Re: Apple 2E What Is It?

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

In article dastar@crl.com (Sam Ismail) writes...
>
>Mitchell Spector (spec@vax2.concordia.ca) wrote:
> 
>: CPU Model           Month              Year
>: ---------           -----              ----
>: Apple I             July               1976
>: Apple II            April              1977 *
>: Apple II Plus       June               1979 *
>....
>: Apple IIc           April              1984 *
>....
>: Apple IIc Plus      September          1988 *
> 
>: * = A new Apple II model
> 
>I would have to disagree on classifying the II+ and the //c+ as
>"new models".  The only difference from the ][ to the ][+ was FP
>basic and the autostart rom, and the only difference between the
>//c and the //c+ was the 3.5" drive, the internal power supply and
>the faster CPU (and maybe a couple other insignificant cosmetic things).

    Technically, your correct. The Apple IIc Plus is basically an 
Apple IIc with additional hardware add-ons built-in, such as a 3.5 
drive and Zip Chip. Yet the IIc is functionally an Apple IIe without 
slots and common add-ons like an Extended 80 Columns Card, Disk II/
Liron floppy controller, a pair of Super Serial Cards and Mouse Card 
intergrated into the motherboard design. Then consider that the 
Apple IIe is really nothing more than an Apple II Plus, with a 16K 
Lauguage Card built-in, lowercase character generator, full-ASCII 
keyboard and an auxiliary slot. Then, as you mention, the II Plus 
is really the same as the original Apple II, the major difference 
being Autostart Applesoft ROMs replaced the Integer ROMs.

    In otherwords, going by that logic, the only "new" model of the
Apple II line came about in 1986. :) The Apple IIgs was the _only_
model of the Apple II with major significant changes released. 
Otherwise, the 8-bit Apple II design remained relatively unchanged 
from 1977 (Apple II) until the last model in 1988 (Apple IIc Plus).

    Anything that had a new name on the cover, I consider a new
model. Note that the original model just had "Apple ][" on the
metal name plate, the following model had "Plus" in green lettering 
below it. 

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca