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From: bmartin@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Brian Martin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: LC comments
Message-ID: <11745@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
Date: 3 Mar 91 23:48:20 GMT
Organization: Martin Information Systems, Ltd.
Lines: 42

My wife just bought a Mac IILC, and is very pleased with it. She bought
it for $2,450, at the local university, and got the IILC with 2MB
RAM/40MB disk, 13" RGB monitor, and monitor stand. She bought it
because she was tired of competing with me for time on my IIci. I added
two 1MB SIMMS to its 2 SIMM slots (left over after adding 4 4MB SIMMS
to my IIci). Performance is slow but acceptable. The big performance
hit seems to come from the internal disk drive, a slow Conner 40MB. The
system is a lot peppier when it boots from my external HP-650 drive. Of
course, I could always go to a third-party 68040 upgrade card if
performance becomes a real problem.

There are several areas where Apple cut costs that have proven to be a
real annoyance.

1.  There is no power connector for the monitor on the back of the
IILC. Because of this, we've inadvertently left the monitor on for long
periods of time, not knowing that it was on and wasting lots of
electricity. Perhaps Apple didn't realize this, but omitting the power
connector is an anti-environmental decision. Now I have to buy a third
party hardware device to help us save electricity.

2.  The shutdown menu item doesn't turn the IILC off. You have to
physically turn the power switch in the back of the machine to the off
position. That's real annoying, especially for someone who has only
worked with Mac II series computers. I've heard that Apple isn't
positioning the IILC as a mac II, but that's not apparent from the name
(mac IILC) nor from its configuration.

3. Expensive VRAM kit. They're asking a lot of $$ for 256K of VRAM. Is
it really that expensive? Are there any third party manufacturers with
plans to bring out VRAM upgrade kits?

4. 40MB is way too small. I'm planning to replace it with a larger
120MB drive from APS. Apple really should have give us an option for a
larger internal drive in the IILC.

 
---
Brian K. Martin, M.D.
Martin Information Systems, Ltd.
Honolulu, Hawaii
Please send replies to martin@medix.pegasus.com