Re: 30 years of the Apple Lisa and the Apple IIe

[Brian <bpicchi@gmail.com>]

On Jan 18, 12:14 pm, D Finnigan <dog_...@macgui.com> wrote:
> by Benj Edwards
> Jan 18, 2013 3:20 AM
>
> At its annual shareholders’ meeting on January 19, 1983, Apple announced
> two new products that would play a pivotal role in the future of the
> company: the Apple Lisa, Apple’s original GUI-based computer and the
> precursor to the Macintosh; and the Apple IIe, which represented a natural
> evolution to the highly successful Apple II computer line.
>
> One of these platforms met an early end, leaving behind technology that
> shaped the entire industry. The other, built on proven technology from an
> engineering genius, remained a reliable breadwinner during uncertain times
> in the early life of the Macintosh and carried Apple’s most popular 8-bit
> computer line to its natural conclusion.
>
> Remembering the Apple IIe
>
> The story of the Apple IIe began with Apple’s first high-profile failure,
> the Apple III. Launched in 1980, the Apple III targeted the business market
> with an over-engineered, high-priced machine whose Apple II compatibility
> Apple purposely crippled in the name of market differentiation.
>
> Around the time of the Apple III’s launch, Apple was so sure of the new
> computer's success that it had halted all future development of Apple
> II-related projects. But by 1982, as it became clear that the Apple II
> wasn’t going away (in fact, it was becoming more popular than ever), Apple
> scrambled to upgrade its aging Apple II line, which had last been refreshed
> in 1979 with the Apple II+.
>
> The result was the Apple IIe, which packed in several enhancements that
> regular Apple II users had been enjoying for years thanks to a combination
> of the Apple II’s plentiful internal expansion slots and a robust
> third-party hardware community to fill them. Among those features were
> 80-column text-mode support, support for lowercase letters (yep, the
> original Apple II and II+ supported only uppercase letters), and 64KB of RAM
> standard (expandable to 128KB).
>
> Most importantly for Apple, the Apple IIe drastically lowered the chip count
> on the system’s motherboard from over 100 chips to 31, allowing Apple to
> manufacture the computer at a lower cost while extracting a higher profit
> from each unit.
>
> Upon its release in 1983, the Apple IIe proved immediately popular, and it
> soon became the standard Apple II model against which all others would be
> compared. The Apple IIe’s reliability and backward compatibility with a
> rich library of Apple II software made it a fixture at schools, where a
> generation of American schoolchildren grew up playing Apple II-based
> educational games such as The Oregon Trail, and eventually, Number Munchers.
>
> Thanks to the IIe, the Apple II series remained a steady source of income
> for Apple during an uncertain period in the mid-1980s when the Macintosh
> wasn’t selling in the volume that the company had anticipated. Even after
> the introduction of the vastly upgraded Apple IIgs in 1986, demand for the
> Apple IIe remained steady, and Apple marketed a version of the IIe all the
> way up until 1993, when the company finally pulled the plug on the
> stand-alone Apple II line (the Apple IIe Card for Macintosh computers was
> spared for two more years).
>
> By 1993, when Apple discontinued the II series, the Macintosh was firmly
> positioned as the future of the company. But those who used the Apple IIe
> and the Lisa in their prime would not soon forget the fruitful impact both
> systems had on the course of Apple’s history.
>
> http://www.macworld.com/article/2025408/

Thanks for sharing that article.  Very cool indeed.  1993 - The year I
stopped buying any new Apple products. :)  This weekend also marks the
30 year anniversary of the Commodore SX-64. To commemorate this
occasion some people will be taking their luggable machine to their
local Starbucks.  Hipsters versus retro Commodore fans, should prove
interesting.  I intend to bring my Compaq Portable and some popcorn.