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January 1, 1983: Apple launches the Apple IIe, the third mannequin within the Apple II collection — and the final earlier than the Macintosh will arrive a 12 months later.
It proves a giant vendor, and proof optimistic of the Apple II model’s sustained worth.
Apple IIe: The replace that was by no means deliberate
The Apple IIe took over from the Apple II Plus. Initially, Apple deliberate to desert the Apple II with that mannequin and exchange the product line with the Apple III. Nevertheless, the continued reputation of the Apple II, and the market failure of the Apple III — largely because of its excessive value and a few obtrusive engineering faults — pushed Apple to improve its confirmed hit product for an additional go-around. (In the long run, Apple continued producing some model of the Apple II till the early Nineties.)
The Apple IIe added as commonplace a few of the performance that Apple II fanatics already loved, because of the brand new mannequin’s spectacular variety of enlargement slots. This included 80-column text-mode help, 64KB of RAM (expandable as much as 128KB) and, for the primary time, lowercase letters!
It additionally dropped the chip rely on the motherboard from greater than 100 to only 31. That permit Apple squeeze out extra revenue from every machine offered. The truth is, the Apple IIe offered for about 3 times greater than the pc price to fabricate.
A essential and business success
The Apple IIe acquired an amazing reception upon its launch. Byte journal described it as “like having an Apple II with all of the extras inbuilt … with a wide range of thrilling new options and capabilities” for little further price.
The pc confirmed robust gross sales within the market, transferring 60,000 to 70,000 models per 30 days by Could 1983. This was about twice the typical gross sales of its predecessor, the Apple II Plus. The Apple IIe continued because the best-selling Apple II mannequin even after Cupertino launched its successor, the Apple IIc, in 1984.
At a time when Apple’s different computer systems, the Lisa (launched the identical month) and the Apple III, didn’t catch on, and the Macintosh wasn’t but a giant vendor, the Apple IIe stacked up as an undisputed winner.
Do you bear in mind the Apple IIe? Did you personal one? Tell us within the feedback under.
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