Orangey456!
About Blog Stuff Gallery Links Other

Rambling about an LC III (for MARCHintosh)

Published 31st March 2023

Topics: Technology, Computers

LC III set up at the far corner of a desk turned on and connected to a 22 inch BenQ 1080p monitor, displaying System 7.5 with some folders on the hard drive open. The logo for MARCHintosh is added to this picture, which consists of a Happy Mac icon (from older Macintosh) with the Apple rainbow stripe and a pixel shamrock next to it. Below that is text in the Chicago font with the MARCHintosh hashtag.

Back in October 2022, I found a fairly good deal on a fully recapped Macintosh LC III for just under £90 on eBay; so I decided to take the plunge and bid on it, not expecting anything to happen. Surprisingly enough, I won the bid! The seller mentioned in the description that they originally brought it as fully recapped from a different seller, but I think had trouble getting a particular SCSI hard drive emulator to work... or something like that?

Closeup of the logic board on the LC III, which has had its old electrolytic capacitors replaced with tantalum capcitors. Alongside the 68030 CPU, the socket for a 68882 FPU is also populated, along with additional SIMM for system RAM and one for VRAM as well

Other image sizes: 800px 1024px 1440px

The main catch with this (from what I can tell), is that it came with no peripherals whatsoever (keyboard, mouse, video adapter, etc.) so I had to find those separately myself. I got an Apple Desktop Bus Mouse II a few weeks after getting the machine, but I didn't get a keyboard until just last week Friday (an AppleDesign Keyboard for those curious). Luckily as an alternative option, devices like the ADB Wombat exist which allow you to use a USB keyboard and mouse over ADB (or the other way round), if you can't find a good deal on the older ADB peripherals.

Three different DB15 to VGA adapters placed on a desk. From left to right; the first one is a custom made one, with both connectors seperated at different ends on a short cable. Then there's a Lindy adapter, which is more compact with both connectors together (DB15 on one end and VGA on the other) and there's a Lindy branding sticker added to the adapter itself. Finally, the one the right is unbranded with a similar compact all-in-one design, but includes a set of ten dipswitches for configuring the video mode you want to use.
The two DB15 adapters I got that didn't work with the one that did (3rd one on right)

Other image sizes: 800px 1024px 1440px

And then there's the monitor adapters! I was already aware that many early Macintoshes can be quite picky with DB15 adapters, as I think they may output a different video mode regular PC monitors can't accept. I ended up going through two different DB15 to VGA adapters before finally getting one that worked with dip-switches on it. I also did come across some problems where the machine either didn't turn on at all or wouldn't chime, much like what the seller mentioned. Reconnecting the power supply seemed to fix that issue (maybe it wasn't grounded properly? Idk).


Past experience with 68K Macs

As of right now, this LC III is the only working 68K Mac I have in my collection. I actually used to have the Performa version of this (the Performa 450) with the later case design similar to the LC/Performa 475. It was one of the first few computers in my collection, which I got from a family member. Unfortunately at the time, I didn't really have the knowledge and tools (e.g. blank floppy disks) to get software onto it. As a result, I ended up letting my parents throw it out, which I still really regret to this day. :(

A Macintosh Peforma 450 with the newer style case design displayed on a clothing drawer with the Performa Plus displayed paired on top of it. An eMac is also visible to the left of the Performa, along with a Roberts boombox peeking out as well. There's also two random CDs and a green audio cassette sitting on top of the Performa Plus display... for some reason
Performa 450 with the Performa Plus Display: taken in November 2012

Other image sizes: 800px 1024px 1440px

 About this Macintosh screen opened on the Performa 450 I used to have. It was running System B1-7.1P2 and had 4 MB of RAM (from onboard the logic board) and around 2 MB free in the system.
About this Mac dialog on the Performa 450: taken in August 2011

Other image sizes: 800px 1024px

In terms of other machines, I do also have a PowerBook Duo 280c that I got at a car boot sale in 2013, which was briefly working for a little while when I got it, but currently doesn't turn on now. It probably may need a recap, which I currently don't have the skills/confidence to do myself. I'll go into more detail about this laptop when I eventually work on the 'Stuff' section of this site, but I would really love to get that PowerBook working someday, as it's a really unique series of small sub-notebooks (and I really like small laptops/desktops too).

PowerBook Duo 280c placed on a garden decking board during a summer late evening, with various smaller devices also placed around it. There's a Sony Ericsson T610 phone, GoPro Hero 3 White in the Frame mount and a Gameboy Color in the teal colour. A red and yellow flower is also visible in front of the laptop too.

Other image sizes: 800px 1024px 1440px


More on the LC

That of course brings us to today with this LC III. Unlike the Performa (which was still in a fairly stock configuration) this one is kitted out with the 68882 co-processor installed, along with an additional 8 MB RAM (to go with the 4 MB onboard) and more VRAM as well. It does still have the original 80 MB Quantum ProDrive ELS hard drive installed and does still work! I'm definitely planning on getting one of the SCSI drive emulators (BlueSCSI, PiSCSI or both) at some point, which will make transferring files to it a lot easier. I've been using just floppy disks to get software and files over, using Mac OS 9 on my iMac G4 (which I'm also writing this article on) with an external USB floppy drive.

Screenshot of the About this Mac dialog taken on the LC III. It shows that it's running System Software B1-7.5, with 12 MB of RAM installed and 10 MB free in the system. Behind that, a couple of finder windows are open. The background was set to a bright yellow one, with various colourful, small abstract shapes surrounding it (like circles, squares and rectangles)

View in: GIF PNG

Because I didn't have an ADB keyboard until just recently, I've only been able to use this LC III with just a mouse. Luckily, System 7 can be used for the most part with only a mouse, along with the Key Caps application to input text when needed. Though this won't work in all cases; games like Malestrom (which was included on the LC III I got) require keyboard input and some applications can hide the menu bar when inputting text, meaning you couldn't copy and paste from Key Caps.

Other than those SCSI solutions, I would also like to try and get networking working on this as well. I'd imagine finding a PDS Ethernet card would be quite difficult (and maybe expensive), but thankfully there are other solutions out there. The one I'd be most interested in using would be the SCSI Ethernet emulation with the PiSCSI, but I think there are also some modern LocalTalk to Ethernet adapters you could use also. Regardless, I've definitely been having a lot of fun using this LC III and I'm excited to tinker with it more for sure :D

LC III running the Snooper 2.0 diagnostic utility on System 7.5. The computer is shown here running the RAM test of the utility; testing both the internal and external RAM installed with different binary patterns in sequence. This is visualised with an illustration of internal RAM chips and an Expansion SIMM.
Running the Snooper 2.0 diagnostic program on the LC III

Other image sizes: 800px 1024px 1440px


Edit (2023/04/26): I had also been working on a video demonstrating this Macintosh, though I unfortunately didn't have enough time to finish it during MARCHintosh. Regardless, I spent a little bit of more time on it and have included it here on this website! (a good opportunity to see what videos could look like on this site, once I've sorted out web hosting)

Link to the earlier teaser video I did for the LC III video. The thumbnail is a low resolution screenshot from the video, showing me typing text in SimpleText under System 7.5 on that computer. The text isn't legiable from this thumbnail, due to the low resolution, but it says "Hello!!! This is a Macintosh LC III.". A blue rounded button is added to the thumbnail, which says "teaser video" in a pixel style font Link to the full finished video. The thumbnail is a closeup of the front case of the LC III, showing the rainbow Apple logo and Garamound font branding on the left side. The computer is placed on a desk which has an LED strip light behind it set to green. Other items visible include a 15 inch 720p TV on the left and an iMac G4 to the right. A purple rounded button is added to the thumbnail, which says "full video" in a pixel style font

Additional Notes:

#MARCHintosh Event Logo concept and design (seen in header) by Javier Rivera

YouTube: JavMaster | Twitter: @javmast3r

Learn more about MARCHintosh here


Edit 2 (2023/04/21): Added a Cinepak encode of the teaser vid for playback on old computers. Because... why not?

back to blog page...
Orangey456 web button Made With Pride button Site Best Viewed With a Computer Monitor (web button) Trans Rights Now! (web button) Keep the Web Free: Say No to Web3 (web button) NFTs? No Fucking Thanks (web button)
(C) 2021-23 Alex T.
Content here is CC-BY-NC 4.0 expect otherwise noted