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Macintosh Classic is a personal computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from October 1990 to September 1992. It was the first Macintosh to sell for less than $1,000.<3>

Production of the Classic was prompted by the success of the original Macintosh 128K, then the Macintosh Plus and finally the Macintosh SE. The system specifications of the Classic are very similar to its predecessors, with the same 9-inch (23 cm) monochrome CRT display, 512 × 342 pixel resolution, and 4 megabyte (MB) memory limit of the older Macintosh computers.<2> Apple's decision to not update the Classic with newer technology such as a newer CPU, higher RAM capacity or color display resulted in criticism from reviewers, with Macworld describing it as having "nothing to gloat about beyond its low price"<4> and "unexceptional".<5> But it ensured compatibility with the Mac's by-then healthy software base as well as enabled it to fit the lower price Apple intended for it. And, the Classic did feature several improvements over the aging Macintosh Plus, which it replaced as Apple's low-end Mac computer. It was up to 25 percent faster than the Plus<1> and included an Apple SuperDrive 3.5-inch (9 cm) floppy disk drive as standard. Unlike the Macintosh SE/30 and other compact Macs before it, the Classic does not have an internal Processor Direct Slot, making it the first non-expandable desktop Macintosh since the Macintosh Plus. Instead, it has a memory expansion/FPU slot.