June 5, 1977: Apple Introduces Apple II

by Chris Seibold Jun 05, 2011

The Apple I was an interesting toy for hobbyists but far too technical for the masses. The founders of Apple felt that a more approachable machine could be a big seller. That machine, designed by Steve Wozniak, was the Apple II.

It featured a 1 MHz processor, an audio cassette interface for loading programs from an audio tape drive and a whopping 4 KB of RAM. By today's standards the Apple II would barely rank as a programmable garage door opener, but wrap all that electronic goodness up in a cleverly designed case and you've got a machine that had a lot of appeal to the folks interested in an easy-to-use computer.

You could get all that was the Apple II starting on June 5, 1977, provided you were willing to part with a not so meager (in 1979 dollars) $1298.

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Comments

  • The wikipedia article says the Apple II was introduced in 1977 at the West Coast Computer Faire, not in 1979. Is there a mistake?

    soft_guy had this to say on Jun 05, 2006 Posts: 21

  • Yes.  There is an error.  In fact, just four days ago there was a post on the introduction of the Apple II+ on June 1 of the same year.  Unless Applematters has figured on a way to warp the fabric of space time, I don’t think that the II+ was realeased a week BEFORE its predecessor.

    spuy767 had this to say on Jun 05, 2006 Posts: 1

  • This is part of the rich history of computers as a whole. These machine is the great great grandad of today’s high tech stuff like the iPad. Thanks to the old generation computers,we have what we have right now. - Guy Riordan

    Guy Riordan had this to say on Aug 31, 2011 Posts: 11
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