January 1, 1983: Apple launches the Apple IIe, the third mannequin within the Apple II sequence — and the final earlier than the Macintosh will arrive a yr later.
It proves a giant vendor, and proof constructive of the Apple II model’s sustained worth.
Apple IIe: The unplanned replace
The Apple IIe took over from the Apple II Plus. Initially, Apple deliberate to desert the Apple II with that mannequin and exchange the product line with the Apple III. Nonetheless, the continued recognition of the Apple II, and the market failure of the Apple III — largely because of its excessive worth and a few evident engineering faults — pushed Apple to improve its confirmed hit product for an additional go-around. (Ultimately, Apple continued producing some model of the Apple II till the early Nineties.)
The Apple IIe added as customary a few of the performance that Apple II lovers already loved, because of the brand new mannequin’s spectacular variety of enlargement slots. Options included 80-column text-mode help, 64KB of RAM (expandable as much as 128KB) and, for the primary time, lowercase letters!
It additionally dropped the chip rely on the motherboard from greater than 100 to only 31. That allow Apple squeeze out extra revenue from every machine offered. In actual fact, the Apple IIe offered for about 3 times greater than the pc value to fabricate.
A crucial and business success
The Apple IIe obtained a fantastic reception upon its launch. Byte journal described it as “like having an Apple II with all of the extras inbuilt … with a wide range of thrilling new options and capabilities” for little further value.
The pc produced sturdy gross sales numbers, transferring 60,000 to 70,000 models per 30 days by Could 1983. (This was about twice the common of its predecessor, the Apple II Plus.) And the brand new pc had legs: The Apple IIe continued because the bestselling Apple II mannequin even after Cupertino launched its successor, the Apple IIc, in 1984.
At a time when Apple’s different computer systems, the Lisa (launched the identical month) and the Apple III, did not catch on, and the Macintosh wasn’t but a giant vendor, the Apple IIe stacked up as an undisputed winner.
Do you keep in mind the Apple IIe? Did you personal one? Tell us within the feedback beneath.
