On the 1st November 1995, after over 11 years of production, the final compact Mac rolled off the production line and Apple called it a day with the machine that had revolutionised the industry. The Color Classic II was everything that users had wanted but, unfortunately, it was everything that users had wanted with the original Color Classic.

This time around though, Apple seemed to make an effort and, although the machine shared the same motherboard design as the LC III, the Color Classic II sported the fastest performance of any compact Mac with its 68030 CPU running at a blistering 33MHz and a 68882 FPU thrown into the mix to give it an extra kick. As well as this, Apple had raised the memory ceiling from the somewhat limiting 10Mb that had been the case with the Classic II and the Color Classic, and the Color Classic II could go all the way up to 36Mb (using a single 72pin SIMM as opposed to the 30pin SIMMs that were used in all of the compact Macs previously). Ok so maybe it wasn't anywhere near the heady heights of the 128Mb allowed in the SE/30 but it was a great improvement none the less.

Memory and CPU aside, the Color Classic II brought little else new for users to play with. There were no new toys, no improved video or display (still the same 10" Trinitron screen as used in the Color Classic), no 'killer' apps etc. and despite being the last compact Mac produced, the machine's only other claim to fame is that it was never released to the US market (it was initially sold in Canada and then made available to the Asian and European markets).