![]() ![]() It was to have a full upper/lowercase keyboard and display, 80-column text, and a more comprehensive operating system. They decided that the Apple III was to be a business machine, and not have the home or arcade-game reputation that the II had. Also, although Wozniak made most of the design decisions for the II, a committee at Apple decided what capabilities the Apple III should have. ![]() Instead of building upon the Apple II as a basis for this new computer, they decided to start from scratch. , īecause they knew that the Lisa project would take a long time to complete, and because the Apple II was perceived to have only a short remaining useful life as a product, they began a new computer project called the Apple III. Because of the power it was to have, Apple executives felt that Lisa would be the future of the company. This computer was code-named Lisa, and because it was such a revolutionary type of design, they knew it would take many years to come to actual production. The main advantage would be speed, and the ability to do high precision calculations. They also began work on a different, more powerful computer that would use several identical microprocessor chips sharing tasks. The beginning of these new design efforts began in 1978, and one of the earliest projects was an enhanced Apple II that used some custom chips however, that project was never finished. Since Apple Computer was a business, and not just a vehicle for selling the Apple II computer, they began to enlarge the engineering department to begin designing new products. Although it had continued to be a sales leader, there were sentiments within the company as early as September, 1979 that it was unlikely the II could continue to be a best seller for more than another year or two. Each month a host of new products would be available for those who wanted to find more things to do with their computer, and the Apple II was finding a place in the home, the classroom, and the office.Īt Apple Computer, Inc., however, the Apple II was not viewed with the same degree of loyalty. During this time there was also an explosion of new software written for this easily expandable machine, from the realm of business ( VisiCalc and other spreadsheet clones), to utilities, to games of all types. Third-party companies designed cards to plug into the internal slots, and their function varied from making it possible to display and use 80-column text, to clocks and cards allowing the Apple II to control a variety of external devices. The open architecture of the computer, with its fully described hardware and firmware function via the Reference Manual, made it appealing both to hardware and software hackers. Between the years 19, although no new versions of the Apple II were released, it enjoyed a broad popularity and annually increasing sales. ![]()
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