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From: jcav@quads.uchicago.edu (john  cavallino)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware,comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: A Classic Dead End?
Summary: I agree
Keywords: Classic,System 7.0
Message-ID: <1991May17.162934.29993@midway.uchicago.edu>
Date: 17 May 91 16:29:34 GMT
References: <1991May17.153503.21947@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
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In article <1991May17.153503.21947@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> bgrubb@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu writes:
>Even though Apple says that sys 7.0 can run on only 2 meg the consensis
>is that to run more then one program at a time you will need at least
>3 meg. This leaves the Classic owner in trouble as far as memory expansion
>is conserned because the Classic Maxes out at 4 meg. Hopefully Apple is
>planning a memmory card that allows the Classic to use the new 2 meg simms.
>This would give the Classic a maximum of 6 meg(the 1 meg on the card and
>the two new slots) and this is within the limits of the 68000 with its maximum
>of 8 meg.

The 68000 can address a maximum of 16mb.  The Classic will never allow
more than 4mb of RAM for hardware reasons (the ROM starts at the 4mb boundary
and there can be no MMU to allow for discontiguous RAM, never mind ROM code to
understand how to handle that).

{$SETC _soapbox_=TRUE}

I think that the Classic as currently designed was a bad move on Apple's part.
Yes, I know they are selling as many as they can build, but they are saddling
people with a design that has no more room to grow.  What they should have
done is put the modified guts of the LC into the compact case (analogous to
the SE/30, which is a IIx in the compact case) and sold THAT as the Classic.
At the very least, they should have used the Portable's memory design, which
allows up to 9 mb of RAM.  It would have been especially nice if the Classic
had had a 16mhz clock speed, but I heard that 16mhz 68000s can't be had in
the quantities Apple would need for the Classic production rate.

{$SETC _soapbox_=FALSE}


-- 
John Cavallino                      |     EMail: jcav@midway.uchicago.edu
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