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Apple II series
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Computer series by Apple Computer, 1977-1993
This article is about the line of home computers that began with the
Apple II in 1977. For the original model, see Apple II.
CAPTION: Apple II series
Apple II.png
Apple II-IMG 7064.jpg
The 1977 Apple II, shown here with two Disk II floppy disk drives and a
1980s-era Apple Monitor II
Developer Steve Wozniak (original lead designer)
Manufacturer Apple Computer, Inc.
Release date June 1977; 45 years ago (1977-06) (original Apple II)^[1]
Discontinued October 1993; 29 years ago (1993-10)
Operating system
* Integer BASIC
* Apple DOS
* Apple ProDOS
* Apple GS/OS
* GNO/ME
CPU
* 6502 @ 1.023 MHz (Apple II, II Plus, IIe)
* 65C02 @ 1.023-4 MHz (Enhanced IIe, IIc, IIc Plus)
* 65C816 @ 2.8 MHz (IIGS)
Storage
* Audio cassette
* 5.25-in floppy disk
* 3.5-in floppy disk
Display NTSC video out (built-in RCA connector)
Predecessor Apple I
Successor Apple III (intended)
The Apple II series (trademarked with square brackets as "Apple ][" and
rendered on later models as "Apple //") is a family of home computers,
one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer
products,^[2] designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by
Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.), and launched in 1977 with the original
Apple II.
In terms of ease of use, features, and expandability, the Apple II was
a major advancement over its predecessor, the Apple I, a
limited-production bare circuit board computer for electronics
hobbyists. Through 1988, a number of models were introduced, with the
most popular, the Apple IIe, remaining relatively unchanged into the
1990s.
A model with more advanced graphics and sound and a 16-bit processor,
the Apple IIGS, was added in 1986. It remained compatible with earlier
Apple II models, but the IIGS had more in common with mid-1980s systems
like the Atari ST, Amiga, and Acorn Archimedes.
An Apple II+
The Apple II was first sold on June 10, 1977.^[3]^[4] By the end of
production in 1993, somewhere between five and six million Apple II
series computers (including about 1.25 million Apple IIGS models) had
been produced.^[5] The Apple II was one of the longest running
mass-produced home computer series, with models in production for just
under 17 years.
The Apple II became one of several recognizable and successful
computers during the 1980s and early 1990s, although this was mainly
limited to the US. It was aggressively marketed through volume
discounts and manufacturing arrangements to educational institutions,
which made it the first computer in widespread use in American
secondary schools, displacing the early leader Commodore PET. The
effort to develop educational and business software for the Apple II,
including the 1979 release of the popular VisiCalc spreadsheet, made
the computer especially popular with business users and
families.^[6]^[7]^[8]
An Apple IIe with disk drive and monitor
Despite the introduction of the Motorola 68000-based Macintosh in 1984,
the Apple II series still reportedly accounted for 85% of the company's
hardware sales in the first quarter of fiscal 1985.^[9] Apple continued
to sell Apple II systems alongside the Macintosh until terminating the
IIGS in December 1992^[10] and the IIe in November 1993.^[11] The last
II-series Apple in production, the IIe card for Macintoshes, was
discontinued on October 15, 1993. The total Apple II sales of all of
its models during its 16-year production run were about 6 million
units, with the peak occurring in 1983 when 1 million were sold.
[ ]
Contents
* 1 Hardware
* 2 Software
* 3 Models
+ 3.1 Apple II
+ 3.2 Apple II Plus
o 3.2.1 Apple II Europlus and J-Plus
+ 3.3 Apple IIe
+ 3.4 Apple IIc
+ 3.5 Apple IIGS
+ 3.6 Apple IIc Plus
+ 3.7 Apple IIe Card
* 4 Advertising, marketing, and packaging
* 5 Clones
* 6 Data storage
+ 6.1 Cassette
+ 6.2 The OS Disk
* 7 Legacy
+ 7.1 Industry impact
+ 7.2 Modern use
* 8 See also
* 9 References
* 10 External links
Hardware[edit]
All the machines in the series, except the //c, shared similar overall
design elements. The plastic case was designed to look more like a home
appliance than a piece of electronic equipment,^[12] and the machine
could be opened without the use of tools, allowing access to the
computer's internals.
An Apple IIc with monitor
The motherboard held eight expansion slots and an array of random
access memory (RAM) sockets that could hold up to 48 kilobytes. Over
the course of the Apple II series' life, an enormous amount of first-
and third-party hardware was made available to extend the capabilities
of the machine.
The //c was designed as a compact, portable unit, not intended to be
disassembled, and could not use most of the expansion hardware sold for
the other machines in the series.
All machines in the Apple II series had a built-in keyboard, with the
exception of the IIgs which had a separate keyboard.
Apple IIs had color and high-resolution graphics modes, sound
capabilities and a built-in BASIC programming language. The Apple II
was targeted for the masses rather than just hobbyists and engineers,
and influenced many of the microcomputers that followed it.^[citation
needed] Unlike preceding home microcomputers, it was sold as a finished
consumer appliance rather than as a kit (unassembled or preassembled).
The Apple II series eventually supported over 1,500 software programs.
An Apple IIgs
Apple marketed the machine as a durable product, including a 1981 ad in
which an Apple II survived a fire started when a cat belonging to one
early user knocked over a lamp.^[13]
Software[edit]
The original Apple II provided an operating system in ROM along with a
BASIC variant called Integer BASIC. The only form of storage available
was cassette tape.
When the Disk II floppy disk drive was released in 1978, a new
operating system, Apple DOS, was commissioned from Shepardson
Microsystems^[14]^[15] and developed by Paul Laughton, adding support
for the disk drive.^[16] The final and most popular version of this
software was Apple DOS 3.3.
Apple DOS was superseded by ProDOS, which supported a hierarchical
filesystem and larger storage devices. With an optional third-party
Z80-based expansion card,^[17] the Apple II could boot into the CP/M
operating system and run WordStar, dBase II, and other CP/M software.
With the release of MousePaint in 1984 and the Apple IIGS in 1986, the
platform took on the look of the Macintosh user interface, including a
mouse.
Apple eventually released Applesoft BASIC, a more advanced variant of
the language which users could run instead of Integer BASIC for more
capabilities.
Some commercial Apple II software booted directly and did not use
standard DOS disk formats. This discouraged the copying or modifying of
the software on the disks, and improved loading speed.
Models[edit]
Apple II[edit]
Main article: Apple II
An Apple II computer with an internal modem and external DAA
The first Apple II computers went on sale on June 10, 1977^[3]^[4] with
a MOS Technology 6502 (later Synertek)^[18] microprocessor running at
1.023 MHz, 4 KB of RAM, an audio cassette interface for loading
programs and storing data, and the Integer BASIC programming language
built into the ROMs. The video controller displayed 40 columns by 24
lines of monochrome, upper-case-only (the original character set
matches ASCII characters 0x20 to 0x5F) text on the screen, with NTSC
composite video output suitable for display on a TV monitor, or on a
regular TV set by way of a separate RF modulator. The original retail
price of the computer was US$1298^[19]^[20](with 4 KB of RAM) and
US$2638 (with the maximum 48 KB of RAM). To reflect the computer's
color graphics capability, the Apple logo on the casing was represented
using rainbow stripes,^[21]^[22] which remained a part of Apple's
corporate logo until early 1998. The earliest Apple IIs were assembled
in Silicon Valley, and later in Texas;^[23] printed circuit boards were
manufactured in Ireland and Singapore.
An external
5+1/4-inch floppy disk drive, the Disk II, attached via a controller
card that plugged into one of the computer's expansion slots (usually
slot 6), was used for data storage and retrieval to replace cassettes.
The Disk II interface, created by Steve Wozniak, was regarded as an
engineering masterpiece for its economy of electronic
components.^[24]^[25]
Rather than having a dedicated sound-synthesis chip, the Apple II had a
toggle circuit that could only emit a click through a built-in speaker
or a line out jack; all other sounds (including two, three and,
eventually, four-voice music and playback of audio samples and speech
synthesis) were generated entirely by software that clicked the speaker
at just the right times.
The Apple II's multiple expansion slots permitted a wide variety of
third-party devices, including Apple II peripheral cards such as serial
controllers, display controllers, memory boards, hard disks, networking
components, and realtime clocks. There were plug-in expansion cards -
such as the Z-80 SoftCard^[17] - that permitted the Apple to use the
Z80 processor and run a multitude of programs developed under the CP/M
operating system,^[17] including the dBase II database and the WordStar
word processor. There was also a third-party 6809 card that would allow
OS-9 Level One to be run.^[citation needed] Third-party sound cards
greatly improved audio capabilities, allowing simple music synthesis
and text-to-speech functions. Eventually, Apple II accelerator cards
were created to double or quadruple the computer's speed.
Rod Holt designed the Apple II's power supply. He employed a
switched-mode power supply design, which was far smaller and generated
less unwanted heat than the linear power supply some other home
computers used.^[26]
The original Apple II was discontinued at the start of 1981, having
been superseded by the Apple II+. By 1984, over six million machines
had been sold.^[27]
Apple II Plus[edit]
Main article: Apple II Plus
Apple II Plus
The Apple II Plus, introduced in June 1979,^[28]^[29]^[30]^[31]
included the Applesoft BASIC programming language in ROM. This
Microsoft-authored dialect of BASIC, which was previously available as
an upgrade, supported floating-point arithmetic, and became the
standard BASIC dialect on the Apple II series (though it ran at a
noticeably slower speed than Steve Wozniak's Integer BASIC).
Except for improved graphics and disk-booting support in the ROM, and
the removal of the 2k 6502 assembler/disassembler to make room for the
floating point BASIC, the II+ was otherwise identical to the original
II. RAM prices fell during 1980-81 and all II+ machines came from the
factory with a full 48k of memory already installed.^[32]
Apple II Europlus and J-Plus[edit]
Apple II J-Plus
After the success of the first Apple II in the United States, Apple
expanded its market to include Europe, Australia and the Far East in
1979, with the Apple II Europlus (Europe, Australia) and the Apple II
J-Plus (Japan). In these models, Apple made the necessary hardware,
software and firmware changes in order to comply to standards outside
of the US.
Apple IIe[edit]
Main article: Apple IIe
An Apple IIe with DuoDisk and Monitor //
The Apple II Plus was followed in 1983 by the Apple IIe, a cost-reduced
yet more powerful machine that used newer chips to reduce the component
count and add new features, such as the display of upper and lowercase
letters and a standard 64 KB of RAM.
The IIe RAM was configured as if it were a 48 KB Apple II Plus with a
language card. The machine had no slot 0, but instead had an auxiliary
slot that could accept a 1 KB memory card to enable the 80-column
display. This card contained only RAM; the hardware and firmware for
the 80-column display was built into the Apple IIe. An "extended
80-column card" with more memory increased the machine's RAM to 128 KB.
The Apple IIe was the most popular machine in the Apple II series. It
has the distinction of being the longest-lived Apple computer of all
time--it was manufactured and sold with only minor changes for nearly
11 years. The IIe was the last Apple II model to be sold, and was
discontinued in November 1993.
During its lifespan two variations were introduced: the Apple IIe
Enhanced (four replacement chips to give it some of the features of the
later model Apple IIc) and the Apple IIe Platinum (a modernized case
color to match other Apple products of the era, along with the addition
of a numeric keypad).
Some of the feature of the IIe were carried over from the less
successful Apple III, among them the ProDOS operating system.
Apple IIc[edit]
Main article: Apple IIc
The Apple IIc was Apple's first compact and portable computer.
The Apple IIc was released in April 1984, billed as a portable Apple II
because it could be easily carried due to its size and carrying handle,
which could be flipped down to prop the machine up into a typing
position. Unlike modern portables it lacked a built-in display and
battery. It was the first of three Apple II models to be made in the
Snow White design language, and the only one that used its unique
creamy off-white color.^[33]
The Apple IIc was the first Apple II to use the 65C02 low-power variant
of the 6502 processor, and featured a built-in 5.25-inch floppy drive
and 128 KB RAM, with a built-in disk controller that could control
external drives, composite video (NTSC or PAL), serial interfaces for
modem and printer, and a port usable by either a joystick or mouse.
Unlike previous Apple II models, the IIc had no internal expansion
slots at all.
Two different monochrome LCD displays were sold for use with the IIc's
video expansion port, although both were short-lived due to high cost
and poor legibility. The IIc had an external power supply that
converted AC power to 15 V DC, though the IIc itself will accept
between 12 V and 17 V DC, allowing third parties to offer battery packs
and automobile power adapters that connected in place of the supplied
AC adapter.
Apple IIGS[edit]
Main article: Apple IIGS
The Apple IIGS with 16-bit CPU, 4096 colors, Ensoniq synthesizer, a
Mac-like GUI, and a mouse
An Apple IIGS with monitor, keyboard, 3 1/2 floppy drive, and mouse
The Apple IIGS, released on September 15, 1986, is the last model in
the Apple II series, and a radical departure from prior models. It uses
a 16-bit microprocessor, the 65C816 operating at 2.8 MHz with 24-bit
addressing, allowing expansion up to 8 MB of RAM. The graphics are
significantly improved, with 4096 colors and new modes with resolutions
of 320 *200 and 640 *400.^[34]
The Apple IIGS evolved the platform while still maintaining
near-complete backward compatibility. Its Mega II chip contains the
functional equivalent of an entire Apple IIe computer (sans processor).
This, combined with the 65816's ability to execute 65C02 code directly,
provides full support for legacy software, while also supporting 16-bit
software running under a new OS.
The OS eventually included a Macintosh-like graphical Finder for
managing disks and files and opening documents and applications, along
with desk accessories. Later, the IIGS gained the ability to read and
write Macintosh disks and, through third-party software, a multitasking
Unix-like shell and TrueType font support.
The GS includes a 32-voice Ensoniq 5503 DOC sample-based sound
synthesizer chip with 64 KB dedicated RAM,^[35] 256 KB (or later
1.125 MB) of standard RAM, built-in peripheral ports (switchable
between IIe-style card slots and IIc-style onboard controllers for disk
drives, mouse, RGB video, and serial devices) and, built-in AppleTalk
networking.
Apple IIc Plus[edit]
Main article: Apple IIc Plus
The Apple IIc Plus, an enhancement of the original portable with faster
CPU, 3.5-inch floppy, and built-in power supply. It was the last model
in the Apple II line.
The final Apple II model was the Apple IIc Plus introduced in 1988. It
was the same size and shape as the IIc that came before it, but the
5.25-inch floppy drive had been replaced with a
3+1/2-inch drive, the power supply was moved inside the case, and the
processor was a fast 4 MHz 65C02 processor that actually ran 8-bit
Apple II software faster than the IIGS.
The IIc Plus also featured a new keyboard layout that matched the
Platinum IIe and IIGS. Unlike the IIe IIc and IIGS, the IIc Plus came
only in one version (American) and was not officially sold anywhere
outside the US. The Apple IIc Plus ceased production in 1990, with its
two-year production run being the shortest of all the Apple II
computers.
Apple IIe Card[edit]
Main article: Apple IIe Card
Although not an extension of the Apple II line, in 1990 the Apple IIe
Card, an expansion card for the LC line of Macintosh computers, was
released. Essentially a miniaturized Apple IIe computer on a card
(using the Mega II chip from the Apple IIGS), it allowed the Macintosh
to run 8-bit Apple IIe software through hardware emulation (although
video was emulated in software and was slower at times than a IIe).
Many of the LC's built-in Macintosh peripherals could be "borrowed" by
the card when in Apple II mode (i.e. extra RAM, 3.5-inch floppy,
AppleTalk networking, hard disk). The IIe card could not, however, run
software intended for the 16-bit Apple IIGS.
Advertising, marketing, and packaging[edit]
A page from a 1977 Byte magazine advertisement for the original
Apple II
Mike Markkula,^[36] a retired Intel marketing manager, provided the
early critical funding for Apple Computer. From 1977 to 1981, Apple
used the Regis McKenna agency for its advertisements and marketing. In
1981, Chiat-Day acquired Regis McKenna's advertising operations and
Apple used Chiat-Day. At Regis McKenna Advertising, the team assigned
to launch the Apple II consisted of Rob Janoff, art director, Chip
Schafer, copywriter and Bill Kelley, account executive. Janoff came up
with the Apple logo with a bite out of it.^[37] The design was
originally an olive green with matching company logotype all in lower
case.^[citation needed] Steve Jobs insisted on promoting the color
capability of the Apple II by putting rainbow stripes on the Apple
logo. In its letterhead and business card implementation, the rounded
"a" of the logotype echoed the "bite" in the logo. This logo was
developed simultaneously with an advertisement and a brochure; the
latter being produced for distribution initially at the first West
Coast Computer Faire.^[citation needed]
Since the original Apple II, Apple has paid high attention to its
quality of packaging, partly because of Steve Jobs' personal
preferences and opinions on packaging and final product
appearance.^[38] All of Apple's packaging for the Apple II series
looked similar, featuring much clean white space and showing the Apple
rainbow logo prominently.^[39] For several years up until the late
1980s, Apple used the Motter Tektura font for packaging, until changing
to the Apple Garamond font.^[40]^[41]
Apple ran the first advertisement for the Apple II, a two-page spread
ad titled "Introducing Apple II", in BYTE in July 1977.^[42] The first
brochure, was entitled "Simplicity" and the copy in both the ad and
brochure pioneered "demystifying" language intended to make the new
idea of a home computer more "personal." The Apple II introduction ad
was later run in the September 1977 issue of Scientific American.^[43]
Apple later aired eight television commercials for the Apple IIGS,
emphasizing its benefits to education and students, along with some
print ads.^[44]
Clones[edit]
Main article: Apple II clones
The Apple II was frequently cloned, both in the United States and
abroad, in a similar way to the IBM PC. According to some sources (see
below), more than 190 different models of Apple II clones were
manufactured.^[45] Most could not be legally imported into the United
States.^[46] Apple sued and sought criminal charges against clone
makers in more than a dozen countries.^[47]
Data storage[edit]
Cassette[edit]
Originally the Apple II used Compact Cassette tapes for program and
data storage. A dedicated tape recorder along the lines of the
Commodore Datasette was never produced; Apple recommended using the
Panasonic RQ309 in some of its early printed documentation. The uses of
common consumer cassette recorders and a standard video monitor or
television set (with a third party R-F modulator) made the total cost
of owning an Apple II less expensive and helped contribute to the Apple
II's success.
Cassette storage may have been inexpensive, but it was also slow and
unreliable. The Apple II's lack of a disk drive was "a glaring
weakness" in what was otherwise intended to be a polished, professional
product. Recognizing that the II needed a disk drive to be taken
seriously, Apple set out to develop a disk drive and a DOS to run it.
Wozniak spent the 1977 Christmas holidays designing a disk controller
that reduced the number of chips used by a factor of 10 compared to
existing controllers. Still lacking a DOS, and with Wozniak
inexperienced in operating system design, Jobs approached Shepardson
Microsystems with the project. On April 10, 1978, Apple signed a
contract for $13,000 with Sheperdson to develop the DOS.^[48]
Even after disk drives made the cassette tape interfaces obsolete they
were still used by enthusiasts as simple one-bit audio input-output
ports. Ham radio operators used the cassette input to receive slow scan
TV (single frame images). A commercial speech recognition Blackjack
program was available, after some user-specific voice training it would
recognize simple commands (Hit, stand). Bob Bishop's "Music
Kaleidoscope" was a simple program that monitored the cassette input
port and based on zero-crossings created color patterns on the screen,
a predecessor to current audio visualization plug-ins for media
players. Music Kaleidoscope was especially popular on projection TV
sets in dance halls.
The OS Disk[edit]
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Apple and many third-party developers made software available on tape
at first, but after the Disk II became available in 1978, tape-based
Apple II software essentially disappeared from the market. The initial
price of the Disk II drive and controller was US$595, although a $100
off coupon was available through the Apple newsletter "Contact". The
controller could handle two drives and a second drive (without
controller) retailed for $495.
The Disk II single-sided floppy drive used 5.25-inch floppy disks;
double-sided disks could be used, one side at a time, by turning them
over and notching a hole for the write protect sensor. The first disk
operating systems for the Apple II were DOS 3.1 and DOS 3.2, which
stored 113.75 KB on each disk, organized into 35 tracks of 13 256-byte
sectors each. After about two years, DOS 3.3 was introduced, storing
140 KB thanks to a minor firmware change on the disk controller that
allowed it to store 16 sectors per track. (This upgrade was
user-installable as two PROMs on older controllers.) After the release
of DOS 3.3, the user community discontinued use of DOS 3.2 except for
running legacy software. Programs that required DOS 3.2 were fairly
rare; however, as DOS 3.3 was not a major architectural change aside
from the number of sectors per track, a program called MUFFIN was
provided with DOS 3.3 to allow users to copy files from DOS 3.2 disks
to DOS 3.3 disks. It was possible for software developers to create a
DOS 3.2 disk which would also boot on a system with DOS 3.3 firmware.
Later, double-sided drives, with heads to read both sides of the disk,
became available from third-party companies. (Apple only produced
double-sided 5.25-inch disks for the Lisa 1 computer).
On a DOS 3.x disk, tracks 0, 1, and most of track 2 were reserved to
store the operating system. (It was possible, with a special utility,
to reclaim most of this space for data if a disk did not need to be
bootable.) A short ROM program on the disk controller had the ability
to seek to track zero - which it did without regard for the read/write
head's current position, resulting in the characteristic "chattering"
sound of a Disk II boot, which was the read/write head hitting the
rubber stop block at the end of the rail - and read and execute code
from sector 0. The code contained in there would then pull in the rest
of the operating system. DOS stored the disk's directory on track 17,
smack in the middle of the 35-track disks, in order to reduce the
average seek time to the frequently used directory track. The directory
was fixed in size and could hold a maximum of 105 files. Subdirectories
were not supported.
Most game publishers did not include DOS on their floppy disks, since
they needed the memory it occupied more than its capabilities; instead,
they often wrote their own boot loaders and read-only file systems.
This also served to discourage "crackers" from snooping around in the
game's copy-protection code, since the data on the disk was not in
files that could be accessed easily.
Some third-party manufacturers produced floppy drives that could write
40 tracks to most 5.25-inch disks, yielding 160 KB of storage per disk,
but the format did not catch on widely, and no known commercial
software was published on 40-track media. Most drives, even Disk IIs,
could write 36 tracks; a two byte modification to DOS to format the
extra track was common.
The Apple Disk II stored 140 KB on single-sided, "single-density"
floppy disks, but it was very common for Apple II users to extend the
capacity of a single-sided floppy disk to 280 KB by cutting out a
second write-protect notch on the side of the disk using a "disk
notcher" or hole puncher and inserting the disk flipped over.
Double-sided disks, with notches on both sides, were available at a
higher price, but in practice the magnetic coating on the reverse of
nominally single-sided disks was usually of good enough quality to be
used (both sides were coated in the same way to prevent warping,
although only one side was certified for use). Early on, diskette
manufacturers routinely warned that this technique would damage the
read/write head of the drives or wear out the disk faster, and these
warnings were frequently repeated in magazines of the day. In practice,
however, this method was an inexpensive way to store twice as much data
for no extra cost, and was widely used for commercially released
floppies as well.
Later, Apple IIs were able to use 3.5-inch disks with a total capacity
of 800 KB and hard disks. DOS 3.3 did not support these drives
natively; third-party software was required, and disks larger than
about 400 KB had to be split up into multiple "virtual disk volumes."
DOS 3.3 was succeeded by ProDOS, a 1983 descendant of the Apple ///'s
SOS. It added support for subdirectories and volumes up to 32 MB in
size. ProDOS became the Apple II DOS of choice; AppleWorks and other
newer programs required it.
Legacy[edit]
Apple II Europlus computer with Scandinavian keyboard layout in
Helsinki's computer and game console museum
Industry impact[edit]
The Apple II series of computers had an enormous impact on the
technology industry and expanded the role of microcomputers in society.
The Apple II was the first personal computer many people ever saw. Its
price was within the reach of many middle-class families, and a
partnership with MECC helped make the Apple II popular in schools.^[49]
By the end of 1980 Apple had already sold over 100,000 Apple IIs.^[50]
Its popularity bootstrapped the computer game and educational software
markets and began the boom in the word processor and computer printer
markets. The first spreadsheet application, VisiCalc,^[51] was
initially released for the Apple II, and many businesses bought them
just to run VisiCalc. Its success drove IBM in part to create the IBM
PC, which many businesses purchased to run spreadsheet and word
processing software, at first ported from Apple II versions.
The Apple II's slots, allowing any peripheral card to take control of
the bus and directly access memory, enabled an independent industry of
card manufacturers who together created a flood of hardware products
that let users build systems that were far more powerful and useful (at
a lower cost) than any competing system, most of which were not nearly
as expandable and were universally proprietary. The first peripheral
card was a blank prototyping card intended for electronics enthusiasts
who wanted to design their own peripherals for the Apple II.
Specialty peripherals kept the Apple II in use in industry and
education environments for many years after Apple Computer stopped
supporting the Apple II.^[citation needed] Well into the 1990s every
clean-room (the super-clean facility where spacecraft are prepared for
flight) at the Kennedy Space Center used an Apple II to monitor the
environment and air quality.^[citation needed] Most planetariums used
Apple IIs to control their projectors and other equipment.^[citation
needed]
Even the game port was unusually powerful and could be used for digital
and analog input and output. The early manuals included instructions
for how to build a circuit with only four commonly available components
(one transistor and three resistors) and a software routine to drive a
common Teletype Model 33 machine. Don Lancaster used the game I/O to
drive a LaserWriter printer.
Modern use[edit]
Today, emulators for various Apple II models are available to run Apple
II software on macOS, Linux, Microsoft Windows, homebrew enabled
Nintendo DS and other operating systems. Numerous disk images of Apple
II software are available free over the Internet for use with these
emulators. AppleWin and MESS are among the best emulators compatible
with most Apple II images. The MESS emulator supports recording and
playing back of Apple II emulation sessions, as does Home Action Replay
Page (a.k.a. HARP).^[52]
In addition, an active retrocomputing community of vintage Apple II
collectors and users, continue to restore, maintain and develop
hardware and software for daily use of these original computers. There
is still a small annual convention, KansasFest, dedicated to the
platform.
In 2017, the band 8 Bit Weapon released the world's first 100% Apple II
based music album entitled, "Class Apples." The album featured
dance-oriented cover versions of classical music by Bach, Beethoven,
and Mozart recorded directly off the Apple II motherboard.^[53]
Timeline of Apple II family
* v
* t
* e
[USEMAP:s0ifiozrf26f2rba4126ud0puzocv3b.png]
See also: Timeline of the Apple II family, Timeline of Macintosh
models, and Timeline of Apple Inc. products
See also[edit]
* Apple Industrial Design Group
* List of publications and periodicals devoted to the Apple II
* Apple II peripheral cards
* Apple II graphics
* List of Apple II application software
* List of Apple II games
* List of Apple IIGS games
References[edit]
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ISBN 978-0-547-19432-5. Archived from the original on September 15,
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Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property,
and the Administration of Justice of the Committee on the
Judiciary, House of Representatives, One Hundred First Congress,
First and Second Sessions, November 8, 1989, and March 7, 1990.
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2017. Archived from the original on October 10, 2017. Retrieved
April 27, 2018.
*
Wozniak, Steve (May 1977). "System Description: The Apple II". Byte.
External links[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Apple II series.
* Apple II at Curlie
* epocalc Apple II clones list
* "These Pictures Of Apple's First Employees Are Absolutely
Wonderful", contains a c.1977 photograph taken inside Apple of
early employees Chrisann Brennan, Mark Johnson, and Robert
Martinengo standing in front of a stack of Apple IIs that they had
tested, assembled, and were about to ship (Business Insider,
December 26, 2013).
* v
* t
* e
Apple hardware before 1998
Computers
Apple
* Apple I
* Apple II series
+ II
+ II Plus
+ IIe
+ IIc
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+ IIGS
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+ 610
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+ 5400
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+ 6400
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+ 7100
+ 7200 and 8200
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+ 8100
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Miscellaneous
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Peripherals
Displays
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Other
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See also template: Apple hardware since 1998
* v
* t
* e
Apple hardware
Apple II family
* Apple I
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+ 6000 series
o 6100
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+ 7000 series
o 7100
o 7200 and 8200
o 7300
o 7500
o 7600
+ 8000 series
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o 9600
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* Monitor III
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+ Studio (1998-2004)
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Drives
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Input
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+ A4
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+ A5X
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+ A7
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* Timeline of Macintosh models
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