[tombert]

Yeah, I was actually surprised to learn there was a reason other than "Apple wants you to buy a new Macbook or overspec your current one". It's annoying, but at least there's a plausible reason to why they do it.

[seanp2k2]

"...and they charge 4x what the retail of premium RAM would otherwise be per GB"

do storage next.

[klausa]

Apple's RAM is not soldered to the _motherboard_, it's part of the SoC package.

[Vogtinator]

Only recently. It started out as soldered to the main board.

[klausa]

M1 Macs started shipping in late 2020, so, for some definitions of "recently", sure.

It's true for any laptops that can be reasonably described as having a "SoC" and not CPU, anyway.

(I guess you could be extremely pedantic and try to argue that T2 counted as SoC? But clearly not what I meant.)

[brookst]

No, it started out as chips in sockets. I (dimly) remember upgrading my II+, I think from 32kb to 48kb?

A lot has changed.

[lazide]

EEPROM like DIP packaging where it was damn near impossible to pull without bending a pin and/or smacking your hand on something?

God forbid someone steps on it too, I think I might still have some scars on my feet.

[brookst]

And remember how the pins were a little too wide, so as to ensure tension against the socket, so you had to put one side in and apply pressure to get the other side? How many chips did I just fold over or bend even just inserting? Many.

[lazide]

Nightmare material.