Re: What is the quintessential Apple II?

["Greg Andrzejewski" <pressyourluck85@yahoo.com>]

"Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote in message 
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> N.N. Thayer wrote:
>> I ran across a photo set of someone's platinum IIe, and they had
>> referred to it as "the quintessential Apple II."  The platinum //e
>> epitomizes Wozniak's creed of chip reduction - it has the fewest chips
>> of any Apple II, although some of them are custom, not-off-the-shelf
>> units.  It has a built-in numeric keypad, which some might say the II
>> should've had from the start, but at the same time, not everyone used
>> their computers for programming or heavy data input, and it raised
>> production costs (granted, not so much by 1987, when Apple had
>> economies of scale).  Seems to me the chief idea behind the II was to
>> build as you like.  The platinum IIe was also introduced during the
>> latter half of the II line's life cycle.
>>
>> Personally I think the Apple II+, while not the seller in sheer numbers
>> that the IIe was, fits the bill a little better.  It came at the height
>> of Apple's influence over the computer industry as a whole, not just in
>> educational or desktop publishing markets.  According to Woz, from
>> 1980-1982 it was the best-selling personal computer worldwide; games
>> and many apps were written first and foremost for the Apple II
>> platform.  Any microcomputer mag from that period reinforces this,
>> especially Computer Gaming World.  It had the basics that you'd expect
>> from a modern II - Autostart, the full color palette in hi-res, plus
>> plenty of ways to bring it close to IIe-level functionality if you
>> wanted to.
>>
>> Discuss!  It's a fun exploratory question if nothing else, I'm sure we
>> all have different criteria.
>
> I certainly felt that way about my ][+.  With autostart and Applesoft
> it was a clear winner over the ][ in late 1980 when I bought it.
>
> And, over the years, I extended it in many ways to make it more like
> a //e in capability.  In fact, around 1990 a business associate loaned
> me a //e just so that I could verify the compatibility of my "products"
> on that machine.  He chided me for sticking with my original ][+.
>
> Within a year, I had acquired a //e and was so satisfied with its
> compatibility with the ][+, in addition to its handy extensions, that
> I transitioned completely and put my souped-up ][+ away.
>
> I still feel that the ][/][+ (same electronics) are the "real" Apples,
> and the //e is a nice update/cost reduction.
>
Gotta love that double-high res graphics mode of the IIe.
-Greg

> -michael
>
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