June 10, 1977: Apple Pc Inc. ships its first Apple II pc.
A hulking beige behemoth with 4KB of RAM (upgradeable to a whopping 48KB), the Apple II is the pc that can outline Apple for a technology of followers. Retailing at $1,298, it value the equal of a handful of MacBook Execs at this time — although it appeared a complete cut price on the time.
First Apple II ships
Not like its Apple-1 predecessor, the Apple II was polished and prepared for the mass market. It featured a keyboard, BASIC compatibility and, most notable of all, coloration graphics. Regardless of being the corporate’s second pc, the Apple II was liable for a variety of firsts at Apple.
It additionally was the machine that turned Apple right into a million-dollar firm (sure, million — not billion). The yr the Apple II debuted, Apple turned over $770,000 in income. The yr after that, the pc’s success introduced in $7.9 million, and the yr after that $49 million.
That’s not all.
VisiCalc, a ‘killer app’ for the Apple II
Screenshot: Steven Weyhrich/Apple2History
It was additionally the pc that created Apple’s (and arguably private computing’s) first “killer app” within the type of VisiCalc. The world’s inaugural spreadsheet, VisiCalc turned private computer systems from cool-to-have toy into must-have enterprise accent. (And so they say it’s solely now that Apple’s actually entering into the enterprise market.)
The Apple II grew to become the primary pc of many influential folks in tech. Amongst them was Mitch Kapor, founding father of Lotus Growth Company, co-founder of the Digital Frontier Basis, and the primary chair of the Mozilla Basis. Talking in regards to the Apple II within the sort of reverent tones an individual solely makes use of for his or her old flame, Kapor advised me for my e-book The Apple Revolution about promoting his stereo for money and driving to New Hampshire, the place there was no gross sales tax, to purchase certainly one of Apple’s sizzling new computer systems.
It moreover fueled Apple’s deal with industrial design. Apple designer Jerry Manock advised me he was employed to create “a pleasant steadiness between manufacturability and human components.” Manock later went on to design the primary Macintosh pc. However the Apple II is in some ways an equally iconic machine. It paved the best way for the feel and appear of later Apple creations.
Apple advertising and marketing comes of age
Lastly, the Apple II that shipped on today in 1977 was the machine on which Apple reduce its advertising and marketing tooth. To promote it, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs sought out promoting copywriters who hadn’t beforehand labored on pc campaigns as a manner of doing one thing totally different.
“It was attention-grabbing to observe, but it surely wasn’t actually clear to us what we have been seeing,” says Invoice Kelley, the copywriter behind the primary Apple II adverts, recalling his first demo of the machine.
After the preliminary adverts confirmed a sexist state of affairs wherein a girl slaved within the kitchen whereas her husband typed on the Apple II, Jobs obtained a livid letter from a girl in Oregon, complaining about it. Future commercials for the machine reversed the equation, and began a development for Apple adverts that subvert viewer expectations.
First Apple II ships … and subsequent fashions maintain delivery!
In the end, the Apple II was an outstanding machine. It stands as a triumph of collaboration between Apple co-founders Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who would by no means once more work so nicely collectively. The pc benefited from nice peripherals just like the Disk II 5 1/4-inch floppy drive and very good software program starting from video games to productiveness instruments. The Apple II modified the face of computing years earlier than the Mac, iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch have been gleams within the eye of anybody in Cupertino.
The product line continued till 1993 — greater than 15 years after the primary Apple II shipped on today in 1977, and almost a decade after the primary Mac arrived. Cupertino offered between 5 million and 6 million Apple II computer systems within the course of.
Blissful birthday, Apple II!
Do you have got fond (or not so fond) reminiscences of the Apple II? Share them with us within the feedback!
