Re: Production #s

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

In article shack@onyx.southwind.net (Randy Shackelford) writes...

>Mitchell Spector (spec@vax2.concordia.ca) wrote:
>:     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.
>
>One of the old Beagle Bros manuals says Apple quit making ][s in '80. Seems
>I remember seeing an Apple timeline with June '80 as the date.

    Well I know there was an overlap, even though the the II Plus was
introduced in mid-1979, they were still making and selling plain II's
for awhile. I guess it went on for another 6-12 months before they
got rid of the original firmware and lids without "Plus" marked on
them (not sure if the keyboards with a raised 'power' LED are unique
to just the II though. Did the first II Pluses have them, or even the
last several II's?). I had no idea they lasted as late as 1980.

    All things considered though, the Apple II and II Plus could be
considered the same machine. The only major functional difference
between them is the firmware, which could be swapped to turn one
machine into another. Only the very original Apple II motherboard
(revision 0) really stood out as functionally different (e.g. the
lack of a color burst killer, only 4 colors in Hi-Res, the speaker
output going to the casette port, powerup reset, etc, among other
things).

>:     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).
>
>I think 100000 for the original III and 10000 for the III plus is about right.
>My lowest serial # III is in the 18000s and my III plus is in the 7800s.

    I'd have to recheck, but I think my III has a serial number in the
15000's. It was still extreme luck that I found one in my area when
you consider how relatively few were made (even more luck that it was
given to me free). I think if I ever see a III Plus, I'm going to have
to just grab it without thinking twice, they must be extremely rare.
I _did_ see one in person at an Apple dealer when they were brand-new,
but I had little idea what it was then (I thought it was a new type of
Apple IIe at the time, and called it a "///e Plus". :) I was really
more interested in the Apple Lisa then. At least I'm fairly sure it
was a Lisa on display, there was a puzzle desk accessory with sliding
numbers I was playing with). It being 15+ years ago, my memory is
pretty fuzzy.

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca