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Home > Vintage Computers Section > LC III
  I purchased my LC III from a Canadian seller on eBay in 2000. It was a real pain getting it through customs at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. It was new, old stock. This means that although the LC III was manufactured in 1994, the computer had never been removed from the box. This computer is in mint condition. I picked up a new 15-inch PC monitor to use with it from a department store. 15 inches is the maximum monitor size the LC III can support . The LC III needs an adaptor in order to use a PC monitor because the connector will not fit the monitor port and the refresh rate is different. I use a Belkin PC to Mac adapter to convert the signal to Macintosh standard. The adapter has 9 dip switches. Belkin's manual specifies suggestions concerning how the dip switches should be set according to the general type of monitor being used. It took a while to get it to work right. If the switches are not set properly, you can end up with a shaky screen. After the dip switches have been changed, a restart is necessary. I discovered that little trick after spending thirty minutes trying to get the monitor to work. In desperation, I took my best guess at the dip switch settings and restarted the computer. To my amazement, it worked. Apple IIe in an LC III: The LC III only has one expansion slot, a PDS or "Processor Direct Slot". You are stuck with only one card at a time. My LC III's PDS is filled with an Apple IIe Card. Other cards that could be used in the PDS include modem cards, Ethernet cards, and accelerators. Just like the LC III, I picked up the Apple IIe Card as new, old stock on eBay. It was still shrink wrapped. It came with all the install disks and manuals. The Apple IIe Card turns the LC III into a functioning Apple IIe. The advantage to this setup is that it allows for a direct path from the modern world to the Apple II world. Without this bridge, it would be much harder for me to download Apple II programs off the Internet to run in my real Apple IIe. I use the card for conversion purposes only. The LC III's monitor has too much resolution for Apple II games. They look funny because they were designed to run on the low-resolution composite signal of the Apple II.  LC III with the top off. The Apple IIe Card is to the far left side of the motherboard immediately behind the pink PRAM battery. The black rectangle is the hard drive. The silver rectangle next to it is the floppy disk drive. The Apple IIe Card instructions state that it must be installed by an Apple Certified Technician or the warranty will be voided. The reasoning behind this is because it requires removing the motherboard. I did it myself. Apple no longer officially supports the LC III. The motherboard is held in place by tiny plastic tabs pressing against the jigsaw-shaped board edge. Before the motherboard can be removed, it is necessary to disconnect the power supply, hard drive, floppy drive, fan, and speaker. Once the motherboard is out, the card can be pressed into the PDS. The hole at the back of the computer casing has to be punched out for the card's disk drive/joystick connector to fit. That is why the board has to be removed for installation. It is necessary to slide the board back in at a slight angle to allow the connector to line up just right with the hole. Once the connector is lined up, the board can be dropped horizontal and snapped back into place. My LC III has an 80 MB internal hard drive and a 500 MB Data Place external hard drive. The 80 MB drive is partitioned into a 10 MB ProDOS partition and a 70 MB MacOS 7.5.5 partition. The ProDOS partition is used in conjunction with the Apple IIe card and acts as the startup drive for the virtual Apple IIe.
The LC III has a max RAM of 36 MB with a 32 MB SIMM and 4 MB on the motherboard. My LC III has 20 MB RAM, a 16 MB chip with 4 MB on the board. Not bad for a 1993-94 computer considering that the original 1998 Bondi Blue iMac shipped with 32 MB RAM (although total RAM possible in the Bondi is 128 MB). I could make a good argument that the LC III is the best of the 68030 Macs. Some would argue for the SE/30 or the Macintosh IIfx, but this is probably more a matter of preference than anything else. Although the LC III is only partially expandable, the one slot is all I really needed and is in fact the reason why I purchased the computer in the first place. I needed a reasonably priced Macintosh with a PDS to use with an Apple IIe Card to help me convert disk images into Apple II floppies. The LC or LC II could have easily performed this job, but those Macs are a far cry from the LC III due to their crippled 16MHz/16-bit data bus. The LC III is amazingly snappy for a computer of only 25 MHz. It is also not a bad low-powered Internet surfer. It runs rings around just about every low end Mac of its day. It is a joy to use and is perfect for System 7.5.5. |
I also have a SCSI Zip drive hooked up to the LC III. It is funny when you consider that the Zip drive is 100 MB while my hard drive is only 80 MB. Unlike a 1.4 MB floppy, the Zip drive is just as fast as the internal 80 MB SCSI hard drive. It is really nice to be able to move just about anything useful to an LC III from my iMac on a Zip. Floppies are small and slow. I have about 90 MB of Apple IIe games and applications in disk image format stored on a Zip. This equates to hundreds of programs. I have only had time to convert about a hundred of them. The Apple IIe Card has a split connector for a joystick and a 5.25 disk drive. I use the 5.25 disk drive to convert disk images into real Apple II floppies.