Nope, they weren't just for development systems!
REALLY Ancient Apple History:
After the "Dirty ROM" debacle, Apple started shipping all (?) systems with soldered ROMs AND a ROM SIMM slot, enabling them to "clean up any further ROM boo-boos," by shipping out new ROM SIMMs. A far less costly proposition than paying anyone an "undisclosed amount" for a software fix.
Apple made the folks at Connectix quite wealthy in order to provide MODE-32 (a patented software fix) to its customers at no cost, thereby avoiding a MASSIVE class action suit by the angry multitude of customers stuck with 24 bit limited systems that had been advertised as, and bought with the expectation of, being 32 bit capable systems.
After a while, Apple stopped populating the SIMM socket pads, which remained a standard design feature for quite some time.
IIRC, of course.
old f**t mode>
ISTR, that among other MLB revisions, DOS Compatible Systems may have had extra pads added to those already present on the MLB for the ROM SIMM. This change from a ROM to a RAM SIMM Slot would have doubled the memory limit for the DOS Compatibles, an intelligent move. However, Apple most likely chose not to implement this change due to increased DRAM densities, which allowed larger RAM SIMMs to become available.
guess mode>
This, of course, was an intentional move by Apple, to cripple mid-range systems to "protect the high end!"
old f**t mode>
[
)] ]'>
REALLY Ancient Apple History:
After the "Dirty ROM" debacle, Apple started shipping all (?) systems with soldered ROMs AND a ROM SIMM slot, enabling them to "clean up any further ROM boo-boos," by shipping out new ROM SIMMs. A far less costly proposition than paying anyone an "undisclosed amount" for a software fix.
Apple made the folks at Connectix quite wealthy in order to provide MODE-32 (a patented software fix) to its customers at no cost, thereby avoiding a MASSIVE class action suit by the angry multitude of customers stuck with 24 bit limited systems that had been advertised as, and bought with the expectation of, being 32 bit capable systems.
After a while, Apple stopped populating the SIMM socket pads, which remained a standard design feature for quite some time.
IIRC, of course.
old f**t mode>
ISTR, that among other MLB revisions, DOS Compatible Systems may have had extra pads added to those already present on the MLB for the ROM SIMM. This change from a ROM to a RAM SIMM Slot would have doubled the memory limit for the DOS Compatibles, an intelligent move. However, Apple most likely chose not to implement this change due to increased DRAM densities, which allowed larger RAM SIMMs to become available.
guess mode>
This, of course, was an intentional move by Apple, to cripple mid-range systems to "protect the high end!"
old f**t mode>
[
)] ]'>