Vintage Apple products

We currently have 9 products in our database.

Apple I

The Apple I was the result of the development efforts of Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, and Ron Wayne. It was developed, not in a garage, but in the bedroom of Steve Wozniak's home on 11161 Crist Drive in Los Altos (the house number was later changed to 2066). Steve Wozniak built the printed circuit-board, while Ron Wayne wrote the Apple-1 Operation Manual at his home. Steve Jobs did what he does best, advertising the Apple I to friends and family. They first previewed the Apple I in action during a May 1976 meeting of the Homebrew Computer Club. Paul Terell, the owner of the Byte Shop, the only computer store chain at the time, was impressed by what he saw and promised to buy 50 fully assembled computers for $500 each. As you can see, the machine was intended for hobbyist that would add ASCII keyboards and displays after buying the bare circuit board. It was not meant to be pre-built with fully-assembled displays and attachments. Jobs insisted it could be done and with the help of Woz, Bill Fernandez (who introduced Jobs to Woz) and Daniel Kottke (a friend of Jobs) they were able to build by hand all 50 of the motherboards on the second-to-last day before their loaned parts were due. They were not the "fully assembled" computers Terell had asked for, but he paid the men the cash they needed to pay off loans and make a good profit. Apple later sold the Apple I for $666.66 before being replaced by the much more practical and user friendly Apple II. Look at a screen shot of the Apple-1 display.

Price: $ 999

Apple II

The Apple II was designed on the original Apple I but was much more expandable, easier to use, and complete overall. It is the work of one man, Steve Wozniak. It is unarguably the greatest work done by a single person in the computer industry. The Apple II debuted in April, 1977, almost exactly one year after the introduction of Apple's first computer. It included the same MOS Technology 6502 processor running at the same clock speed (1.023 MHz) as the Apple I. The differences most noticeably included a plastic casing, the first of any commercial microcomputer, and an NTSC or PAL video out connector. This is what allowed you to use your TV to connect to an Apple II as a monitor. It offered up to a 16 fixed colors, another first in commercial microcomputing technology, and sound. They were sold with 4 to 64k of RAM, and were more expandable than the original Apple I. The II's first programming evironment, Wozniak's Integer BASIC was burned into the Apple II ROM. It let even non-hackers create programs for there computers using its new advances like color and sound. In August 1977, Apple agreed to pay $21,000 for an eight year license of Microsoft's Applesoft BASIC, designed by a then-teenage Randy Wigginton, who would later write MacWrite, and would be very influential in the creation of the Macintosh. The machine offered a cassette tape interface at the time of its introduction. In 1978 the Disk ][, a 143k 5.25" Disk Drive was introduced. With it came the first full version of the Apple II's OS, DOS 3.1. The Apple II was finally discontinued in 1982, but still has not died. You can often find it living in countless schools, basements, attics, and other rooms of the faithful.

Price: $ 560

Apple II plus

Price: $ 500

Apple III

The Apple III was announced May 19, 1980, during the National Computer Conference (NCC) in Anaheim. The Apple III was Apple's first attempt at creating a business machine that would compete with the IBM PC to be released the August of the following year. It originally sold for $4340-$7800 depending on configuration. It had very little noticeable similarities with any of the previous Apple models. It ran a Synertek 6502A processor running a new operating system named Apple SOS at 2 MHz, twice as fast as the Apple II. It had a maximum of 128k of RAM, twice the memory of an Apple II. It was also the first Apple computer to have a built-in floppy drive, a Shugart 143k 5.25" disk drive. It could have two additional peripherals added via its two serial ports, and had 4 internal expansion slots that were compatible with Apple II cards. But Steve Jobs, who supervised the project gave ridiculous demands to the development team including dimensions that were too small to fit all the components, and no cooling fan. The result was that the team had to cram the components in allowing little or no ventilation. Since there was no fan to cool the overheating, the chips expanded and eventually popped out of the machine, killing it. After replacing 14,000 bad IIIs, a newly revised Apple III, with 256k RAM and the option of adding a 5MB ProFile hard drive for $3495, was released some time afterward. It was also faulty, and had to be replaced, so Apple's final attempt was the Apple III+, selling for $2,995 in December, 1983. It had 256k RAM, a working logic board with built-in clock, improved peripheral ports with standard DB-25 connectors, a modified slot for easier card installation, and Apple SOS 1.3. Nevertheless, the III had a very bad reputation by this time and it was inevitably "too little, too late". The Apple III was discontinued on April 24, 1984 by Dave Fradin, the same man who touted it would live at least another 5-7 years one year earlier.

Price: $ 450

Apple IIe

The Apple IIe is arguably the most successful computer Apple has ever produced. The IIe was introduced on January 1983 originally selling for $1395, and included the same 1.02 MHz 6502 processor as the Apple I and II. The Apple IIe included the new ProDOS operating system designed from the ill-fated Apple III's SOS, and Applesoft BASIC burned into the 32k ROM. The IIe contained 64k RAM built-in, and allowed up to 128k RAM using the 80 column card which allowed 80 column text and an additional 64k RAM (much more RAM could be added later via third party hardware). The IIe also allowed upper and lower case letters be used allowing full functionality of the Shift and Caps Lock keys. The main goal of the IIe was succeed where the Apple III had failed, create a professional computer for use in business. It served its purpose well, and also became abundant in schools and homes. The next of several versions of the IIe was one with a sharper display (560x192 black and white, 140x192 in 16 colors). In March 1985 came the IIe enhanced, which was basically upgrading a IIe to IIc standards, including a new 65C02 processor, character generator, new ROM, and 2 more ROM chips for Applesoft BASIC and the monitor. In 1987, the final major revision, the IIe extended, was released. The IIe extended most noticeably added a numeric keypad to the built-in platinum keyboard. Other new features included a miniaturized 80 column card and several internal memory enhancements. Due to the fact that the IIe could be upgraded to a IIc or a IIGS and more compatible with original Apple II software than even the Apple II compatible clones, the bulk of Apple II software (95%) works on an enhanced IIe might explain why it was such a favorite among businesses, schools, and home computer users. All models were discontinued in November 1993 for a combine total of almost 11 years on Apple's production line, outliving every other model including the IIGS, discontinued the year before.

Price: $ 450

Apple Lisa

The Apple Lisa is a fascinating computer, both in its history and its specifications. I think this computer is the epitome of everything good and bad about Apple computer back then, and even today. It was the computer that had the power to put a dent in the universe, but was destined to live a life of failure. I will attempt to make this short, for I am planning a full-scale article on the Lisa in the future. The Lisa was released in January 19, 1983. The project first began life in 1979 though, which called for a business machine to replace the Apple II. After Steve Jobs visited PARC, and to a look at the Xerox Alto (see Apple & the GUI or the Apple History Timeline for more info) he immediately called the Lisa team members to recreate the graphical interface. The bulk of that work was handed to Apple Fellow Bill Atkinson, who created LisaGraf, the graphics routines on the Lisa display that were the heart of the GUI project. Sparing no expense, the team added two of Apple's short-lived in-house "Twiggy" drives, multitasking, a then-expensive 5 MHz 68000 processor, 5 MB ProFile HD, application suite, and an OS that would put even the Xerox Star to shame. Lisa team members were dedicated to their goal of making this a revolutionary machine that would change the face of computing. Although they succeeded, it was a bittersweet victory. Even though Lisa's clock speed was five times faster than the IIe shipped at the same time (which still used the same processor as the Apple I), it was torturously slow. The applications were big and bulky, and the OS was not compatible with any prior software from any developer. Worst of all, a Lisa system cost $9995, way too much for anybody that would want to buy one. A famous quote really says it all, "It was a great machine, we just couldn't sell any". The Lisa was quickly discontinued to make room for the Lisa 2. Check out a Lisa Office System 7/7 screen shot.

Price: $ 700

Disk IIx

Price: $ 90

Mackintosh

The start of something new

Price: $ 1200

Mackintosh SE 30

Next generation

Price: $ 1150