April 24, 1984: Apple IIc Introduced; Earth Moves (Literally)
What has 128K
RAM, a mouse and the only use of platinum in the Apple II line? Why, the Apple IIc of course. The computer was introduced to rancorous applause at the Apple II Forever Conference in San Francisco.
While the attendees may have been certain the Apple II line would go on forever they were very much mistaken. With the recent introduction of the Lisa [CS4]and Mac, the Apple II was doomed. A more appropriate name for the conference might have been "Apple II, One More Model Line for Apple's Bank Account!"
In a telling turn of events the conference was momentarily rocked by an earthquake. The earthquake didn't rock the Apple IIc nearly as much as Apple's steadily decreasing interest in the Apple II even while the computer was outselling the Mac 3 to 1. The last of the Apple II lines, the Apple IIc, was introduced on April 24, 1984.
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Comments
uh, hate to nitpick, but rancorous means angry, i think you mean rapturous…
The IIc was not the last of the Apple II lines. The IIgs was released in late 1985 and the IIc+ was released in 1989. The IIc+ had a built-in 3.5” floppy drive as opposed to the IIc’s 5.25”, and an internal power supply as opposed to the IIc’s external. Also it had a 4MHz chip, making it the fastest factory-built Apple II ever.
The claim of “the only use of platinum in the Apple II line” is also incorrect from a historical perspective e.g. there was a platinum //e released.
There are several blatent factual errors:
- The Apple IIc was *not* platinum, it was snow white. It also introduced a new design style that was adopted for all future Apple products. By no coincidence, the style was dubbed “Snow White”.
- The IIc was *not* the last Apple II model. It was followed by the Apple IIGS (a 16-bit Apple II/Mac hybrid with advanced graphics and sound) in September 1986. And later the updated Apple IIc Plus in September 1988. There were also cosmetic updates to the original IIc the IIe between 1986 and 1987. In fact, the Apple II line was not officially retired until November 1993.
- The IIc did not ship with a mouse. It was an optional piece, just as the detachable Apple Flat Panel display was (yes, there was an LCD screen for the IIc from Apple, albeit short lived).
- The Apple IIGS, Apple IIc Plus and late-model Apple IIe were all platinum colored.
- The Apple II was only doomed because Apple management believed in only one product line for its future, and choose the Macintosh. The line evolved with the 16-bit color Mac-like IIGS model but despite its promise, power and popularity, Apple ignored it to the point of death.
Thanks for the comment everyone (the englishmatters one is funny....how how, mistakeshappen.com!). We’ll look into the errors and make corrections for next year. As you can imagine writing a story everyday like this is a huge project, and we do and will make mistakes, so thanks for the corrections!