In today’s article, we will look at the quintessential Macintosh II, the Mac IIci. The Macintosh IIci went on sale in 1989, well after the original Mac II was introduced in 1987. There were also several models introduced after the IIci, some faster, though overall the IIci may be the best all-around model of the line.
The IIci as seen above came in a compact yet expandable desktop form factor which could also be turned on its side and used as a tower if needed. The four small rubber “feet” can also be relocated to the side if the user wants to orient the IIci vertically.
The case for the IIci used Apple’s “snow white” case design. As you can see, mine, unfortunately, is quite yellowed, except for one rectangle on the front where previously a sticker was placed. This case uses a “toolless” design as well so with few exceptions this case can be opened and disassembled without a screwdriver due to the use of plastic tabs. Thankfully unlike some models, these cases have held up fairly well though caution is still advised when opening.
The two buttons in the lower left-hand corner are reset and the interrupt switches. On the right side of the case, we have a single 1.44MB floppy drive and two LED indicator lights. The top right is for HDD activity and the bottom right LED is the power indicator light.
On the rear of the case if you look at the top you can see the two plastic tabs that latch the cover of the case on. On the far left we have a standard three-prong power connector as well as a power inlet above this for connecting a monitor.
Starting from the lower left side we have a power button though the IIci can also be soft powered on via a keyboard power-on key. The power button can also be depressed and turned with a screwdriver to lock it in the power-on position. to the right of this, we have an external floppy drive connector, a SCSI connector for connecting external devices such as hard drives or CD-ROM drives, etc. Next is the video port for the built-in video. The on-board video for the IIci uses a shared framebuffer meaning that the video does use a small amount (about 320k) of system memory from the first RAM bank, which can affect performance negatively under certain situations. Next are the printer and modem ports followed by a 1/8 audio jack for connecting external speakers and last we have two ADB ports for connecting things like a keyboard and mouse.
Next, let’s take the lid off and take a look inside.
we can start in the upper right-hand corner with the power supply.
Depending on the maker of the PSU the reliability can vary. Most Macintoshs I’ve come across from this era are either dead from leaked capacitors or dead power supplies. The GE power supply in this Macintosh IIci is still functional.
These power supplies connect directly to the motherboard underneath and basically sit on the connector.
At first, I installed this rather chunky 540MB SCSI hard drive which although mechanical like the stock drives you would have found on this Mac, was much larger than their 40MB and 80MB size.
I eventually did decide to remove the older 540MB drive for a whopping 2GB SD2SCSI solution as you can see above.
Let’s take a look at the motherboard before we check out the lone expansion card I have installed.
1 ) CPU – The CPU is the Motorola 68030 running at 25MHz as well as running on a 32-bit bus motherboard meaning that, unlike some Macintoshes that featured a 32-bit CPU and a 16-bit bus, nothing was holding the CPU back in the IIci. Despite this, some games can still struggle even at 320×200 resolution such as Wolfenstein3D though I have been told there is a patch to improve performance on a 68030.
2 ) FPU – The IIci also has a math co-processor on the board in the form of the Motorola 68882. I’m not completely sure if like on the PC, this is underutilized or if more games on the Mac support it.
3 ) RAM – Like many classic Macs the IIci can take much more RAM than was practical for the time. Typically a IIci of the time would have had 1-4MB of memory installed but due to its 32-bit clean ROM and 8 memory slots the IIci can accept a total of 128MB of memory via 30-pin SIMMs. I maxed my memory out though this is far more than any program would need.
4 ) Cache PDS slot – The PDS slot located near the center of the motherboard is most commonly used for L2 cache upgrades, having a function similar to COASt module slots on early Pentium motherboards. It can be hit or miss whether you find one of these cards in any IIci one may pick up as they seemed to be optional at first before Apple began including them in the systems.
Official L2 cache card
The cache card is a highly recommended upgrade for the IIci as it is claimed to increase performance from 20% to, if you believe some sources, 130% though the vast majority of data indicated a general performance gain of 25% overall. The standard card from Apple contains 32k of L2 cache although third parties did make cards with larger amounts. Expect greatly diminished returns in performance after 128k.
Several third parties also took advantage of this slot to release CPU/cache accelerator cards allowing faster 68000 CPUs and even PowerPC processors to be installed.
5 ) ROM slot – Right next to the cache PDS is a slot to install an optional ROM. The IIci was the first Macintosh to use a fully 32-bit “clean” ROM allowing much higher amounts of memory without modification or extra software. I decided to install a Macintosh “ROMinator” ROM SIMM from BMOW since it gives me several nice features like the ability to boot into System 7 from ROM in the event I have any issues with my HDD.
6 ) Nubus slots – The IIci features three Nubus slots for decent expandability although most users may not find a real need to add any cards. The general recommendation would be to add a more powerful video card as this can be beneficial for gaming purposes and allow more colors and higher resolutions. Another reason to add a discrete video card would also be to free up the memory used by the integrated video.
7 ) PRAM battery used for holding system settings
8 ) power connector for the system power supply
9) Interestingly the IIci does not pull power straight off the PSU but has a separate connector on the motherboard ending in a Molex connector for powering the hard drive. The floppy drive is powered via the floppy drive cable.
The sole expansion card I have added is a video card, the Radius PrecisionColor 8-24X
I wouldn’t say it’s the best video card option to upgrade to as although it supposedly has QuickDraw acceleration I haven’t noticed any performance improvement in games but at the very least it is an improvement over the built-in video as it allows more colors and has its own video memory.
I am currently running System 7.5 on my Mac as that is what feels most appropriate and it seems to run quite well overall.
In my opinion, the Macintosh IIci is Apple doing the Macintosh II right. The system offers good performance, especially with an added cache and video card as well as offer decent (for a Mac) expandability in a small case. I’d certainly recommend one for anyone wanting to set up a classic 68k Mac for gaming and as I said a full setup will not take up much space on a corner desk. Another bonus is that the IIci was sold in fairly large numbers over several years so despite rising prices on retro goods as of 2023 the IIci isn’t as pricy or hard to find as some other models, just be aware of the possibility of bad caps and PSUs to contend with as these plague most classic Macintosh models
ancientelectronics 
2 Comments
“Most Macintoshs I’ve come across from this era are either dead from leaked capacitors or dead power supplies.” Or leaky batteries. I have a IIci that looks like a bomb went off inside… 😦
I’ve had the same experience. I’ve come across at least 2 other IIIc’s (as well as other Macintosh II models) before this one that were all dead from bad caps/dead PSU. when I found this one that was verified working and recapped I jumped on it.