Re: Production #s

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) writes...

>Supertimer <supertimer@aol.com> wrote:
> 
>> "John A. Simkiss, III" <jas3@netreach.net> wrote:
>> 
>> >Ammended question:  Anyone know what the production #s or sales #s (in
>> >units) were for:
> 
>These are just my educated guesses:
> 
>I     -----     about 400

    Actually, I believe only 200 were ever manufactured.

>][    -----     perhaps 100 thousand?  What was the first ][+ serial #?

    Going from memory here, my 1978 Apple II (with revision 02 motherboard)
has the serial number 15985. The Apple II Plus was introduced about a year
later, so I would guess no more than 25 thousand.

    The original Apple II had a run of around 2 years (June 1977 until
June 1979) though there may have been overlap for a while.

>Not forgetting the IIe emulation card for the Macintosh LC family, of
>course...

    Personally, I would say no. It was merely a plug-in board for the
Macintosh, which still did some of the emulation in software (if Macs
were faster in that era, you would not have required some bits of real
hardware. Well, except perhaps an interface to plug in analog Apple II
joysticks and a 5.25 floppy drive). It is very similar to the case of
the PC-Transporter card, which I do not really count as a stand-alone
PC clone (or the TrackStar 128 board, that allowed PC/XT/AT's to run
Apple II software).

>Does the Apple /// count for this discussion (no idea about numbers
>there either)?

    That's a good question. Officially it is not an Apple II, yet in
many ways it is more similar to the Apple II than the Apple IIGS. To
be fair, I would consider it part of the Apple II family so long as
the IIGS is a part of it (both run native software that cannot be run
on Apple II's, but have backwards compatibility with II software and
hardware). It's rather like a missing link between the Apple II and 
IIGS in some ways.

    How many were produced, I'm not sure either, but I would take a 
rough guess and say maybe 100,000 (between the III and III Plus).

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca