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Introduced  April 1984
Discontinued  November 1990
Original Price       $1295

 

      1984 was a very productive year for Apple. In January they introduced the Macintosh and within four months they introduced the latest in the Apple II line, the Apple IIc. This computer proved to be very popular. For example; it took 2 1/2 years to sell 50,000 units of the original Apple II, it took IBM 7 1/2 months to sell the same amount of PCs. In April 1984 Apple introduced the IIc at a day long exposition in San Francisco, Apple sold 50,000 IIc's in a little over 7 hours to more than 2000 retail dealers.

      The IIc was targeted at the segment of consumers who owned low end computers and were now ready to move up to a more powerful computer. Apple felt that this was a niche in the home computer market as yet untapped. Apple dubbed the IIc as the 'appliance' computer in that it was designed to be as easy and convenient to use as would your toaster, television, or stereo system.

      It was designed so that all you needed was in one box to get you up and running. The IIc was capable of hooking to any standard TV, composite monitor, or RGB display. The theory I guess was to make it very portable, just find a TV and your up and running.

      Still the IIc was indeed a rather powerful machine for its time. It came with a new breed of 6502 processor, a low power consumption CMOS version called 65C02, The 65C02 processor came with 27 new instructions and was backward compatible to the older 6502 processors in the Apple II, II+, and IIe family. It came with a whopping 128k RAM (that's large for that time period) and a 16k ROM.

      Like the other Apple IIs, the IIc comes with Applesoft BASIC burned into ROM and a machine language monitor. The overall look and feel of the IIc is a change from the Apple II family, compact yet very comfortable to type on. New in the IIc is the ultrahigh-resolution mode of 560 x 192.

      There also is an internal speaker with a volume control on the side of the case. On the right side of the case is a built in 5.25 single sided floppy drive and on the back panel are all the peripheral ports. This is a departure from the previous Apple products in that there are no slots for drop in cards. In fact you can't even open the computer unless you disassemble it.

      The IIc was after all intended for a consumer who did not want to be bothered with installing cards or setting up expansion interfaces. They just want to use it.

      The Apple IIc displayed here is one of 5 that I have acquired from various local thrift shops and flea markets. This one was added to the museum on August 3rd 1997. It was purchased at a flea market along with an Apple color composite monitor and a box of software.

 

System Architecture Ports Data Storage
Processor: MOS Technology  65C02
PMMU: n/a
FPU: n/a
Data Buss: 8 bits
Address Buss: 16 bits
L1 Cache: n/a
L2 Cache: n/a
2nd Processor: n/a
No. of Expansion Slots: none
Clock Speed: 1.023 MHz
Buss Type: Apple Proprietary
   
USB: n/a
ADB: n/a
Video: 1 RCA
Floppy: 1 DB-15
SCSI: n/a
Serial: 2
Ethernet: n/a
FireWire: n/a
Parallel: n/a
AirPort Ready: n/a
Other Ports:  
Tape Drive: Optional
Disk Drive: Built-in
Floppy Size: 5 1/4 inch
No. of FD's:: up to 3
Int Hard Drive: none
Int HD Size: n/a
Int HD Interface: n/a
Int CD Support: n/a
Orig CD Speed: n/a
No. of Internl Bays: 1
Memory Video and Graphics
Logic Board: 128K
RAM Slots or Sockets: 16 pin DIP
Min - Max RAM: n/a
Min RAM Speed: 200 ns
RAM Sizes: n/a
Install in Groups of: n/a
Notes:  
   
Graphics Processor uses CPU
Screen size - columns & rows 40/80 x 24
Video on board yes
Video RAM Shares Logic Board RAM
Max colors 16
RGB output yes
Composit Video Output yes
Screen Resolution 280 x 192 / 560 x 192
Physical Specs. Software Power
Introduced: April 1984
Discontinued: November 1990
Form Factor: Apple II
Gestalt ID: n/a
Weight (lbs): 7.5
Dimensions (in): 2.5 H x 12.0 W x 11.5 D
Notes:  
Addressing Modes: 8 bit
Orig SSW: Applesoft Basic
Orig Enabler: n/a
ROM ID: n/a
ROM Ver: n/a
ROM Size: 32K
AppleTalk Ver: n/a
Mac OS Supported: n/a
Max Watts:  
Amps:  
BTU per Hr:  
Voltage: 120
Freq Range: 60 Hz
Battery Type: n/a
Soft Power: n/a
Pass Through: no
Sound Keyboard Specs.  
Sound Interface Device: uses CPU
Sound Generation: tone output to speaker
ADSR Capable: no
Sound Output: internal speaker only
Sound Input: no
Notes:  
   
Number of keys: 63 full stroke
Built In: yes
Detached: no
Upper / Lower case yes / yes