March 23, 1992: The “headless” Macintosh LC II arrives, wooing value-oriented clients with a beguiling mixture of up to date internals and price range pricing.
Designed to take up minimal area beneath a monitor (offered individually), the Mac LC II is destined to turn into successful. Looking back, the entry-level machine is roughly analogous to right now’s Mac mini.
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Macintosh LC II: A price range Mac
The Mac LC II wasn’t Apple’s first “pizza field” pc to come back and not using a monitor. It regarded very like its predecessor, the first-gen Mac LC (for “Low Price”), which Apple launched in October 1990 (and discontinued the identical day the LC II got here on the scene).
The unique LC was a closely crippled pc that used the previous Motorola 68020 chip that Apple retired with the Mac II. Nevertheless, the LC offered 500,000 items inside its first yr, which made it an enormous success.
A sequel to the Mac LC
Photograph: Jonathan Zufi
The LC II served as a worthy sequel. It didn’t change a lot when it comes to the method, which was clearly working. However it packed extra energy — and got here with a lower cost tag. At a time when Macs had been, adjusted for inflation, much more costly than right now, the LC II value simply $1,699 for a base mannequin with 4MB of RAM and a 40MB arduous drive. Nonetheless, that’s $3,779 in 2024 {dollars}.
This was $800 cheaper than its predecessor, though with each fashions you needed to shell out further for a monitor. (A more-expensive model with an 80MB arduous drive ran $1,849.)
Mac LC II and System 7
Photograph: Jonathan Zufi
As a substitute of the 16-MHz 68020 CPU of the unique, the LC II boasted a Motorola 68030 CPU. This supplied an on-board reminiscence administration unit, 256K information cache and 32-bit information path.
The low-cost machine (comparatively talking) let customers faucet into the digital reminiscence of Mac’s System 7 working system. Apple thought-about {that a} huge benefit on the time — and an essential promoting level.
Regardless of these enhancements, many velocity checks discovered that the LC II ran a bit slower than its predecessor.
One other ‘headless’ hit for Apple
Nonetheless, the pc received reviewers’ suggestions. The LC II wasn’t a pc you’d purchase when you had been searching for a top-of-the-range Macintosh with each function beneath the solar. As a substitute, it provided budget-conscious clients an improved, entry-level machine that was extra inexpensive.
In the event you went to highschool within the early Nineteen Nineties, and used a Mac in your classroom, this might effectively have been it.
Do you keep in mind the Macintosh LC II? Go away your feedback beneath.
The images of the Macintosh LC II had been supplied by Jonathan Zufi. His guide, Iconic: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation, is accessible on Amazon.
Photograph: Jonathan Zufi
