= Apple_II =

======================================================================
= Apple_II =
======================================================================

Introduction
======================================================================
Apple II ("apple two", stylized as Apple ][) is a series of
microcomputers manufactured by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1977 to 1993.
The original Apple II model, which gave the series its name, was
designed by Steve Wozniak and was first sold on June 10, 1977. Its
success led to it being followed by the Apple II Plus, Apple IIe,
Apple IIc, and Apple IIc Plus, with the 1983 IIe being the most
popular. The name is trademarked with square brackets as Apple ][,
then, beginning with the IIe, as Apple //.

The Apple II was a major advancement over its predecessor, the Apple
I, in terms of ease of use, features, and expandability. It became one
of several recognizable and successful computers throughout the 1980s,
although this was mainly limited to the US. It was aggressively
marketed through volume discounts and manufacturing arrangements to
educational institutions, which made it the first computer in
widespread use in American secondary schools, displacing the early
leader Commodore PET. The effort to develop educational and business
software for the Apple II, including the 1979 release of the popular
VisiCalc spreadsheet, made the computer especially popular with
business users and families.

The Apple II computers are based on the 6502 8-bit processor and can
display text and two resolutions of color graphics. A
software-controlled speaker provides one channel of low-fidelity
audio. A model with more advanced graphics and sound and a 16-bit
processor, the Apple IIGS, was added in 1986. It remained compatible
with earlier Apple II models, but the IIGS has more in common with
mid-1980s systems like the Atari ST, Amiga, and Acorn Archimedes.

Despite the introduction of the Motorola 68000-based Macintosh in
1984, the Apple II series still reportedly accounted for 85% of the
company's hardware sales in the first quarter of fiscal 1985. Apple
continued to sell Apple II systems alongside the Macintosh until
terminating the IIGS in December 1992 and the IIe in November 1993.
The last II-series Apple in production, the IIe card for Macintoshes,
was discontinued on October 15, 1993; having been one of the longest
running mass-produced home computer series, the total Apple II sales
of all of its models during its 16-year production run were about 6
million units (including about 1.25 million Apple IIGS models) with
the peak occurring in 1983 when 1 million were sold.

Hardware
======================================================================
Unlike preceding home microcomputers, the Apple II was sold as a
finished consumer appliance rather than as a kit (unassembled or
preassembled). Apple marketed the Apple II as a durable product,
including a 1981 ad in which an Apple II survived a fire started when
a cat belonging to one early user knocked over a lamp.

All the machines in the series, except the IIc, share similar overall
design elements. The plastic case was designed to look more like a
home appliance than a piece of electronic equipment, and the case can
be opened without the use of tools. All models in the Apple II series
have a built-in keyboard, with the exception of the IIGS which has a
separate keyboard.

Apple IIs have color and high-resolution graphics modes, sound
capabilities and a built-in BASIC programming language. The
motherboard holds eight expansion slots and an array of random access
memory (RAM) sockets that can hold up to 48 kilobytes. Over the course
of the Apple II series' life, an enormous amount of first- and
third-party hardware was made available to extend the capabilities of
the machine. The IIc was designed as a compact, portable unit, not
intended to be disassembled, and cannot use most of the expansion
hardware sold for the other machines in the series.

Software
======================================================================
The original Apple II has the operating system in ROM along with a
BASIC variant called Integer BASIC. Apple eventually released
Applesoft BASIC, a more advanced variant of the language which users
can run instead of Integer BASIC. The Apple II series eventually
supported over 1,500 software programs.

When the Disk II floppy disk drive was released in 1978, a new
operating system, Apple DOS, was commissioned from Shepardson
Microsystems and developed by Paul Laughton, adding support for the
disk drive. The final and most popular version of this software was
Apple DOS 3.3.

Apple DOS was superseded by ProDOS, which supported a hierarchical
file system and larger storage devices. With an optional third-party
Z80-based expansion card, the Apple II could boot into the CP/M
operating system and run WordStar, dBase II, and other CP/M software.
With the release of MousePaint in 1984 and the Apple IIGS in 1986, the
platform took on the look of the Macintosh user interface, including a
mouse.

Much commercial Apple II software shipped on self-booting disks and
does not use standard DOS disk formats. This discouraged the copying
or modifying of the software on the disks, and improved loading speed.

Apple II
==========
The first Apple II computers went on sale on June 10, 1977 with a MOS
Technology 6502 (later Synertek) microprocessor running at 1.023 MHz,
4 KB of RAM, an audio cassette interface for loading programs and
storing data, and the Integer BASIC programming language built into
the ROMs. The video controller displayed 40 columns by 24 lines of
monochrome, upper-case-only (the original character set matches ASCII
characters 0x20 to 0x5F) text on the screen, with NTSC composite video
output suitable for display on a TV monitor, or on a regular TV set by
way of a separate RF modulator. The original retail price of the
computer was with 4 KB of RAM and with the maximum 48 KB of RAM. To
reflect the computer's color graphics capability, the Apple logo on
the casing was represented using rainbow stripes, which remained a
part of Apple's corporate logo until early 1998. The earliest Apple
IIs were assembled in Silicon Valley, and later in Texas; printed
circuit boards were manufactured in Ireland and Singapore.

An external -inch floppy disk drive, the Disk II, attached via a
controller card that plugged into one of the computer's expansion
slots (usually slot 6), was used for data storage and retrieval to
replace cassettes. The Disk II interface, created by Steve Wozniak,
was regarded as an engineering masterpiece for its economy of
electronic components.

Rather than having a dedicated sound-synthesis chip, the Apple II had
a toggle circuit that could only emit a click through a built-in
speaker; all other sounds (including two, three and, eventually,
four-voice music and playback of audio samples and speech synthesis)
were generated entirely by software that clicked the speaker at just
the right times.

The Apple II's multiple expansion slots permitted a wide variety of
third-party devices, including Apple II peripheral cards such as
serial controllers, display controllers, memory boards, hard disks,
networking components, and real-time clocks. There were plug-in
expansion cards - such as the Z-80 SoftCard - that permitted the Apple
to use the Z80 processor and run a multitude of programs developed
under the CP/M operating system, including the dBase II database and
the WordStar word processor. There was also a third-party 6809 card
that would allow OS-9 Level One to be run. Third-party sound cards
greatly improved audio capabilities, allowing simple music synthesis
and text-to-speech functions. Eventually, Apple II accelerator cards
were created to double or quadruple the computer's speed.

Rod Holt designed the Apple II's power supply. He employed a
switched-mode power supply design, which was far smaller and generated
less unwanted heat than the linear power supply some other home
computers used.

The original Apple II was discontinued at the start of 1981; it was
superseded by the Apple II+.

Apple II Plus
===============
The Apple II Plus, introduced in June 1979, included the Applesoft
BASIC programming language in ROM. This Microsoft-authored dialect of
BASIC, which was previously available as an upgrade, supported
floating-point arithmetic, and became the standard BASIC dialect on
the Apple II series (though it ran at a noticeably slower speed than
Steve Wozniak's Integer BASIC).

Except for improved graphics and disk-booting support in the ROM, and
the removal of the 2k 6502 assembler to make room for the floating
point BASIC, the II+ was otherwise identical to the original II in
terms of electronic functionality. There were small differences in the
physical appearance and keyboard. RAM prices fell during 1980-81 and
all II+ machines came from the factory with a full 48 KB of memory
already installed.

Apple II Europlus and J-Plus
==============================
After the success of the first Apple II in the United States, Apple
expanded its market to include Europe, the Middle East, Australia and
the Far East in 1979, with the Apple II Europlus (Europe, Australia)
and the Apple II J-Plus (Japan). In these models, Apple made the
necessary hardware, software and firmware changes in order to comply
to standards outside of the US.

Apple IIe
===========
The Apple II Plus was followed in 1983 by the Apple IIe, a
cost-reduced yet more powerful machine that used newer chips to reduce
the component count and add new features, such as the display of upper
and lowercase letters and a standard 64 KB of RAM.

The IIe RAM was configured as if it were a 48 KB Apple II Plus with a
language card. The machine had no slot 0, but instead had an auxiliary
slot that could accept a 1 KB memory card to enable the 80-column
display. This card contained only RAM; the hardware and firmware for
the 80-column display was built into the Apple IIe. An "extended
80-column card" with more memory increased the machine's RAM to 128
KB.

The Apple IIe was the most popular machine in the Apple II series. It
has the distinction of being the longest-lived Apple computer of all
time—it was manufactured and sold with only minor changes for nearly
11 years. The IIe was the last Apple II model to be sold, and was
discontinued in November 1993.

During its lifespan two variations were introduced: the Apple IIe
Enhanced (four replacement chips to give it some of the features of
the later model Apple IIc) and the Apple IIe Platinum (a modernized
case color to match other Apple products of the era, along with the
addition of a numeric keypad).

Some of the features of the IIe were carried over from the less
successful 'Apple III', among them the ProDOS operating system.

Apple IIc
===========
The Apple IIc was released in April 1984, billed as a portable Apple
II because it could be easily carried due to its size and carrying
handle, which could be flipped down to prop the machine up into a
typing position. Unlike modern portables, it lacked a built-in display
and battery. It was the first of three Apple II models to be made in
the Snow White design language, and the only one that used its unique
creamy off-white color.

The Apple IIc was the first Apple II to use the 65C02 low-power
variant of the 6502 processor, and featured a built-in 5.25-inch
floppy drive and 128 KB RAM, with a built-in disk controller that
could control external drives, composite video (NTSC or PAL), serial
interfaces for modem and printer, and a port usable by either a
joystick or mouse. Unlike previous Apple II models, the IIc had no
internal expansion slots at all.

Two different monochrome LC displays were sold for use with the IIc's
video expansion port, although both were short-lived due to high cost
and poor legibility. The IIc had an external power supply that
converted AC power to 15 V DC, though the IIc itself will accept
between 12 V and 17 V DC, allowing third parties to offer battery
packs and automobile power adapters that connected in place of the
supplied AC adapter.

Apple II<small>GS</small>
===========================
The Apple IIGS, released on September 15, 1986, is the penultimate and
most advanced model in the Apple II series, and a radical departure
from prior models. It uses a 16-bit microprocessor, the 65C816
operating at 2.8 MHz with 24-bit addressing, allowing expansion up to
8 MB of RAM. The graphics are significantly improved, with 4096 colors
and new modes with resolutions of 320×200 and 640×400. The audio
capabilities are vastly improved, with a built-in music synthesizer
that far exceeded any other home computer.

The Apple IIGS evolved the platform while still maintaining
near-complete backward compatibility. Its Mega II chip contains the
functional equivalent of an entire Apple IIe computer (sans
processor). This, combined with the 65816's ability to execute 65C02
code directly, provides full support for legacy software, while also
supporting 16-bit software running under a new OS.

The OS eventually included a Macintosh-like graphical Finder for
managing disks and files and opening documents and applications, along
with desk accessories. Later, the IIGS gained the ability to read and
write Macintosh disks and, through third-party software, a
multitasking Unix-like shell and TrueType font support.

The GS includes a 32-voice Ensoniq 5503 DOC sample-based sound
synthesizer chip with 64 KB dedicated RAM, 256 KB (or later 1.125 MB)
of standard RAM, built-in peripheral ports (switchable between
IIe-style card slots and IIc-style onboard controllers for disk
drives, mouse, RGB video, and serial devices), and built-in AppleTalk
networking.

Apple IIc Plus
================
The final Apple II model was the Apple IIc Plus introduced in 1988. It
was the same size and shape as the IIc that came before it, but the
5.25-inch floppy drive had been replaced with a -inch drive, the power
supply was moved inside the case, and the processor was a fast 4 MHz
65C02 processor that actually ran 8-bit Apple II software faster than
the IIGS.

The IIc Plus also featured a new keyboard layout that matched the
Platinum IIe and IIGS. Unlike the IIe IIc and IIGS, the IIc Plus came
only in one version (American) and was not officially sold anywhere
outside the US. The Apple IIc Plus ceased production in 1990, with its
two-year production run being the shortest of all the Apple II
computers.

Apple IIe Card
================
Although not an extension of the Apple II line, in 1990 the Apple IIe
Card, an expansion card for the Macintosh LC, was released.
Essentially a miniaturized Apple IIe computer on a card (using the
Mega II chip from the Apple IIGS), it allowed the Macintosh to run
8-bit Apple IIe software through hardware emulation, with an option to
run at roughly double the speed of the original IIe (about 1.8 MHz).
However, the video output was emulated in software, and, depending on
how much of the screen the currently running program was trying to
update in a single frame, performance could be much slower compared to
a real IIe. This is due to the fact that writes from the 65C02 on the
IIe Card to video memory were caught by the additional hardware on the
card, so the video emulation software running on the Macintosh side
could process that write and update the video display. But, while the
Macintosh was processing video updates, execution of Apple II code
would be temporarily halted.

With a breakout cable which connected to the back of the card, the
user could attach up to two UniDisk or Apple 5.25 Drives, up to one
UniDisk 3.5 drive, and a DE-9 Apple II joystick. Many of the LC's
built-in Macintosh peripherals could also be "borrowed" by the card
when in Apple II mode, including extra RAM, the Mac's internal
3.5-inch floppy drives, AppleTalk networking, any ProDOS-formatted
hard disk partitions, the serial ports, mouse, and real-time clock.
The IIe card could not, however, run software intended for the 16-bit
Apple IIGS.

Advertising, marketing, and packaging
======================================================================
Mike Markkula, a retired Intel marketing manager, provided the early
critical funding for Apple Computer. From 1977 to 1981, Apple used the
Regis McKenna agency for its advertisements and marketing. In 1981,
Chiat-Day acquired Regis McKenna's advertising operations and Apple
used Chiat-Day. At Regis McKenna Advertising, the team assigned to
launch the Apple II consisted of Rob Janoff, art director, Chip
Schafer, copywriter and Bill Kelley, account executive. Janoff came up
with the Apple logo with a bite out of it. The design was originally
an olive green with matching company logotype all in lowercase. Steve
Jobs insisted on promoting the color capability of the Apple II by
putting rainbow stripes on the Apple logo. In its letterhead and
business card implementation, the rounded "a" of the logotype echoed
the "bite" in the logo. This logo was developed simultaneously with an
advertisement and a brochure; the latter being produced for
distribution initially at the first West Coast Computer Faire.

Since the original Apple II, Apple has paid high attention to its
quality of packaging, partly because of Steve Jobs' personal
preferences and opinions on packaging and final product appearance.
All of Apple's packaging for the Apple II series looked similar,
featuring much clean white space and showing the Apple rainbow logo
prominently. For several years up until the late 1980s, Apple used the
Motter Tektura font for packaging, until changing to the Apple
Garamond font.

Apple ran the first advertisement for the Apple II, a two-page spread
ad titled "Introducing Apple II", in 'BYTE' in July 1977. The first
brochure, was entitled "Simplicity" and the copy in both the ad and
brochure pioneered "demystifying" language intended to make the new
idea of a home computer more "personal." The Apple II introduction ad
was later run in the September 1977 issue of 'Scientific American'.

Apple later aired eight television commercials for the Apple IIGS,
emphasizing its benefits to education and students, along with some
print ads.

Clones
======================================================================
The Apple II was frequently cloned, both in the United States and
abroad, in a similar way to the IBM PC. According to some sources (see
below), more than 190 different models of Apple II clones were
manufactured. Most could not be legally imported into the United
States. Apple sued and sought criminal charges against clone makers in
more than a dozen countries.

Cassette
==========
Originally the Apple II used Compact Cassette tapes for program and
data storage. A dedicated tape recorder along the lines of the
Commodore Datasette was never produced; Apple recommended using the
Panasonic RQ309 in some of its early printed documentation. The uses
of common consumer cassette recorders and a standard video monitor or
television set (with a third-party RF modulator) made the total cost
of owning an Apple II less expensive and helped contribute to the
Apple II's success.

Cassette storage may have been inexpensive, but it was also slow and
unreliable. The Apple II's lack of a disk drive was "a glaring
weakness" in what was otherwise intended to be a polished,
professional product. Recognizing that the II needed a disk drive to
be taken seriously, Apple set out to develop a disk drive and a DOS to
run it. Wozniak spent the 1977 Christmas holidays designing a disk
controller that reduced the number of chips used by a factor of 10
compared to existing controllers. Still lacking a DOS, and with
Wozniak inexperienced in operating system design, Jobs approached
Shepardson Microsystems with the project. On April 10, 1978, Apple
signed a contract for $13,000 with Shepardson to develop the DOS.

Even after disk drives made the cassette tape interfaces obsolete they
were still used by enthusiasts as simple one-bit audio input-output
ports. Ham radio operators used the cassette input to receive slow
scan TV (single frame images). A commercial speech recognition
Blackjack program was available, after some user-specific voice
training it would recognize simple commands (Hit, stand). Bob Bishop's
"Music Kaleidoscope" was a simple program that monitored the cassette
input port and based on zero-crossings created color patterns on the
screen, a predecessor to current audio visualization plug-ins for
media players. Music Kaleidoscope was especially popular on projection
TV sets in dance halls.

The OS Disk
=============
Apple and many third-party developers made software available on tape
at first, but after the Disk II became available in 1978, tape-based
Apple II software essentially disappeared from the market. The initial
price of the Disk II drive and controller was US$595, although a $100
off coupon was available through the Apple newsletter "Contact". The
controller could handle two drives and a second drive (without
controller) retailed for $495.

The Disk II single-sided floppy drive used 5.25-inch floppy disks;
double-sided disks could be used, one side at a time, by turning them
over and notching a hole for the write protect sensor. The first disk
operating systems for the were and DOS 3.2, which stored 113.75 KB
on each disk, organized into 35 tracks of 13 256-byte sectors each.
After about two years, DOS 3.3 was introduced, storing 140 KB thanks
to a minor firmware change on the disk controller that allowed it to
store 16 sectors per track. (This upgrade was user-installable as two
PROMs on older controllers.) After the release of DOS 3.3, the user
community discontinued use of except for running legacy software.
Programs that required DOS 3.2 were fairly rare; however, as DOS 3.3
was not a major architectural change aside from the number of sectors
per track, a program called MUFFIN was provided with DOS 3.3 to allow
users to copy files from DOS 3.2 disks to DOS 3.3 disks. It was
possible for software developers to create a DOS 3.2 disk which would
also boot on a system with firmware.

Later, double-sided drives, with heads to read both sides of the disk,
became available from third-party companies. (Apple only produced
double-sided 5.25-inch disks for the Lisa 1 computer).

On a DOS 3.x disk, tracks 0, 1, and most of track 2 were reserved to
store the operating system. (It was possible, with a special utility,
to reclaim most of this space for data if a disk did not need to be
bootable.) A short ROM program on the disk controller had the ability
to seek to track zero which it did without regard for the read/write
head's current position, resulting in the characteristic "chattering"
sound of a Disk II boot, which was the read/write head hitting the
rubber stop block at the end of the rail - and read and execute code
from sector 0. The code contained in there would then pull in the rest
of the operating system. DOS stored the disk's directory on track 17,
smack in the middle of the 35-track disks, in order to reduce the
average seek time to the frequently used directory track. The
directory was fixed in size and could hold a maximum of 105 files.
Subdirectories were not supported.

Most game publishers did not include DOS on their floppy disks, since
they needed the memory it occupied more than its capabilities;
instead, they often wrote their own boot loaders and read-only file
systems. This also served to discourage "crackers" from snooping
around in the game's copy-protection code, since the data on the disk
was not in files that could be accessed easily.

Some third-party manufacturers produced floppy drives that could write
40 tracks to most 5.25-inch disks, yielding 160 KB of storage per
disk, but the format did not catch on widely, and no known commercial
software was published on 40-track media. Most drives, even Disk IIs,
could write 36 tracks; a two byte modification to DOS to format the
extra track was common.

The Apple Disk II stored 140 KB on single-sided, "single-density"
floppy disks, but it was very common for Apple II users to extend the
capacity of a single-sided floppy disk to 280 KB by cutting out a
second write-protect notch on the side of the disk using a "disk
notcher" or hole puncher and inserting the disk flipped over.
Double-sided disks, with notches on both sides, were available at a
higher price, but in practice the magnetic coating on the reverse of
nominally single-sided disks was usually of good enough quality to be
used (both sides were coated in the same way to prevent warping,
although only one side was certified for use). Early on, diskette
manufacturers routinely warned that this technique would damage the
read/write head of the drives or wear out the disk faster, and these
warnings were frequently repeated in magazines of the day. In
practice, however, this method was an inexpensive way to store twice
as much data for no extra cost, and was widely used for commercially
released floppies as well.

Later, Apple IIs were able to use 3.5-inch disks with a total capacity
of 800 KB and hard disks. did not support these drives natively;
third-party software was required, and disks larger than about 400 KB
had to be split up into multiple "virtual disk volumes."

DOS 3.3 was succeeded by ProDOS, a 1983 descendant of the Apple ///'s
SOS. It added support for subdirectories and volumes up to 32 MB in
size. ProDOS became the DOS of choice; AppleWorks and other newer
programs required it.

Legacy
======================================================================
The Apple II series of computers had an enormous impact on the
technology industry and expanded the role of microcomputers in
society. The Apple II was the first personal computer many people ever
saw. Its price was within the reach of many middle-class families, and
a partnership with MECC helped make the Apple II popular in schools.
By the end of 1980 Apple had already sold over 100,000 Apple IIs, and
at the introduction of the IIGS, models in the range had been sold.
However, in other markets, the range saw rather more limited adoption,
with only 120,000 units selling in the UK over this nine-year period.

The Apple II's popularity bootstrapped the computer game and
educational software markets and began the boom in the word processor
and computer printer markets. The first spreadsheet application,
VisiCalc, was initially released for the Apple II, and many businesses
bought them just to run VisiCalc. Its success drove IBM in part to
create the IBM PC, which many businesses purchased to run spreadsheet
and word processing software, at first ported from Apple II versions.

The Apple II's slots, allowing any peripheral card to take control of
the bus and directly access memory, enabled an independent industry of
card manufacturers who together created a flood of hardware products
that let users build systems that were far more powerful and useful
(at a lower cost) than any competing system, most of which were not
nearly as expandable and were universally proprietary. The first
peripheral card was a blank prototyping card intended for electronics
enthusiasts who wanted to design their own peripherals for the Apple
II.

Specialty peripherals kept the Apple II in use in industry and
education environments for many years after Apple Computer stopped
supporting the Apple II. Well into the 1990s every clean-room (the
super-clean facility where spacecraft are prepared for flight) at the
Kennedy Space Center used an Apple II to monitor the environment and
air quality. Most planetariums used Apple IIs to control their
projectors and other equipment.

Even the game port was unusually powerful and could be used for
digital and analog input and output. The early manuals included
instructions for how to build a circuit with only four commonly
available components (one transistor and three resistors) and a
software routine to drive a common Teletype Model 33 machine. Don
Lancaster used the game port I/O to drive a LaserWriter printer.

Modern use
============
Today, emulators for various Apple II models are available to run
Apple II software on macOS, Linux, Microsoft Windows, homebrew enabled
Nintendo DS and other operating systems. Numerous disk images of Apple
II software are available free over the Internet for use with these
emulators. AppleWin and MESS are among the best emulators compatible
with most Apple II images. The MESS emulator supports recording and
playing back of Apple II emulation sessions, as does Home Action
Replay Page (a.k.a. HARP).

There is still a small annual convention, KansasFest, dedicated to the
platform.

In 2017, the band 8 Bit Weapon released the world's first 100% Apple
II-based music album entitled, "Class Apples". The album featured
dance-oriented cover versions of classical music by Bach, Beethoven,
and Mozart recorded directly off the Apple II motherboard.

See also
======================================================================
*Apple Industrial Design Group
*List of publications and periodicals devoted to the Apple II
*Apple II peripheral cards
*Apple II graphics
*List of Apple II application software
*List of Apple II games
*List of Apple IIGS games

External links
======================================================================
*[http://www.epocalc.net/php/liste_models.php?texte=apple+2+clone&look=All+fields
epocalc] Apple II clones list
*"[http://www.businessinsider.com/pictures-of-apples-first-employees-2013-12
These Pictures Of Apple's First Employees Are Absolutely Wonderful]",
contains a c.1977 photograph taken inside Apple of early employees
Chrisann Brennan, Mark Johnson, and Robert Martinengo standing in
front of a stack of Apple IIs that they had tested, assembled, and
were about to ship ('Business Insider', December 26, 2013).

License
=========
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Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II