Apple II’s 30th Anniversary.

By Miss Cellania in Everything Else on Jun 5, 2007 at 5:02 am

150_-apple-ii.jpgIt was on June 5, 1977 that the Apple II, the world’s first “practical” personal computer, went on sale.

Featuring an integrated keyboard, built-in BASIC programming languages, expandable memory, a monitor capable of color graphics, a sound card and expansion slots, the Apple II resembles today’s modern desktops in the way a ’38 Plymouth resembles a Cadillac Escalade. Cruder, perhaps, with fewer bells and whistles, but a smoothly functioning machine nevertheless.

A few years later I upgraded from a TRS-80 to a second-hand Apple II. I was amazed at the ease of a computer that you didn’t have to program yourself! Link


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  1. Britt
    Jun 5th, 2007 at 7:31 am

    My first computer was an Apple IIe. Ah, memories! Got to love the green lines of joy!

  2. sastvguy
    Jun 5th, 2007 at 12:54 pm

    Ooh, let’s play Wizardry, or Ultima, or Gorgon, or Castle Wolfenstein! Remember playing Oregon Trail at school? Remember programming “hi-res” graphics at 280×192? Remember getting busted by the computer science teacher for having a copy of Locksmith 4.1 among your disks? Good times…

  3. Jacques
    Jun 5th, 2007 at 12:55 pm

    WTF is the Cadillac Escallade supposed to be representative of the evolution of the automobile in the same way that modern computers have evolved? I hope the fsck not, otherwise we are screwed.

  4. Phoebe
    Jun 5th, 2007 at 3:37 pm

    Does anybody else remember the Apple IIc game “Island Prison?” We picked up a copy that didn’t have directions, and it was such an eerie game. It was very frustrating, as you had to figure out a maze through a castle, but sometimes, for seemingly no reason, you’d be set back right where you started…five hours earlier. In the rare event that you made it through the castle, you were outside, with no clue as to the point of the game. But now there were fields and fences to explore. Man, that thing brings back some very confusing memories.

  5. astanhope
    Jun 5th, 2007 at 3:38 pm

    I was in fifth grade circa 1981. “Mr. Markoff,” a young psychologist for the school district was so excited about computers. He selected a few kids (myself included) from the 5th and 6th grades who were the best at math and took us out of class for an hour per week to teach us BASIC on the Apple II. Thank you, Mr. Markoff, wherever you are!

  7. Desert Tripper
    Jun 5th, 2007 at 4:33 pm

    Remember the cool disks with all the dealer programs? The guy that sold us some of our accessories when we built our first Apple gave us copies. Applevision (a cool program that had some impossibly complex mix of Integer Basic and assembly language), Nightmare #6 (the object of the game is to find out the object of the game!), the Great Probability Machine, etc. Good times! And of course Little Brick Out on the DOS 3.3 master disk. And later, when I got involved with a computer club, Disk Muncher was my best friend!! Just amazing to think that I now have nearly every Apple II program I ever used or played on my hard drive thanks to Apple Disk Transfer and AppleWin!

    Such great memories…


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