Apple IIe card performance

[Randy Shackelford <shack@onyx.southwind.net>]

I recall some of the more militant Apple II crowd's derision of the Apple IIe
card as a way to migrate from II to Mac. Some disliked its lack of IIgs 
native support and others the speed, even though the hardware runs at 2 MHz.
I got one a few months back to go in my Color Classic and found the speed to
be disappointing. I surmised that it was because the Color Classic is a dog
speed wise compared to other Macs which can use the card. It has a 16 MHz
'030 with crippled 16 bit bus and its memory tops out at 10 mb. So I got
hold of an LC520 logic board. It has a 25 MHz '030 with 32 bit bus and can
go up to 36 mb of memory, and is a direct swap for the CC logic board. I'd
say that the swap nearly doubled the CC's speed. With the card running on 
the 520 board, the II software I tried seems to run at nearly the same speed
as on an unaccelerated IIgs. There are even faster Macs which can use the
card, from 33 MHz '030s up to 25 and 33 MHz '040s. I imagine though that you
hit a threshold where a faster box doesn't help the IIe card's speed. But
regardless, those who have only seen the card running in a 16 MHz LC class
box and complain about the speed haven't seen what the card can do. And with
a usable amount of memory, acceptable speed, color, and //e compatibility,
the Color Classic makes a neat little box.
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