Re: Apple III???

[eshepher@quicksilver.com (Eric Shepherd)]

Paulhc <paulhc@swbell.net> wrote:

>What is the Apple III that I've been seeing in some posts?  I think I
>know what is looks like but actually never seen it in person.  I
>remember when I was in grade school the only computers we ever used were
>dozens of Apple ][e's, one Apple //c, 5 Mac LCII.  Never any Apple III. 
>I'm assuming it's pretty old for 2 reasons. 1: Beige color (new ones
>were a silver, right?). 2: No other versions of the III like the Apple
>][ (Apple ][+, ][e, //c, gs, etc.)


The Apple /// was released around 1981 or so, I believe.  It had
numerous problems, and was replaced by the Apple ///+ shortly
thereafter (although it was still labelled "Apple ///" on the case).

It was intended to be a business computer.  It had its own operating
system (SOS, upon which ProDOS is heavily based), its own programing
languages, and was fairly unique in a number of ways.  It had an Apple
][+ emulation mode which would run most (but not all) Apple II
software of the day.

It was discontinued in 1983 or so.  Only around 100,000 units were
ever sold, I believe.  It was not a very successful machine; it was
marketed poorly, had some design problems (which were corrected, but
not in time to satisfy the public), and was competition for the Lisa,
which became Apple's business system, until the Mac came out.


Eric Shepherd
* My opinions are my own; any attempts to blame them on
* someone else will prove futile.