Macintosh
Performa 450 aka LC III
What was the smallest desktop Mac prior to the Mac mini? Apple's
LC series, which measured just under 3" tall, although it had as big a footprint as four minis.
The LC III was a significantly faster computer
than the LC II. Running at 25 MHz on a newly designed motherboard with a 32-bit data bus, the LC III offered nearly the same performance as the IIci and twice the performance of the LC and LC II.
One big difference was that the LC III used an extended version of the LC PDS slot - most cards were designed for 16-bit access, so adding a video card or ethernet port made the computer run about 1/6 less efficiently than the IIci.
Significantly faster than the LC II, the LC III also broke the 10 MB RAM barrier, allowing expansion to 36 MB. This was the first Mac to use 72-pin SIMMs.
The LC III supports 16-bit video on a 640 x 480 monitor without a VRAM upgrade
if you select the 640 x 400 pixel mode under Options in the Monitors control panel and then restart the computer.
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