Great video! Given your myth-busting IIgs video, you might want to know that in the mid 2010s, the now defunct podcast "Drop III Inches" got interviews with most of the Apple III's engineers and busted all the myths. The lack of a fan wasn't the problem. Chips were not coming out of their sockets - those would be defective sockets and would affect a lot more computers than just the III. The III's major difference from the II construction-wise was that all of the RAM was on a separate board, and Apple had used cheap tin contacts for the edge connector fingers. Those started oxidizing during manufacture, and quickly would cause issues. Dropping the machine had the effect of reseating the connection, which is why it worked. For the recall, Apple replaced the memory boards with new ones that had more conventional edge connector materials, and those machines were as reliable as Apple IIs. It's also worth noting that a lot of the IIe's features (notably double-hi-res) were borrowed from the III, and that the III's SOS was ported to the IIe and renamed ProDOS.
When I wrote this, I actually had read multiple accounts of various problems of the Apple III, including the ones from Drop III inches. I actually knew about the oxidation, but I interpreted it as the same problem-that it affected legs in sockets causing them to back out as thermal expansion because they were single-wipe, versus an edge connector on the board. I will say in my defense that I didn't say the RAM problem was because of heat. ;) (The III probably should have had a cooling fan in general, but that's a separate debate) I also think a lot of people writing reports conflated connectors with sockets, which lead me to do the same exact thing! Also, Apple's recalls weren't just for the memory boards, but also for the main logic board itself, because I thought it had to be redesigned due to trace issues. My understanding is that the RAM board problem and the main logic board trace problem were two separate issues. Going back and re-reading Drop III inches, I believe that was the case-or am I incorrect?
in most of my schools' computer labs, we had hand-me-down PCs, often old IBM PCs, maybe some PETs, but mainly Apple IIe computers. I got really good at using Apple IIe computers by the time I was in 8th grade around 1992 and even through highschool they were a major part of the run down computers I'd often have to use.
As an avionics technician, I kept an Apple IIe running well into the 2000s so we could troubleshoot and repair Rockwell Collins avionics boxes. With the right IO cards and proper interconnect cables th Apple was able to put correct inputs into the appropriate circuits and check for the corresponding outputs. With the Apple IIe we wrere able to advance aircraft from old steam guage cockpits into early models of Electronic Flight Information Systems - EFIS. Modern aircraft are now equipped with flight decks that are really just specialized computer networks. Taking a typing class back in the mid 70s was probably the most valuable skill I learned in high school.
For almost my entire secondary education from 1983 (2nd) to 1994 (12th) in Montgomery County, Maryland, (greater Washington DC area) had Apple IIe in almost every classroom. I took word processing, science classes, math classes, programming classes, and such. I went off to get a bachelors degree in computer science and pursue a career in IT and i owe it all to the Apple IIe. Apple IIe changed my life for the better. I have used other computers even back then but none made such an impact as the Apple IIe. Thanks for this video.
Growing up as a PC only enthusiest I had NO clue how upgradable and customizable the early Apples were. I didnt learn that until retro videos like this came out on youtube. Great video!
Thanks! Part of the fun of this is seeing and learning about all the stuff I missed back in the day... even though I had plenty of hands-on experience with these machines.
Your coverage of MECC is an awesome addition to this history. Back in 1977, I started using a teletype and acoustic coupler modem to play Oregon Trail and Colossal Cave at my rural Minnesota school. Of course a few years later, they dumped the expensive leased line and bought Apple II+ systems with MECC software. Oregon Trail, Lemonade Stand, Odell Lake, Ultima, Castle Wolfenstein ... etc. And those price lists, I used to see them all the time as my mom was an educator and the school would let staff buy systems through the school at the same discounts. Used to keep dreaming the systems I could have and what a deal they were! Personally started with a II+, then a //e, and eventually a Woz IIgs system before college forced me to go Macintosh.
I went to a very cash-strapped school in Oklahoma in the mid to late 90s and we had TONS of Apple IIs! We had a few old IBM PCs, but we didn't start getting "modern" networked computers with internet until 1998-99, when the school purchased hundreds of Gateway 500 MHz machines and got rid of all the ancient tech... I doubt they ever bought any Apple computers again sadly....
I went to high school between 1991 and 1995, and all of my schools still had Apple IIs right until I graduated. I actually took Computer Science I on a stock Apple IIgs in 1992-1993 (though after that, the CS classes moved to Turbo Pascal on PCs).
A great video! You should have, like, 10 times as many subscribers as you do. I think we're about the same age -- I graduated high school in 2002. My elementary school had Apple IIs in every classroom, plus a computer lab with probably 25 or 30 of them, mostly the IIe. I remember using Logo to draw shapes in first and second grade. Around 1993 or so, they replaced them with Macs, and I got an LC III at home. I've stayed a loyal Mac user ever since. Macs were in every computer lab for most of my education, except for high school, when someone at my college prep private school had the bright idea to replace the Macs with cheap eMachines, which quickly got filled with garbage and stopped working.
3:15 Just a small correction: the C64 doesn't have a 65C02 (=CMOS-variant) but a 6510, also fabricated in NMOS like the 6502. The 6510 is fully software-compatible with a regular 6502 and it "supports" the same undocumented opcodes (that do NOT work on a 65C02). It is, however, not pin-compatible as it has extra I/O pins that control the bank switching and the Datasette tape recorder. There are also other differences to a regular 6502 so you can't simply exchange these chips. IIRC there are socket adapters for this. Later versions of the C64 used a "8500" which was fabricated in HMOS instead of NMOS but was otherwise identical to the 6510 (AFAIK).
Thanks for the correction, that's why in the audio and the original text I had said "a CPU in the 6502 family," because the 6510 is a superset, but the good ole "copy and paste and then make adjustments" for a video illustration results in an oversight.
In all honesty the 6510 is a 6502 with a I/O port tacked on, and is considered a 6502 family CPU, Also there are other variations/modifications of the 6502, not just the 6510. MOS was bought out by Commodore because Jack Tramiel wanted Chuck Peddle as an engineer. Curiously, It was Chuck Peddle(originally from MOS) who designed the Commodore PET computer. And the VIC 20 is based on the PET with extra chips for sound, etc. and C64 is just built on the VIC 20 as a base, etc. In fact all the chips for sound and graphics on the C64 were loosely reversed engineered from the 1979's Atari's 800 computer's Pokey and GTIA chips. Anyhow, once Commodore owned MOS, they modified the 6502 at whim. But truthfully these modifications did not change the core 6502, and were modifications that could have been easily implemeted by adding other chips. As a foot note, the main "hero's" and engineering legends of the 1970's 80's era were Chuck Peddle(MOS/Commodore) and Jay Miner who headed the design of the advanced graphics chips of the Atari and Amiga computers. Truthfully, Steve Wozniak's contributions pale in comparison.
My mom, who was a teacher, once brought home an Apple IIe over the summer of 85 and it was magical. At school i continued to use those machines until 12th grade in 1996, our computer lab STILL had IIes in the writing labs.
Growing up I had an Apple in every classroom, but there was no educational use for it. No lessons used it. I don't even think we had any educational software for it. Many teachers never used them at all, just had it taking up room collecting dust in the corner. I only remember using it once before high school, with a teacher who used it as a reward for certain activities, letting students play a Pipe Dream like game that the teacher brought from their own home. High school I finally learned to do things with them, where there was a programming class and lab where I learned BASIC and spent extra time if I could writing my own software and games. This was after the 386 came out.
I'm 48 years old and I've never seen an Apple II in person. My school system used Commodore 64's, and that's what we had at home until 1990 or so, then we had a Tandy 386.
Personally I grew up a bit later (same age as Linus at LTT) and in Sweden so we only had windows computers in school. The first computers I used were IBM 486s at 66mhz. It wasn’t until I spent a year in Canada at a university in 2005-06 that I realised how tied Apple was to education in North America. I went to the school book store and bought myself the first gen iPod Nano which was my first ever Apple device I bought. I think windows is still the OS for schools here but I’m not sure. Oregon Trail was never a thing in schools here but I did play the iPhone version many years ago. What I remember playing on the school computers were a game called Rover which I think was an isometric game with a dog and a robot. I also remember a pinball game from DICE. The Swedish developer that’s these days known for the Battlefield games. I also played Gorillaz in QBASIC. This was during free time though. I don’t remember ever getting to play games during computer class and I don’t think we had educational games. Instead we got to learn Windows and MS Office and such. Like most in Sweden we got a computer in our home in the late 90s when Sweden had the Home PC program where people could lease a PC through work with tax deductions compared to buying it yourself at a store. Our first family computer was an IBM Aptiva Pentium 2 400mhz with Windows 98 and 64MB of RAM. It came with a DVD drive and a Canon printer. It was very high end in 1998. Unfortunately mom couldn’t afford to pay to let us keep it after the lease was up and we ended up getting an older computer in 2001 with windows 95 from 1997 instead which I wasn’t happy about. By 2003 I built my first own gaming computer from parts a P4 with Radeon 9600Pro and 1GB of RAM which was light years ahead in terms of power.
My school had a lab of Apple //e and IIGS computers networked with localtalk. They all booted from a Mac SE/30 acting as a server. I got to experience most all of the popular MECC titles like Oregon Trail. But never heard the disk drive. Because netboot.
3:20 Commodore C64 used the 6510 CPU with extra Bank-select lines to get beyond 48K memory used under OS ROMs and hardware mapping. 6502C (Sally) was used in all 8-bit Atari's with a Halt pin to work with ANTIC video co-pro (also had C/GTIA, POKEY, PIA (6520) LSI chips like Commodore's VIC II (6567/6566/8562/8564 - VIC 6560), SID (6581/8580), and CIA (6526 x2) chips). Japan's C64 precursor MAX Machine, Ultimax (US/Can) and VC-10 (Germany). 6502 was used in the Apple II line, PET, VIC 20, BBC Micro, etc. The great Atari VCS used 6507 (Pin/cost reduced). All 65xx/85xx CPUs used the same instruction set.
Yes, the textual error in the slide was addressed in a previous comment. I had meant to write 6510 in the C64 column (the written script said family, which is true) but copy and paste gets the best of us sometimes.
I've never owned a Apple computer, and had a 64 back in the day. I think if I did have a IIe with expanded memeory and a 80 column card (plus floppy and printer) I would have regarded it as an excellent computer. The c64 could never do 80 columns which really made it stay in the 'toy' camp. In Australia, I think Apple computers were just far too expensive. As a kid, I was exceptionally lucky to have a c64. We had a Apple II of some sort at school (1 of them), but no one I knew had a Apple computer, and most couldn't afford a computer at all.
My school had apple 2s through the early 2000s. I remember my high-school science teacher having a 2e with all the best games. We had modern computers too but the 2s and 2es hung around for a while before they were completely 86d.
Such a great documentary enjoyed every minute. Had a nostalgia trip as my first experience with computers and programming was on an apple iie - Australia was very similar to the usa - and apple dominated education market at all levels. It was interesting also because i got hooked on commodore - and ended up having a 128D as my only computer until 1994 when i finally got an Amiga - and for many of my subjects i had to use AMAX to emulate an old 68000 mac so i could use software because apple still dominated education! The rest of the time i was connecting to solaris servers over a modem!
Used the Apple IIc for a long distance telecom company in 1984 and VisiCalc - was the only person allowed to use the devise in our regional office at that time, didn't realize how special that was.
My first home computer as a kid. How it blew my mind! Been a video game nut ever since! Great video by the way. Watched it all. I have no idea why you don't have more subs. Keep up the good work.
I'm a little young compared to some of this. However, when I was in elementary school, our school was majorly using Intel imacs, and when I got into middleschool, we were all given laptops. I was very well familiar with Windows PCs, Macs, and tablets like an IPad. So, I think for some of my GenZ counterparts, apple's reign still was there in some aspects.
There is an alternate universe where like the IBM PC, the Apple ][ line continued on with the GS being replaced by a Mac like system that was backwards compatible with the original 6502 architecture just like todays Intel and AMD processer based systems are still x86 based. Its crazy to think that the majority of computers today are simply better faster versions of a 40 year system while Apple is on its 5th major processor family.
Yep, my elementary school computer memories are the all-Apple IIe computer lab (through year 1999!) and 100% software memories of mecc software other than ClarisWorks and Tessselmania. But WOW I had no clue that history with Minesota and almost choosing the TRS-80, incredible story. Great video, thanks!
44:09 Amiga 1.x Workbench! 😍 My 8th grade classroom (sadly not public school) had gotten a C128 by the time I was there. I had an Atari 800XL and many games came on disks you could flip with C64 on one side and XL/XE on the other. Nobody ever used 128 mode 😕 and there was no usage of the computer in class. Just played games during lunch. Never knew why it was there. But in high school there were a few computer lab class rooms. n introduction to computers class was in a room full of IBM PCs (or XTs?). That was public high school. The parochial high school that most of my 8th grade classmates went to (I had enough and rebelled) had Tandy TRS80’s (all in one style so III or IV?) that I saw on the open house tour. So already the public high school was doing better. But for the Computer Science classes that room had Tandy 1000’s. Borland Turbo Pascal! One friend with a C64 was talking about getting an Amiga. A little later I messed with him and said I got a Macintosh but pulled out a McIntosh to eat. I was on local BBS’s and also Delphi and GEnie. I heard about the Amiga history and its ancestral routes with the Atari 8-bits. When the local Macintosh user group and Electronics Boutique (remember that store?!) put on an exhibit at the mall one night (included others like Commodore and Atari too) I saw Dark Castle for the first time. Sears sold a Franklin (?) //c imitation but in black and it never had a good demo. I liked the Apples that I saw that night. And I was unimpressed with the Atari ST. But when someone loaded the Dragon’s Lair demo on the Amiga I melted. Wow!🤯 And the NewTek demo! That settles things. I had to have an Amiga. And honestly all I could afford as a teen was a used 1000 and by the end of October’88 I found one online (Delphi or GEnie) and while we met in person and I paid cash it was still sorta early online shopping. After CBM went bankrupt I bought a Performa 637 from someone I knew who was going PowerPC. And that was my way into the Apple ecosystem. Next a Motorola Starmax 3000 and a USB+firewire card for it. And an accelerator. Then an open box Pismo (the TiBook G4s had come out). An Intel iMac 🖥️ (the first aluminum and glass model) then ‘14 mini and now a Studio. I’d say no looking back but I do seem to subscribe to the retro computer channels) 🤷♂️
Similar age range as you, from Southwest Virginia, we didn't have many Apple IIs the school system chose Laser machines instead (apple II clones) because they were cheaper.
I grew up in school on these. I remember seeing one Apple3 once and thinking.. that looks strange. Must have been at school or a library. I don't remember ever using it. At our public library you had to do special training and sigh a form to get a little yellow paper floppy disk taped to the upper left of your library card in order to check out the computer rooms. It was just how to use the process and rules.. But I so remember getting that taped to my card and feeling like somebody at my age. Not many "kids" had them. Your parent had to sign the form and back then almost nobody used a computer. So going there you'd see another kid with a computer pass and start talking and trading games. So always have your floppies with you.
Since this the second installment of "Computers of Significant History," it's a reference back to how Commodore kept selling the 64 up till the day it went bankrupt. I likened it to a small-time celebrity coasting on fifteen minutes of fame, with Commodore still selling it to diminishing returns because it was cheap. By that time it wasn't a computer for the masses anymore. And Commodore had nothing good to replace it with in our market. Their failure to advance the Amiga meant their consumer entries, the a600 and a1200, weren't competitive. As much as I like those Amigas, the Super VGA multimedia PC was where the wind was blowing. Selling C64s in 1993 even if it's in "developing markets" is the same kind of desperation as Gil from the Simpsons. An Apple IIe was old in 1994, but it was so entrenched in education that it still had relevancy. And Apple had an exit plan for those customers that didn't leave them high and dry. Despite their problems (and cost) they were able to make consumer grade Macs that could compete with PCs without too much embarrassment and be in the ballpark in terms of price. The Apple IIe card (and then Gus) kept the old software alive. Most of those schools wound up replacing those IIes with Macs eventually. So it was my short way of saying that an Apple II retired with dignity.
@@userlandia Ah, I see. And I agree. It's funny though, I remember C64 magazines back in the day claiming Commodore tried to kill off the C64 with the Terminator 2 pack, where they packaged it with a four game cartridge and no datasette or disk drive. The magazines claimed they expected it to sell poorly in the 1991 Christmas sales season, but apparently it sold way more than they expected. The magazine would go on to claim that many new owners were annoyed at having to shell out more money for a storage system in order to play other games. I remember them saying the following Christmas they offered the C64 in a new package with the 1541-II disk drive as a mail order bundle at a discounted price, but that, "...the damage had been done". I don't know how true that is but I remember it very clearly. I think it was Commodore Format (UK magazine). We had a single Apple II in my primary school in the early 80's, we used it mostly for maths questions. For me it was like a treat to be able to do anything on it, even if it was for my worst subject. I distinctly remember the teacher leaning over and frowning to see what question I'd gotten wrong when it loudly beeped. Later on in secondary school they had a lab with a bunch of very different computers - two Apple IIe's, an Apple III that never seemed to work (there's a surprise!), some oddball Siemens-Nixdorf enclosed system with an orange monochrome screen, etc. They replaced all of those great old machines with Macintoshes the following year, but I never forgot the Apple II/e. I've never been a fan of Apple but I am very fond of that machine.
@@userlandia Atari was also still selling its 8-bit line at the time as was MSX in Japan. So I wouldn't say it was it was because Commodore had nothing to replace it with but like other 8-bit machines still on the market because it still made money as they could keep lowering the price due to lower manufacturing costs (far cheaper then the Apple 2 at the end of its life). Also while Commodore delayed work on the AGA (and it was still a compromise to what was envisioned with the AA) it and the Atari Falcon could still kick the ass of IBM Clones twice their price at the time that still lacked 2D acceleration in 1993 and required the CPU to do things like moving sprites around the screen. You also could give the late Amiga line same resolution and color depth as Super VGA if you wanted through add on cards and you'd still keep the 2D acceleration that the PC lacked at the time.
@@userlandiawhat killed them was the design of the floppy disk drive they basically made the C64 standard drive the same as it's predicessior and software DRM required all drives function like the 1541
there was sooo much software for the apple 2. i remember some time around 1992 a friend of the family asked if i wanted all his old apple2 software - he showed up at my house with the box his fridge came in full of floppies. For free. do you know how many floppies it takes to fill and 8' x 4' x 4' box? me neither lol. but i do remember that i still hadnt tried every program in 1995 when i retired that machine and replaced it with a pentium.
A Rockwell 6503 used in an Enhanced/Plat IIe is a licensed 65C02 that's functionally the same. These shouldn't be confused with earlier 6503s which are less capable. The 6502 and 65C02 were licensed/second sourced to the hilt and there's a ton of them out there from different marques.
The IIgs _should_ have been Apple's future. The Mac was very expensive, only B&W, was 0% compatible with existing Apple software, and had no expandability. The IIgs was the obvious better choice at the time. Steve Jobs knew this and forced the company to underclock the processor so that it would underperform the Macs. Apple actively asked developers to *not* develop native IIgs software. Back in the day, I spoke with the lead developer at a software firm about their _missing_ IIgs software. He told me that Apple wouldn't "let them" develop software for the Mac if they made IIgs software. I don't know how that was enforced, but I remember the conversation, and it was clear that they had to choose, and they chose the Mac.
I love the IIGS, but if Apple kept their wagon hitched to a 6502 derivative they would have went out of business. "Steve Jobs knew this and forced the company to underclock the processor so that it would underperform the Macs." This is false, for numerous reasons. That's not to say that Apple didn't hold the IIGS back in other ways (like not marketing it or pricing it too high or not revising it later in life) but the CPU reason is a myth. I actually have an upcoming hour-long video explaining _why_ this is false, though actually assembling video content that will keep people's attention for an hour is much more difficult than doing the writing and research. :P "Back in the day, I spoke with the lead developer at a software firm about their missing IIgs software. He told me that Apple wouldn't "let them" develop software for the Mac if they made IIgs software. I don't know how that was enforced, but I remember the conversation, and it was clear that they had to choose, and they chose the Mac." I highly doubt this. There's no way Apple would've been able to enforce it. Maybe Apple wouldn't have given them preferential treatment with a bundle deal, catalog listings, or something else, but nothing was stopping them from publishing the software or buying the developer kits.
@@userlandia Thanks for responding! The IIgs was a _new_ computer with a built-in IIe hardware emulator. It should have been Apple's next step. In a few years, when the Mac was "ready", the Mac could have replaced the IIgs with its own IIgs/IIe emulator. Maybe the Macintosh IIx should have been the first Mac. This would have have fit the company's destiny perfectly. 6502 replaced by 65816 replaced by 68000 replaced by PowerPC replaced by Intel x86 replaced by ARM, etc. It was a big mistake to abandon the Apple II market, and Apple deserved the financial troubles that followed. "the CPU reason is a myth. I actually have an upcoming hour-long video explaining why this is false" I look forward to the video. The talk of installing a lower clock speed processor in the IIgs (instead of available faster models) and then underclocking _that_ chip were rampant in the day. I'm excited to learn more about it. "I highly doubt this. There's no way Apple would've been able to enforce it." - I thought the same thing, but I remember the conversation well. It's possible the guy I spoke with was wrong. However, it did coincide with the lack of new IIgs software at the time when IIgs hardware sales were rising. I _think_ the guy I spoke with was from Broderbund, or Beagle, or maybe Byte Works, but I really forget.
At 0:06, you show a NeXT binder. I have the same NeXT binder - below the logo in mine are the words: "National Sales Meeting". I bought a whole bunch from a Goodwill in Milpitas, CA around 1995? But I only have one left. I wonder if it is worth anything.
It's actually an accessory kit from an original NeXT Cube. You could probably sell the binder to a NeXT collector if it still has the materials in it. I doubt it's worth a ton of money but I know people would buy such things if you posted it on the nextcomputers forum.
The Apple ][ was the first personal computer that could be practically used as a video game platform since it had bit mapped graphics built in. Other systems could have graphics added to them but there wasn't a standard way for game developers to access these additional graphics boards.
Sorry, but there is an error with the Commodore 64 specs. Its CPU was a 6510, which is a variant of the 6502. The 65C02 was used in the Apple IIc and later on the enhanced IIe.
Yes, this error was addressed in a previous comment. It was an oversight due to a copy and paste when building the slide. But at least you were paying attention. :)
I often wish Apple had just kept properly enhancing the Apple ][ line. They could have reduced the needed chips much earlier and lowered the cost to compete with the deluge of computers coming to market (or kept the price the same, but keep adding like they do with the iPhone). They would then have released one with an equivalent VIC/SID chip earlier on and so on (or used the MOS components). The GS would have been their Macintosh, but not crippled like Apple did to compete with the 68k Mac at the time. We could still be running Apple ][s to this day. IBM compatibles would have still done very well as Apple would never go down that route, but the gap between Apple and Windows wouldn't have been so big, again, kind of like iOS and Android today. Imagine if instead of focusing all that energy on the Lisa / Mac, they focused it (which the Lisa project was initially going to do) on the h/w they already had and added that OS to it (remember, it would have had a GPU by then, so would have been a lot closer to an Amiga too). Steve Jobs had the idea to use Unix, so I'm sure that would have been the case in this alternate universe too. Just like the C64 was part of the Pet line, the Apple /// would have been the next in line, but wouldn't been rushed and would have been a great next step. Also, instead of double hi-res being driven from the CPU, we could have had a dedicated GPU which still worked with Applesoft. Anyway, just a thought. I would love to see a retro CPU built to see what this would have looked like. 😀
I agree. The IIgs _should_ have been Apple's future. The Mac was very expensive, only B&W, was 0% compatible with existing Apple software, and had no expandability. The IIgs was the obvious better choice at the time. Steve Jobs knew this and forced the company to underclock the processor so that it would underperform the Macs. Apple actively asked developers to *not* develop native IIgs software. Back in the day, I spoke with the lead developer at a software firm about their _missing_ IIgs software. He told me that Apple wouldn't "let them" develop software for the Mac if they made IIgs software. I don't know how that was enforced, but I remember the conversation, and it was clear that they had to choose, and they chose the Mac.
When they built my high school in the early 90's, it was all put in by IBM. I never saw a Mac in college until I went back and they were getting some iMacs. Also, the Mac never seemed like the future in the 80s. It didn't even have color.
Why on earth would Apple make the Apple III computer based on a 8-bit "calculator" cpu, the 6502 and try to sell it for $7000( $25,000 in today's money)??!! The Motorola 68000 CPU had already been out a year before, was a 16/32 bit CPU and ran circles around any 8-bit CPU at the time. Also if Apple had used the 68000 for a texted based(command line) OS in the Apple III, the computer would have been a rocket ship. Using the 68000 for a GUI(ie Lisa/Mac) was too taxing for the motorola(making the initial release of Lisa and Mac failures), but for a light commmand line DOS it would have completely dominated the market. It is a true mystery. Because, first, obviously it had nothing to do with price, as they were asking a massive fortune for the computer. Also 68000 had been out a year prior. Therefore time shouldn't have been a problem as, supposedly, Wozniak introduced the Apple less than a year after the introduction of the MOS 6502(though a bit suspicious..) This 68000 Apple III DOS based computer would have erradicated any chances of IBM' 8-bit 8088 PC. And the last nail in the coffin of the IBM (even before IBM could have even started) would have been to run Gary Kildall's CP/M in the Apple III, the dominate OS of the time. Truly shows how inept most corporate management teams are, and just the fact theses corporations have endless cash is the only thing keeping them alive.
There's a few reasons why the m68K wouldn't have been in the (starting at $4,340) Apple III: 1. The Apple III project development started in 1978; the 68K wasn't announced until late 1979 and didn't start sampling until February 1980. It wouldn't have shipped in volume until mid-1980. The Apple III was announced in May 1980; suffice to say that it was already well locked into place and it was too late to switch to m68K. 2. The Lisa and Macintosh's initial development wasn't as a graphical machine, but as textual ones. The early Lisa and Mac had different arches too (the Lisa with Am2900 bit-slice and the 6809 for Burrell Smith/Jef Raskin's Mac). They switched to m68K in late 1980 after the Apple III shipped because they were more skunkworks projects than the Apple III. For being a brand new arch built from scratch, Apple adopted m68K astonishingly quickly. 3. There's no other CPU that would have been faster for graphical work at the time than the 68K. The machines were far more limited by RAM and the lack of dedicated graphics accelerator chips. The whole reason we got QuickDraw was because of the m68K. The initial Mac's limitation was more around RAM and storage than CPU speed (although you could always use more megahertz). That said, could Apple have shipped one of the command line machines based on a 68K in 1981? Probably, but if I saw the future at Xerox, I would have dropped everything to make that happen too.
Well done! One nit-picky thought. Pronouncing every instance of the word "a" with a long A sound (like "bay") sounds stilted, like you're reading at us rather than talking to us. Ditto the occasional "too" for "to." No doubt I am the ONLY person who thinks this, so there's that... but it distracts my distractible brain. 😆 Beyond that, keep up the excellent work. Subbed!
Are you referring to usage at the beginning of a line, or elsewhere? Because I actually find I often say "uh" or "eh" sounds a lot for intermediate As. I actually find some of my worst habits are how I say the word "meanwhile" or how I deliver leadoff "ans" or "Otherwise." I actually have a lot of Albany-isms that have seeped into my speech patterns over the years because of their TV/radio market and I definitely picked up some habits when developing an "announcer voice" for my time on radio. But I'll definitely keep those points in mind. One is always tweaking their craft... (Can you tell I've been in VO for a long time?)
@@userlandia First, thank you for responding. Re the long A sound for the article "a," I meant anywhere in the sentence, not just at the beginning. Not every single time, but frequently. Places where, in casual conversation most people would pronounce it as "uh." And again, you do a great job!
"I predict that within 100 years computers will be twice as powerful, ten thousand times larger, and so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe will own them."
I couldn't see why people bought Apple computers back then. I can't for my life see why anyone would buy one today. Apple have always had full focus on being completely and wholeheartedly irrelevant.
In 1986, the Apple IIgs was a great choice. 16-bit, 100% compatible with a ton of existing software, GUI operating system, better [built-in] graphics and sound than any other contemporary computer, 7 expansion slots, and far cheaper than alternatives. If it hadn't been intentionally crippled by Jobs with an underclocked processor (to not complete with the inferior Macs), it could have been the future of Apple.
@@TonyPombo 1986 you had already great computers from Amiga and Atari, which kind of set the standard before Compaq defeated IBM and PCs finally had a chance.
@@miljororforsprakpartiet290 In 1986, Atari was circling the drain, and Amiga had financial & technical problems. The Apple IIgs had a HUGE library of existing Apple II software from a sound company. It's only problem was that Apple didn't really want to sell it.
![Stromae, Pomme - “Ma Meilleure Ennemie” (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Visualizer]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1F3OGIFnW1k/mqdefault.jpg)
Great video! Given your myth-busting IIgs video, you might want to know that in the mid 2010s, the now defunct podcast "Drop III Inches" got interviews with most of the Apple III's engineers and busted all the myths. The lack of a fan wasn't the problem. Chips were not coming out of their sockets - those would be defective sockets and would affect a lot more computers than just the III. The III's major difference from the II construction-wise was that all of the RAM was on a separate board, and Apple had used cheap tin contacts for the edge connector fingers. Those started oxidizing during manufacture, and quickly would cause issues. Dropping the machine had the effect of reseating the connection, which is why it worked.
For the recall, Apple replaced the memory boards with new ones that had more conventional edge connector materials, and those machines were as reliable as Apple IIs.
It's also worth noting that a lot of the IIe's features (notably double-hi-res) were borrowed from the III, and that the III's SOS was ported to the IIe and renamed ProDOS.
When I wrote this, I actually had read multiple accounts of various problems of the Apple III, including the ones from Drop III inches. I actually knew about the oxidation, but I interpreted it as the same problem-that it affected legs in sockets causing them to back out as thermal expansion because they were single-wipe, versus an edge connector on the board. I will say in my defense that I didn't say the RAM problem was because of heat. ;) (The III probably should have had a cooling fan in general, but that's a separate debate)
I also think a lot of people writing reports conflated connectors with sockets, which lead me to do the same exact thing!
Also, Apple's recalls weren't just for the memory boards, but also for the main logic board itself, because I thought it had to be redesigned due to trace issues. My understanding is that the RAM board problem and the main logic board trace problem were two separate issues. Going back and re-reading Drop III inches, I believe that was the case-or am I incorrect?
in most of my schools' computer labs, we had hand-me-down PCs, often old IBM PCs, maybe some PETs, but mainly Apple IIe computers. I got really good at using Apple IIe computers by the time I was in 8th grade around 1992 and even through highschool they were a major part of the run down computers I'd often have to use.
As an avionics technician, I kept an Apple IIe running well into the 2000s so we could troubleshoot and repair Rockwell Collins avionics boxes. With the right IO cards and proper interconnect cables th Apple was able to put correct inputs into the appropriate circuits and check for the corresponding outputs. With the Apple IIe we wrere able to advance aircraft from old steam guage cockpits into early models of Electronic Flight Information Systems - EFIS. Modern aircraft are now equipped with flight decks that are really just specialized computer networks.
Taking a typing class back in the mid 70s was probably the most valuable skill I learned in high school.
For almost my entire secondary education from 1983 (2nd) to 1994 (12th) in Montgomery County, Maryland, (greater Washington DC area) had Apple IIe in almost every classroom. I took word processing, science classes, math classes, programming classes, and such. I went off to get a bachelors degree in computer science and pursue a career in IT and i owe it all to the Apple IIe. Apple IIe changed my life for the better. I have used other computers even back then but none made such an impact as the Apple IIe. Thanks for this video.
Growing up as a PC only enthusiest I had NO clue how upgradable and customizable the early Apples were. I didnt learn that until retro videos like this came out on youtube.
Great video!
Thanks! Part of the fun of this is seeing and learning about all the stuff I missed back in the day... even though I had plenty of hands-on experience with these machines.
You knocked it out of the park on this one with the production value! Seriously enjoyed this full on IIe documentary! Well done!
Thanks! You might also like the Commodore 64 Computers of Significant History too. There's more coming in the future as well.
I did want to leave you a comment letting you know that I absolutely love the strong positive PBS energy of your Userlandia videos.
Thanks, Treble. You're never fired from this channel.
Your coverage of MECC is an awesome addition to this history. Back in 1977, I started using a teletype and acoustic coupler modem to play Oregon Trail and Colossal Cave at my rural Minnesota school. Of course a few years later, they dumped the expensive leased line and bought Apple II+ systems with MECC software. Oregon Trail, Lemonade Stand, Odell Lake, Ultima, Castle Wolfenstein ... etc. And those price lists, I used to see them all the time as my mom was an educator and the school would let staff buy systems through the school at the same discounts. Used to keep dreaming the systems I could have and what a deal they were! Personally started with a II+, then a //e, and eventually a Woz IIgs system before college forced me to go Macintosh.
I went to a very cash-strapped school in Oklahoma in the mid to late 90s and we had TONS of Apple IIs! We had a few old IBM PCs, but we didn't start getting "modern" networked computers with internet until 1998-99, when the school purchased hundreds of Gateway 500 MHz machines and got rid of all the ancient tech... I doubt they ever bought any Apple computers again sadly....
Consider that today California has one of the very worst public K12 school systems in the nation - my how far they’ve fallen.
I went to high school between 1991 and 1995, and all of my schools still had Apple IIs right until I graduated. I actually took Computer Science I on a stock Apple IIgs in 1992-1993 (though after that, the CS classes moved to Turbo Pascal on PCs).
A great video! You should have, like, 10 times as many subscribers as you do. I think we're about the same age -- I graduated high school in 2002. My elementary school had Apple IIs in every classroom, plus a computer lab with probably 25 or 30 of them, mostly the IIe. I remember using Logo to draw shapes in first and second grade. Around 1993 or so, they replaced them with Macs, and I got an LC III at home. I've stayed a loyal Mac user ever since. Macs were in every computer lab for most of my education, except for high school, when someone at my college prep private school had the bright idea to replace the Macs with cheap eMachines, which quickly got filled with garbage and stopped working.
3:15 Just a small correction: the C64 doesn't have a 65C02 (=CMOS-variant) but a 6510, also fabricated in NMOS like the 6502.
The 6510 is fully software-compatible with a regular 6502 and it "supports" the same undocumented opcodes (that do NOT work on a 65C02).
It is, however, not pin-compatible as it has extra I/O pins that control the bank switching and the Datasette tape recorder.
There are also other differences to a regular 6502 so you can't simply exchange these chips. IIRC there are socket adapters for this.
Later versions of the C64 used a "8500" which was fabricated in HMOS instead of NMOS but was otherwise identical to the 6510 (AFAIK).
Thanks for the correction, that's why in the audio and the original text I had said "a CPU in the 6502 family," because the 6510 is a superset, but the good ole "copy and paste and then make adjustments" for a video illustration results in an oversight.
In all honesty the 6510 is a 6502 with a I/O port tacked on, and is considered a 6502 family CPU, Also there are other variations/modifications of the 6502, not just the 6510.
MOS was bought out by Commodore because Jack Tramiel wanted Chuck Peddle as an engineer. Curiously, It was Chuck Peddle(originally from MOS) who designed the Commodore PET computer. And the VIC 20 is based on the PET with extra chips for sound, etc. and C64 is just built on the VIC 20 as a base, etc. In fact all the chips for sound and graphics on the C64 were loosely reversed engineered from the 1979's Atari's 800 computer's Pokey and GTIA chips. Anyhow, once Commodore owned MOS, they modified the 6502 at whim. But truthfully these modifications did not change the core 6502, and were modifications that could have been easily implemeted by adding other chips.
As a foot note, the main "hero's" and engineering legends of the 1970's 80's era were Chuck Peddle(MOS/Commodore) and Jay Miner who headed the design of the advanced graphics chips of the Atari and Amiga computers. Truthfully, Steve Wozniak's contributions pale in comparison.
My mom, who was a teacher, once brought home an Apple IIe over the summer of 85 and it was magical. At school i continued to use those machines until 12th grade in 1996, our computer lab STILL had IIes in the writing labs.
Growing up I had an Apple in every classroom, but there was no educational use for it. No lessons used it. I don't even think we had any educational software for it. Many teachers never used them at all, just had it taking up room collecting dust in the corner. I only remember using it once before high school, with a teacher who used it as a reward for certain activities, letting students play a Pipe Dream like game that the teacher brought from their own home.
High school I finally learned to do things with them, where there was a programming class and lab where I learned BASIC and spent extra time if I could writing my own software and games. This was after the 386 came out.
I'm 48 years old and I've never seen an Apple II in person. My school system used Commodore 64's, and that's what we had at home until 1990 or so, then we had a Tandy 386.
I would have taken a Tandy 386 in 1990 in a heartbeat. I had my C64 until 1997. Talk about retro before it was cool!
Personally I grew up a bit later (same age as Linus at LTT) and in Sweden so we only had windows computers in school. The first computers I used were IBM 486s at 66mhz. It wasn’t until I spent a year in Canada at a university in 2005-06 that I realised how tied Apple was to education in North America. I went to the school book store and bought myself the first gen iPod Nano which was my first ever Apple device I bought. I think windows is still the OS for schools here but I’m not sure. Oregon Trail was never a thing in schools here but I did play the iPhone version many years ago. What I remember playing on the school computers were a game called Rover which I think was an isometric game with a dog and a robot. I also remember a pinball game from DICE. The Swedish developer that’s these days known for the Battlefield games. I also played Gorillaz in QBASIC. This was during free time though. I don’t remember ever getting to play games during computer class and I don’t think we had educational games. Instead we got to learn Windows and MS Office and such. Like most in Sweden we got a computer in our home in the late 90s when Sweden had the Home PC program where people could lease a PC through work with tax deductions compared to buying it yourself at a store. Our first family computer was an IBM Aptiva Pentium 2 400mhz with Windows 98 and 64MB of RAM. It came with a DVD drive and a Canon printer. It was very high end in 1998. Unfortunately mom couldn’t afford to pay to let us keep it after the lease was up and we ended up getting an older computer in 2001 with windows 95 from 1997 instead which I wasn’t happy about. By 2003 I built my first own gaming computer from parts a P4 with Radeon 9600Pro and 1GB of RAM which was light years ahead in terms of power.
My school had a lab of Apple //e and IIGS computers networked with localtalk. They all booted from a Mac SE/30 acting as a server. I got to experience most all of the popular MECC titles like Oregon Trail. But never heard the disk drive. Because netboot.
3:20 Commodore C64 used the 6510 CPU with extra Bank-select lines to get beyond 48K memory used under OS ROMs and hardware mapping. 6502C (Sally) was used in all 8-bit Atari's with a Halt pin to work with ANTIC video co-pro (also had C/GTIA, POKEY, PIA (6520) LSI chips like Commodore's VIC II (6567/6566/8562/8564 - VIC 6560), SID (6581/8580), and CIA (6526 x2) chips).
Japan's C64 precursor MAX Machine, Ultimax (US/Can) and VC-10 (Germany).
6502 was used in the Apple II line, PET, VIC 20, BBC Micro, etc.
The great Atari VCS used 6507 (Pin/cost reduced). All 65xx/85xx CPUs used the same instruction set.
Yes, the textual error in the slide was addressed in a previous comment. I had meant to write 6510 in the C64 column (the written script said family, which is true) but copy and paste gets the best of us sometimes.
I've never owned a Apple computer, and had a 64 back in the day. I think if I did have a IIe with expanded memeory and a 80 column card (plus floppy and printer) I would have regarded it as an excellent computer. The c64 could never do 80 columns which really made it stay in the 'toy' camp. In Australia, I think Apple computers were just far too expensive. As a kid, I was exceptionally lucky to have a c64. We had a Apple II of some sort at school (1 of them), but no one I knew had a Apple computer, and most couldn't afford a computer at all.
I "grew up" on the TRS-80, Apple ][+ and then the Apple //e. Wrote my first program from scratch on a //e and I will forever have a soft spot for it.
My school had apple 2s through the early 2000s. I remember my high-school science teacher having a 2e with all the best games. We had modern computers too but the 2s and 2es hung around for a while before they were completely 86d.
Such a great documentary enjoyed every minute. Had a nostalgia trip as my first experience with computers and programming was on an apple iie - Australia was very similar to the usa - and apple dominated education market at all levels. It was interesting also because i got hooked on commodore - and ended up having a 128D as my only computer until 1994 when i finally got an Amiga - and for many of my subjects i had to use AMAX to emulate an old 68000 mac so i could use software because apple still dominated education! The rest of the time i was connecting to solaris servers over a modem!
School contracts kept Apple ali ve. Nobody i knew had them at home.
Used the Apple IIc for a long distance telecom company in 1984 and VisiCalc - was the only person allowed to use the devise in our regional office at that time, didn't realize how special that was.
That was awesome, this deserves alot more views and likes. Well done, and thank you.
My first home computer as a kid. How it blew my mind! Been a video game nut ever since! Great video by the way. Watched it all. I have no idea why you don't have more subs. Keep up the good work.
I'm a little young compared to some of this. However, when I was in elementary school, our school was majorly using Intel imacs, and when I got into middleschool, we were all given laptops. I was very well familiar with Windows PCs, Macs, and tablets like an IPad. So, I think for some of my GenZ counterparts, apple's reign still was there in some aspects.
There is an alternate universe where like the IBM PC, the Apple ][ line continued on with the GS being replaced by a Mac like system that was backwards compatible with the original 6502 architecture just like todays Intel and AMD processer based systems are still x86 based. Its crazy to think that the majority of computers today are simply better faster versions of a 40 year system while Apple is on its 5th major processor family.
I wonder if ARM will be the last one. Maybe RISC-V?
Yep, my elementary school computer memories are the all-Apple IIe computer lab (through year 1999!) and 100% software memories of mecc software other than ClarisWorks and Tessselmania. But WOW I had no clue that history with Minesota and almost choosing the TRS-80, incredible story. Great video, thanks!
44:09 Amiga 1.x Workbench! 😍
My 8th grade classroom (sadly not public school) had gotten a C128 by the time I was there. I had an Atari 800XL and many games came on disks you could flip with C64 on one side and XL/XE on the other. Nobody ever used 128 mode 😕 and there was no usage of the computer in class. Just played games during lunch. Never knew why it was there.
But in high school there were a few computer lab class rooms. n introduction to computers class was in a room full of IBM PCs (or XTs?). That was public high school. The parochial high school that most of my 8th grade classmates went to (I had enough and rebelled) had Tandy TRS80’s (all in one style so III or IV?) that I saw on the open house tour. So already the public high school was doing better. But for the Computer Science classes that room had Tandy 1000’s. Borland Turbo Pascal!
One friend with a C64 was talking about getting an Amiga. A little later I messed with him and said I got a Macintosh but pulled out a McIntosh to eat. I was on local BBS’s and also Delphi and GEnie. I heard about the Amiga history and its ancestral routes with the Atari 8-bits. When the local Macintosh user group and Electronics Boutique (remember that store?!) put on an exhibit at the mall one night (included others like Commodore and Atari too) I saw Dark Castle for the first time. Sears sold a Franklin (?) //c imitation but in black and it never had a good demo.
I liked the Apples that I saw that night. And I was unimpressed with the Atari ST. But when someone loaded the Dragon’s Lair demo on the Amiga I melted. Wow!🤯
And the NewTek demo! That settles things. I had to have an Amiga. And honestly all I could afford as a teen was a used 1000 and by the end of October’88 I found one online (Delphi or GEnie) and while we met in person and I paid cash it was still sorta early online shopping.
After CBM went bankrupt I bought a Performa 637 from someone I knew who was going PowerPC. And that was my way into the Apple ecosystem. Next a Motorola Starmax 3000 and a USB+firewire card for it. And an accelerator. Then an open box Pismo (the TiBook G4s had come out). An Intel iMac 🖥️ (the first aluminum and glass model) then ‘14 mini and now a Studio. I’d say no looking back but I do seem to subscribe to the retro computer channels) 🤷♂️
Similar age range as you, from Southwest Virginia, we didn't have many Apple IIs the school system chose Laser machines instead (apple II clones) because they were cheaper.
I grew up in school on these. I remember seeing one Apple3 once and thinking.. that looks strange. Must have been at school or a library. I don't remember ever using it.
At our public library you had to do special training and sigh a form to get a little yellow paper floppy disk taped to the upper left of your library card in order to check out the computer rooms. It was just how to use the process and rules.. But I so remember getting that taped to my card and feeling like somebody at my age. Not many "kids" had them. Your parent had to sign the form and back then almost nobody used a computer. So going there you'd see another kid with a computer pass and start talking and trading games. So always have your floppies with you.
"Always have your floppies with you" is some good life advice.
Thanks for the great video with sheer amount of information!
I'm curious about that line, the C64 wearing out it's welcome. In what way?
Since this the second installment of "Computers of Significant History," it's a reference back to how Commodore kept selling the 64 up till the day it went bankrupt. I likened it to a small-time celebrity coasting on fifteen minutes of fame, with Commodore still selling it to diminishing returns because it was cheap. By that time it wasn't a computer for the masses anymore. And Commodore had nothing good to replace it with in our market. Their failure to advance the Amiga meant their consumer entries, the a600 and a1200, weren't competitive. As much as I like those Amigas, the Super VGA multimedia PC was where the wind was blowing. Selling C64s in 1993 even if it's in "developing markets" is the same kind of desperation as Gil from the Simpsons.
An Apple IIe was old in 1994, but it was so entrenched in education that it still had relevancy. And Apple had an exit plan for those customers that didn't leave them high and dry. Despite their problems (and cost) they were able to make consumer grade Macs that could compete with PCs without too much embarrassment and be in the ballpark in terms of price. The Apple IIe card (and then Gus) kept the old software alive. Most of those schools wound up replacing those IIes with Macs eventually.
So it was my short way of saying that an Apple II retired with dignity.
@@userlandia Ah, I see. And I agree. It's funny though, I remember C64 magazines back in the day claiming Commodore tried to kill off the C64 with the Terminator 2 pack, where they packaged it with a four game cartridge and no datasette or disk drive. The magazines claimed they expected it to sell poorly in the 1991 Christmas sales season, but apparently it sold way more than they expected. The magazine would go on to claim that many new owners were annoyed at having to shell out more money for a storage system in order to play other games. I remember them saying the following Christmas they offered the C64 in a new package with the 1541-II disk drive as a mail order bundle at a discounted price, but that, "...the damage had been done".
I don't know how true that is but I remember it very clearly. I think it was Commodore Format (UK magazine).
We had a single Apple II in my primary school in the early 80's, we used it mostly for maths questions. For me it was like a treat to be able to do anything on it, even if it was for my worst subject. I distinctly remember the teacher leaning over and frowning to see what question I'd gotten wrong when it loudly beeped. Later on in secondary school they had a lab with a bunch of very different computers - two Apple IIe's, an Apple III that never seemed to work (there's a surprise!), some oddball Siemens-Nixdorf enclosed system with an orange monochrome screen, etc. They replaced all of those great old machines with Macintoshes the following year, but I never forgot the Apple II/e.
I've never been a fan of Apple but I am very fond of that machine.
@@userlandia Atari was also still selling its 8-bit line at the time as was MSX in Japan. So I wouldn't say it was it was because Commodore had nothing to replace it with but like other 8-bit machines still on the market because it still made money as they could keep lowering the price due to lower manufacturing costs (far cheaper then the Apple 2 at the end of its life). Also while Commodore delayed work on the AGA (and it was still a compromise to what was envisioned with the AA) it and the Atari Falcon could still kick the ass of IBM Clones twice their price at the time that still lacked 2D acceleration in 1993 and required the CPU to do things like moving sprites around the screen. You also could give the late Amiga line same resolution and color depth as Super VGA if you wanted through add on cards and you'd still keep the 2D acceleration that the PC lacked at the time.
@@userlandiawhat killed them was the design of the floppy disk drive they basically made the C64 standard drive the same as it's predicessior and software DRM required all drives function like the 1541
Incredible research and production was on point. Enjoyed a lot and learned plenty. Kudos.
Oh wow, I had no idea there was new/current versions of the oregon train and Carmen Sandiego! Blows my mind, this is awesome!
This was an amazing video, you deserve way more views and subscribers
Thanks for watching!
there was sooo much software for the apple 2. i remember some time around 1992 a friend of the family asked if i wanted all his old apple2 software - he showed up at my house with the box his fridge came in full of floppies. For free. do you know how many floppies it takes to fill and 8' x 4' x 4' box? me neither lol. but i do remember that i still hadnt tried every program in 1995 when i retired that machine and replaced it with a pentium.
omg that guy almost murdered that video card @ 11:08
my IIE enhanced from 86 has the rockwell 6503
A Rockwell 6503 used in an Enhanced/Plat IIe is a licensed 65C02 that's functionally the same. These shouldn't be confused with earlier 6503s which are less capable. The 6502 and 65C02 were licensed/second sourced to the hilt and there's a ton of them out there from different marques.
I had a Platinum from 1987 and its CPU was a GTE G65SC02P-2
The IIgs _should_ have been Apple's future. The Mac was very expensive, only B&W, was 0% compatible with existing Apple software, and had no expandability. The IIgs was the obvious better choice at the time. Steve Jobs knew this and forced the company to underclock the processor so that it would underperform the Macs. Apple actively asked developers to *not* develop native IIgs software.
Back in the day, I spoke with the lead developer at a software firm about their _missing_ IIgs software. He told me that Apple wouldn't "let them" develop software for the Mac if they made IIgs software. I don't know how that was enforced, but I remember the conversation, and it was clear that they had to choose, and they chose the Mac.
I love the IIGS, but if Apple kept their wagon hitched to a 6502 derivative they would have went out of business.
"Steve Jobs knew this and forced the company to underclock the processor so that it would underperform the Macs." This is false, for numerous reasons. That's not to say that Apple didn't hold the IIGS back in other ways (like not marketing it or pricing it too high or not revising it later in life) but the CPU reason is a myth. I actually have an upcoming hour-long video explaining _why_ this is false, though actually assembling video content that will keep people's attention for an hour is much more difficult than doing the writing and research. :P
"Back in the day, I spoke with the lead developer at a software firm about their missing IIgs software. He told me that Apple wouldn't "let them" develop software for the Mac if they made IIgs software. I don't know how that was enforced, but I remember the conversation, and it was clear that they had to choose, and they chose the Mac."
I highly doubt this. There's no way Apple would've been able to enforce it. Maybe Apple wouldn't have given them preferential treatment with a bundle deal, catalog listings, or something else, but nothing was stopping them from publishing the software or buying the developer kits.
@@userlandia Thanks for responding! The IIgs was a _new_ computer with a built-in IIe hardware emulator. It should have been Apple's next step. In a few years, when the Mac was "ready", the Mac could have replaced the IIgs with its own IIgs/IIe emulator. Maybe the Macintosh IIx should have been the first Mac.
This would have have fit the company's destiny perfectly. 6502 replaced by 65816 replaced by 68000 replaced by PowerPC replaced by Intel x86 replaced by ARM, etc.
It was a big mistake to abandon the Apple II market, and Apple deserved the financial troubles that followed.
"the CPU reason is a myth. I actually have an upcoming hour-long video explaining why this is false" I look forward to the video. The talk of installing a lower clock speed processor in the IIgs (instead of available faster models) and then underclocking _that_ chip were rampant in the day. I'm excited to learn more about it.
"I highly doubt this. There's no way Apple would've been able to enforce it." - I thought the same thing, but I remember the conversation well. It's possible the guy I spoke with was wrong. However, it did coincide with the lack of new IIgs software at the time when IIgs hardware sales were rising.
I _think_ the guy I spoke with was from Broderbund, or Beagle, or maybe Byte Works, but I really forget.
At 0:06, you show a NeXT binder. I have the same NeXT binder - below the logo in mine are the words: "National Sales Meeting". I bought a whole bunch from a Goodwill in Milpitas, CA around 1995? But I only have one left. I wonder if it is worth anything.
It's actually an accessory kit from an original NeXT Cube. You could probably sell the binder to a NeXT collector if it still has the materials in it. I doubt it's worth a ton of money but I know people would buy such things if you posted it on the nextcomputers forum.
The Apple ][ was the first personal computer that could be practically used as a video game platform since it had bit mapped graphics built in. Other systems could have graphics added to them but there wasn't a standard way for game developers to access these additional graphics boards.
Sorry, but there is an error with the Commodore 64 specs. Its CPU was a 6510, which is a variant of the 6502. The 65C02 was used in the Apple IIc and later on the enhanced IIe.
Yes, this error was addressed in a previous comment. It was an oversight due to a copy and paste when building the slide. But at least you were paying attention. :)
i graduated in 1990 and we had a whole library full of them they kept using.
In the UK in schools was BBC model B computer
28:47 Nice use of alliteration 🤓
Great video
I often wish Apple had just kept properly enhancing the Apple ][ line. They could have reduced the needed chips much earlier and lowered the cost to compete with the deluge of computers coming to market (or kept the price the same, but keep adding like they do with the iPhone).
They would then have released one with an equivalent VIC/SID chip earlier on and so on (or used the MOS components). The GS would have been their Macintosh, but not crippled like Apple did to compete with the 68k Mac at the time.
We could still be running Apple ][s to this day. IBM compatibles would have still done very well as Apple would never go down that route, but the gap between Apple and Windows wouldn't have been so big, again, kind of like iOS and Android today.
Imagine if instead of focusing all that energy on the Lisa / Mac, they focused it (which the Lisa project was initially going to do) on the h/w they already had and added that OS to it (remember, it would have had a GPU by then, so would have been a lot closer to an Amiga too). Steve Jobs had the idea to use Unix, so I'm sure that would have been the case in this alternate universe too.
Just like the C64 was part of the Pet line, the Apple /// would have been the next in line, but wouldn't been rushed and would have been a great next step. Also, instead of double hi-res being driven from the CPU, we could have had a dedicated GPU which still worked with Applesoft.
Anyway, just a thought.
I would love to see a retro CPU built to see what this would have looked like. 😀
I agree. The IIgs _should_ have been Apple's future. The Mac was very expensive, only B&W, was 0% compatible with existing Apple software, and had no expandability. The IIgs was the obvious better choice at the time. Steve Jobs knew this and forced the company to underclock the processor so that it would underperform the Macs. Apple actively asked developers to *not* develop native IIgs software.
Back in the day, I spoke with the lead developer at a software firm about their _missing_ IIgs software. He told me that Apple wouldn't "let them" develop software for the Mac if they made IIgs software. I don't know how that was enforced, but I remember the conversation, and it was clear that they had to choose, and they chose the Mac.
When they built my high school in the early 90's, it was all put in by IBM. I never saw a Mac in college until I went back and they were getting some iMacs. Also, the Mac never seemed like the future in the 80s. It didn't even have color.
Why on earth would Apple make the Apple III computer based on a 8-bit "calculator" cpu, the 6502 and try to sell it for $7000( $25,000 in today's money)??!! The Motorola 68000 CPU had already been out a year before, was a 16/32 bit CPU and ran circles around any 8-bit CPU at the time. Also if Apple had used the 68000 for a texted based(command line) OS in the Apple III, the computer would have been a rocket ship. Using the 68000 for a GUI(ie Lisa/Mac) was too taxing for the motorola(making the initial release of Lisa and Mac failures), but for a light commmand line DOS it would have completely dominated the market.
It is a true mystery. Because, first, obviously it had nothing to do with price, as they were asking a massive fortune for the computer. Also 68000 had been out a year prior. Therefore time shouldn't have been a problem as, supposedly, Wozniak introduced the Apple less than a year after the introduction of the MOS 6502(though a bit suspicious..)
This 68000 Apple III DOS based computer would have erradicated any chances of IBM' 8-bit 8088 PC. And the last nail in the coffin of the IBM (even before IBM could have even started) would have been to run Gary Kildall's CP/M in the Apple III, the dominate OS of the time.
Truly shows how inept most corporate management teams are, and just the fact theses corporations have endless cash is the only thing keeping them alive.
There's a few reasons why the m68K wouldn't have been in the (starting at $4,340) Apple III:
1. The Apple III project development started in 1978; the 68K wasn't announced until late 1979 and didn't start sampling until February 1980. It wouldn't have shipped in volume until mid-1980. The Apple III was announced in May 1980; suffice to say that it was already well locked into place and it was too late to switch to m68K.
2. The Lisa and Macintosh's initial development wasn't as a graphical machine, but as textual ones. The early Lisa and Mac had different arches too (the Lisa with Am2900 bit-slice and the 6809 for Burrell Smith/Jef Raskin's Mac). They switched to m68K in late 1980 after the Apple III shipped because they were more skunkworks projects than the Apple III. For being a brand new arch built from scratch, Apple adopted m68K astonishingly quickly.
3. There's no other CPU that would have been faster for graphical work at the time than the 68K. The machines were far more limited by RAM and the lack of dedicated graphics accelerator chips. The whole reason we got QuickDraw was because of the m68K. The initial Mac's limitation was more around RAM and storage than CPU speed (although you could always use more megahertz).
That said, could Apple have shipped one of the command line machines based on a 68K in 1981? Probably, but if I saw the future at Xerox, I would have dropped everything to make that happen too.
Back when apple didn’t sell mobilephones but computers and i am happy owning an apple ||e along with cool games for it😁
28:55 Alliteration!
LOL. Which kids thought computers were "mean and scary" ROFL!!!
Well done! One nit-picky thought. Pronouncing every instance of the word "a" with a long A sound (like "bay") sounds stilted, like you're reading at us rather than talking to us. Ditto the occasional "too" for "to." No doubt I am the ONLY person who thinks this, so there's that... but it distracts my distractible brain. 😆 Beyond that, keep up the excellent work. Subbed!
Are you referring to usage at the beginning of a line, or elsewhere? Because I actually find I often say "uh" or "eh" sounds a lot for intermediate As. I actually find some of my worst habits are how I say the word "meanwhile" or how I deliver leadoff "ans" or "Otherwise." I actually have a lot of Albany-isms that have seeped into my speech patterns over the years because of their TV/radio market and I definitely picked up some habits when developing an "announcer voice" for my time on radio. But I'll definitely keep those points in mind. One is always tweaking their craft...
(Can you tell I've been in VO for a long time?)
@@userlandia First, thank you for responding. Re the long A sound for the article "a," I meant anywhere in the sentence, not just at the beginning. Not every single time, but frequently. Places where, in casual conversation most people would pronounce it as "uh." And again, you do a great job!
So let me get this straight.
A computer, that I can actually take home with me, and I don't need a doctorate to operate?
That'll never catch on.
"I predict that within 100 years computers will be twice as powerful, ten thousand times larger, and so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe will own them."
Richelieu
Yamato
Iowa
I couldn't see why people bought Apple computers back then. I can't for my life see why anyone would buy one today. Apple have always had full focus on being completely and wholeheartedly irrelevant.
In 1986, the Apple IIgs was a great choice. 16-bit, 100% compatible with a ton of existing software, GUI operating system, better [built-in] graphics and sound than any other contemporary computer, 7 expansion slots, and far cheaper than alternatives. If it hadn't been intentionally crippled by Jobs with an underclocked processor (to not complete with the inferior Macs), it could have been the future of Apple.
@@TonyPombo 1986 you had already great computers from Amiga and Atari, which kind of set the standard before Compaq defeated IBM and PCs finally had a chance.
@@miljororforsprakpartiet290 In 1986, Atari was circling the drain, and Amiga had financial & technical problems. The Apple IIgs had a HUGE library of existing Apple II software from a sound company. It's only problem was that Apple didn't really want to sell it.
The weird voices you use when narrating quotes is annoying.
暑い日が続いてますので無理だけはせずに マイペースでがんばってほしいです。