but no NuBus slots. It has
3268-588: The complexities involved in programming and using this mode, there were numerous applications which made use of it. Double Hi-Res graphics were featured in business applications, educational software, and games alike. The Apple version of GEOS used Double Hi-Res, as did Broderbund 's paint program, Dazzle Draw . Beagle Bros provided a toolkit, Beagle Graphics, with routines for developing Double Hi-Res graphics in AppleSoft BASIC. Numerous arcade games, and games written for other computers, were ported to
3344-542: The education market to transition from aging Apple II models to the Macintosh platform instead of to the new low-cost IBM PC compatibles . Despite the LC's minimal video specs with a 12" monitor, any LC that supports the card can be switched into 560×384 resolution for better compatibility with the IIe's 280×192 High-Resolution graphics (essentially doubled) and 560x192 Double-High-Resolution graphics (doubled only vertically). Computer Gaming World in 1990 criticized
3420-545: The external floppy connector that was included on the IIsi and Classic was excluded from the LC, as it would save a couple of dollars for the connector. The integrated keyboard had also been dropped by this point; it was replaced with a newly designed keyboard called the Apple Keyboard II . The Macintosh LC was introduced to the market alongside the Macintosh Classic (a repackaging of the older Macintosh Plus ) and
3496-463: The firmware to reboot without clobbering memory above $ 0800 in either main or the auxiliary banks. It was possible to BSAVE these images to a floppy and create a slide show or a static image, because a soft reset did not clear the video memory on Hi-Res images. Soon after the introduction of the Apple IIe, the Apple engineers realized that the video bandwidth doubling circuitry used to implement 80-column text mode could be easily extended to include
3572-406: The graphics screen (any type) without erasing it, displaying the text screen, clearing the last key pressed, or accessing different memory banks. For example, one could switch from mixed graphics and text to an all-graphics display by accessing location 0xC052 (49234). Then, to go back to mixed graphics and text, one would access 0xC053 (49235). All Apple II machines featured an RCA jack providing
3648-612: The holes with what was there at save-time. Disk head recalibration was a common side-effect, when the disk controller found its memory—in a screen hole—of where the head was, suddenly not to match the header data of the track that it was reading. The programmers at Apple responded by programming ProDOS so the user could not directly load a file (screen data, or otherwise) into 0x400-0x7FF. ProDOS programs to properly load data to this portion of memory soon arose; several appeared in Nibble magazine . Having two screens for displaying video images
3724-508: The horizontal resolution in 16 colors. Internally, Apple II graphics modes are idiosyncratic and do not use a linear frame buffer . The graphics modes introduced with the 1986 Apple II GS split from those of previous Apple II models and have more in common with the Atari ST and Amiga . The graphic modes of the Apple II series were distinct even by the standards of the late 1970s and early 1980s. A notable peculiarity of these modes
3800-442: The low end of the market, where profits were thin, but instead concentrate on the high end and higher profit margins. He illustrated the concept using a graph showing the price/performance ratio of computers with low-power, low-cost machines in the lower left and high-power high-cost machines in the upper right. The "high-right" goal became a mantra among the upper management, who said "fifty-five or die", referring to Gassée's goal of
3876-503: The machine should have video capabilities and processing power similar to the Macintosh IIci , which was also under development at the time. In early 1989, the prototype was shown Apple executives, who liked the project but felt it was not different enough from existing models to justify further effort, and the project was shut down. Around the same time, Apple CEO John Sculley was facing public scrutiny for declining sales that
SECTION 50
#17327654601683952-608: The machine's graphics modes. Since the signal was present at the auxiliary slot connector which housed the Extended 80 Column Card, Annunciator 3 on the game port was overloaded to activate double resolution graphics when both 80 column video and a graphics mode was selected. Replacement motherboards (called the Revision B motherboard) were offered free of charge to owners of the Apple IIe to upgrade their machines with double resolution graphics capabilities. For this reason, machines with
4028-466: The main 40-column text screen (0x400 through 0x7FF), with each byte storing two pixels one on top of the other. The Lo-Res graphics mode offered built-in commands to clear the screen, change the drawing color, plot individual pixels, plot horizontal lines, and plot vertical lines. There was also a "SCRN" function to extract the color stored in any pixel, one lacking in the other modes. A block of 128 bytes stores three rows of 40 characters each, with
4104-670: The next two years, the 520 , 550 , 575 , and 580 , with the 520 and 550 both using different speeds of the Motorola 68030 , and the 575 and 580 sharing the 33 MHz Motorola 68LC040 processor but differing on the rest of the hardware. All of these computers were also sold to the consumer market through department stores under the Macintosh Performa brand, with similar model numbers. The LC models, in particular, became very popular in schools for their small footprint, lack of cable clutter, and durability. Apple also released
4180-465: The original LC's 16-bit system bus and 10 MB RAM limit (if 4 MB SIMMs was used, the extra 2 MB of RAM would be inaccessible), making its performance roughly the same as the earlier model. The main benefit of the 030 processor in the LC II was the ability to use System 7's virtual memory feature. In spite of this, the new model sold even better than the LC. In early 1993, Apple introduced
4256-438: The original Revision A motherboard are extremely rare. Subsequent Apple II models also implement the double resolution graphics modes. This was an 80×40 (or 80×48) graphics mode available only on 80-column machines. Under Applesoft BASIC, enabling this mode required three steps. First, enabling 80 column mode with PR# 3 , Then enabling double-density graphics with POKE 49246 , 0 , followed by GR . Note that PR#3
4332-426: The other in memory. The second Hi-Res screen was mapped to 0x4000-0x5FFF , or 16384–24575 in decimal. IBM's CGA supported only one graphics page at a time. This simplified animation on the Apple II, because a programmer could display one page while altering the other (hidden) page. Provided that the reset vector had not been occluded by an actively running program, invocation of Control + Reset would interrupt
4408-456: The pattern 0xA0A0 being written sparsely across all memory, including Hi-Res pages 1 and 2 at $ 2000 – $ 5FFF . Corruption by these artifacts could be edited out using a paint package. On the enhanced Apple //e, Hi-Res video memory could be preserved without artifact by the following sequence: pressing Control + Closed-Apple + Reset , and feathering the Reset key up then down for
4484-464: The pixels in the individual rows are stored in an unusual way: each pixel was half its usual width and each byte of pixels alternated between the first and second bank of 64KB memory. Where three consecutive on pixels were white, six were now required in double high-resolution. Effectively, all pixel patterns used to make color in Lo-Res graphics blocks could be reproduced in Double Hi-Res graphics. The ProDOS implementation of its RAM disk made access to
4560-415: The pixels, while the most significant bit controlled the phase offset for that block of pixels, altering the color that was displayed. While this feature allows six colors onscreen simultaneously, it does have one unpleasant side effect. For example, if a programmer tried to draw a blue line on top of a green one, portions of the green line would change to orange. This is because drawing the blue line sets
4636-475: The same price as an Apple II GS . It was designed for inexpensive manufacturing, with five major components that robots could assemble. The computer had a $ 2,400 list price; it and the new $ 600 12-inch color display were $ 3,500 less expensive than the Macintosh II. Not long after the Apple IIe Card was introduced for the LC, Apple quietly removed the II GS from its price list, forcibly retiring it, as
SECTION 60
#17327654601684712-590: The same resolution). Overall, general performance of the machine was disappointing due to the crippling data bus bottleneck, making it run far slower than the 16 MHz 68020-based Macintosh II from 1987, which had an identical processor but ran almost twice as fast. 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
4788-459: The single PDS slot. If the single expansion slot was a limitation, multifunction cards were available combining Ethernet functionality with an MMU or FPU socket. The Apple IIe Card for the PDS slot was offered in a bundle with education models of the LCs. The card allowed the LC to emulate an Apple IIe . The combination of a low-cost color Macintosh with Apple IIe compatibility was intended to encourage
4864-508: The so-called "color fringes", is yet another by-product of Wozniak's design. While occurring in all graphics modes, they play a crucial role in the Hi-Resolution or Hi-Res mode. Reading a value from, or writing any value to, certain memory addresses controlled so called " soft switches ". The value read or written does not matter, what counts is the access itself. This allowed the user to do many different things including displaying
4940-619: The soft switches already set. "Screen holes" occur in the Hi-Res mode just as they do in the Lo-Res and text modes. Nothing was usually stored there, though they were occasionally used to store code in self-displaying executable pictures. Another notable exception is the Fotofile (FOT) format inherited by ProDOS from Apple SOS , which included metadata in the 121st byte (the first byte of the first hole) indicating how it should be displayed (color mode, resolution), or converted to other graphics formats. Finally, another quirk of Wozniak's design
5016-565: The speed of software running. Although Alternate Display Mode remained an option in the CDA menu, the machine would automatically detect the presence of Text Screen 2 and enabled hardware shadowing of Text Screen 2 into bank 0xE0 on ROM 3 machines. When the Apple II came out, a new mode had been added for 280×192 high-resolution graphics. Like Lo-Res mode, hi-res mode had two screens; in Applesoft BASIC , either one could be initialized, using
5092-552: The task for the few programs that needed it, at the expense of a little CPU time. It could be turned on and off at whim, but reverted to off when the computer was reset. Improved compatibility with Text Screen 2 was addressed with the introduction of the Apple IIGS with 1 megabyte of RAM (better known as the ROM 3) in 1989. The new motherboard provided hardware shadowing of Text Screen 2, at no cost to CPU time, therefore not affecting
5168-465: The technology platform of the LC III. It became Apple's mainstream education-market Macintosh, featuring a built-in 14" CRT display , CD-ROM drive, and stereo speakers. The case is similar to the recently-introduced Macintosh Color Classic , but considerably larger and heavier due to its larger screen and a bulging midsection to house the larger electronics. Four LC 500-series models were released over
5244-497: The time, with "LC" appended to the end. The 5300 LC is the final model branded as an "LC" and was on sale until early 1997. Its replacement was the Power Macintosh 5500 , which continued the practice of building education-specific models but without distinctive branding (except for the UK-only Power Macintosh ONE/225 ). The company did not produce another education model with its own brand name until
5320-562: The two shades of gray are identical in brightness on original Apple hardware, except on the Apple II GS ). Note that six of the colors are identical to the colors available in High-Resolution (Hi-Res) mode. The colors were created by filling the pixel with a repeating 4-bit binary pattern in such a manner that each bit group fit within one cycle of the Colorburst reference signal. Color displays would interpret this pattern as
5396-546: The x coordinate range extended to 0 though 79. Only the Apple IIc and IIgs supported this in firmware. Using Double Lo-Res mode from BASIC on a IIe was much more complicated without adding an & command extension to BASIC. There were two major problems when using this mode in Applesoft. First, once the mode was activated, access to the printer became complicated, due to the 80 column display firmware being handled like
5472-414: Was an integral part of the Apple II family design. Accessing memory location 0xC055 (49237) displayed "Screen 2" regardless of how the other "soft switches" were set. The text and Lo-Res Screen 2 space ranged from 0x800 (2048) to 0xBFF (3071). The interleaving is exactly the same as for the main screen ("Screen 1"). Applesoft BASIC programs are loaded at 801h (2049) by default; therefore, they will occupy
5548-452: Was blamed in large part on the company's lack of an inexpensive Macintosh computer. Amidst promises to the press and investors that a new low-cost Macintosh was on the way, he revived the Spin project with the goal of creating the lowest-priced Macintosh that was possible. Gassée pleaded with the team to keep color as a feature of the project, and from then on the product was known internally by
5624-625: Was not powerful enough to display color graphics with acceptable performance. By April 1989, it was decided to split the project into three computers—the Macintosh IIsi, which would have the more powerful 68030 CPU; the Macintosh Classic, which would use a black & white display, and the LC, which would use the 68020 CPU from the Macintosh II. To keep the price down, Apple cut some corners on performance and features, and redesigned components to be less expensive. For example,
5700-415: Was on sale until early 1997. After Apple co-founder Steve Jobs left Apple in 1985, product development was handed to Jean-Louis Gassée , formerly manager of Apple France. Gassée consistently pushed the Apple product line in two directions, towards more "openness" in terms of expandability and interoperability, and towards higher price. Gassée long argued that Apple should not market their computers towards
5776-547: Was to produce a low-cost system in the vein of the Apple II , a product that Cheung had previously worked on at Apple as the head of design. The machine would, in effect, be a significantly smaller Macintosh II with built-in video, no NuBus expansion, and a matching RGB monitor similar to the one introduced with the Apple IIGS the year prior. The project changed direction during development, with executives dictating that
#167832