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From: mystone@sol.engin.umich.edu (Dean Yu)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: 16Mhz  why in the world....
Message-ID: <42340b22.a590@mag.engin.umich.edu>
Date: 23 Mar 89 23:13:00 GMT
References: <430095@hpcea.CE.HP.COM>
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Reply-To: mystone@sol.engin.umich.edu (Dean Yu)
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In article <430095@hpcea.CE.HP.COM> twakeman@hpcea.CE.HP.COM (Teriann Wakeman) writes:
>Anyone know why Apple is bothering with 16Meg 68030s?????????
>The result is essentually a MacII with a cheaper upgrade path. All the timing
>comparisons I have seen show Mac SE/30 / IIx / IIcx to be in the same speed
>league as the Mac II. 
>
> [.....]
>
>Why in the world didn't the SE/30 & IIcx come out with 33Mhz 68030s??????
>What about a second processor to handle the screen?? Third party
>manufacturers seem to be able to build 33Mhz 68030 accellerator boards that
>work with the newer Macs using Mac software. Why does Apple's R&D hesitate
>where companies with comparitively pico R&D budgets can do it?????
>

  From what I understand, there are a few reasons why Apple hasn't gone with
a faster clock rate.

      -  Faster clock rates require faster RAM memory.  And the price of
        of are ungodly.  If people are complaining about Apple's prices
        now, think of how much they would charge for a machine with <100ns
        memory chips.

      -  The circuit boards in the current Macs aren't capable of handling
        the increased speed.  I'm not an hardware expert, so I don't know
        why this is so, and how the 3rd party accelerators work, but I'm
        led to believe that it would require a complete redesign of the
        logic board to support at faster processor.

      -  Upgrades.  If the second reason is true, then Apple wouldn't
        be able to offer upgrades (II -> IIx and SE -> SE/30).  Apple
        didn't offer an upgrade for the Plus to the SE because they
        redesigned the logic board to get that 10 to 15% speed increase.
        I suppose that if they came out with a Mac IIex or whatever that
        ran at 33Mhz, they wouldn't give you an upgrade option either.

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Dean Yu                            | E-mail: mystone@{sol,caen}.engin.umich.edu
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