X-Nico

36 unusual facts about Apple II


Apple 410 Color Plotter

The printer could be connected to an Apple II (with an installed Super Serial Card) or Apple III computer.

Apple II

The video controller displayed 24 lines by 40 columns of monochrome, upper-case-only (the original character set matches ASCII characters 20h to 5Fh) text on the screen, with NTSC composite video output suitable for display on a TV monitor, or on a regular TV set by way of a separate RF modulator.

The Disk II interface, created by Steve Wozniak, was regarded as an engineering masterpiece for its economy of electronic components.

Atari 5200

However, as the system was reaching completion, the personal computer revolution was starting with the release of machines like the Commodore PET, TRS-80 and Apple II.

Autostereogram

In 1979, Christopher Tyler of Smith-Kettlewell Institute, a student of Julesz and a visual psychophysicist, combined the theories behind single-image wallpaper stereograms and random-dot stereograms (the work of Julesz and Schilling) to create the first black-and-white "random-dot autostereogram" (also known as single-image random-dot stereogram) with the assistance of computer programmer Maureen Clarke using Apple II and BASIC.

Bill Godbout

Bill Godbout was an early computer pioneer and entrepreneur known for manufacturing and selling computer equipment, parts and Electronic kits in Silicon Valley, before the time of the Apple II.

Burrell Smith

He was Apple employee #282, and was hired in February, 1979, initially as an Apple II service technician.

Christian video game

The programs were intended to work in any version of BASIC, but the book included tips for adapting the programs for the Apple II, Atari 400/800, Commodore VIC-20/64, and TRS-80, as well as extending and customising the programs to make them more interesting.

Christopher Glenn

Glenn was among the first CBS News correspondents to use a personal computer (an Apple II).

Cuisinart

Steve Jobs stated that he based the physical design of the Apple II, a personal computer first released in 1977, in large part on the Cuisinart food processor.

Del Yocam

He was the executive vice president and general manager of the Apple II group from 1983 until 1985.

Eric Rosenfeld

As a graduate student at MIT, he worked with Mitch Kapor, future founder of Lotus, to create and sell a financial statistics program written in BASIC for an Apple II.

Frisky Tom

Mouskattack, a game with similar visuals and gameplay, was published in 1982 by Sierra On-Line for the Atari 8-bit computers and Apple II.

Group code recording

This scheme is known as "6 and 2", and was used on Apple Pascal, Apple DOS 3.3 and ProDOS, and later on the 400K and 800K 3½ disks on the Macintosh and Apple II.

For the Apple II floppy drive, Steve Wozniak invented a floppy controller which (along with the drive itself) imposed two constraints

IBM System/36 BASIC

For example, on the Apple II, a programmer could embed a command into a program via PRINT, when prefaced by the character string CHR$(4).

Integer BASIC

Applesoft BASIC was included in the ROMs of all Apple II models from the Apple II Plus forward, and eventually became the platform for far more programs than Integer BASIC.

Originally available on cassette, then included in ROM on the original Apple II computer at release in 1977, it was the first version of BASIC used by many early home computer owners.

Jack Tramiel

As prices dropped and the market matured, the monochrome (green text on black screen) PET was at a disadvantage in the market when compared to machines like the Apple II and Atari 800, which offered color graphics and could be hooked to a television as an inexpensive display.

Juiced.GS

Juiced.GS is a print magazine/newsletter for Apple II computer users.

Kensington Security Slot

Kensington Computer Products Group, a division brand of ACCO Brands, Inc. (located in Redwood Shores, California), was founded in 1981 with the invention of the System Saver, a combined cooling fan and surge protector designed for use with the Apple II home computer.

Kilobaud Microcomputing

After the success of kilobaud, Wayne Green diversified with magazines targeted to specific brands of home computers, such as 80-Microcomputing (also known as 80-Micro) a Magazine for TRS-80 users, InCider a magazine for Apple II users, Hot CoCo a magazine for TRS-80 Color Computers, RUN a magazine for Commodore 64 users and many others.

Lynda Weinman

Weinman attributes her initial interest in computers to her having taught herself how to use an Apple II when a boyfriend brought it home.

Man of Science, Man of Faith

A man (Henry Ian Cusick) wakes up from his bunk bed and immediately presses a few keys on what appears to be a late 1970s-era computer.

Michael Dell

At age 15, after playing with computers at Radio Shack, he got his first computer, an Apple II, which he promptly disassembled to see how it worked.

Nintendo S-SMP

The Sony SPC 700 is the S-SMP's integrated 8-bit CPU core manufactured by Sony with an instruction set similar to that of the MOS Technology 6502 (as used in the Commodore 64 and Vic 20, Apple II, BBC Micro and the original NES).

Odyssey: The Compleat Apventure

It was created for the Apple II platform and is considered one of the first microcomputer-based role-playing video games.

Randi J. Rost

He was an early participant in the personal computer industry, creating a game called King Cribbage for the Apple II computer in 1981 and publishing numerous instructional and review articles in trade publications.

Randy Wigginton

Wigginton collaborated with Wozniak on the circuit design and ROM software for the Apple II in 1977.

Sim Wong Hoo

There he developed and sold an add-on memory board for the Apple II computer.

Starcade

Whoever had the highest out of all eight on their team was selected to play against the two other highest-scoring players on an arcade game (Berzerk in this case) for the grand prize – their very own arcade game (Asteroids Deluxe, in this case) and an Apple II Home Computer System.

Strategic Studies Group

Its success was followed by a string of other, mostly historical military games published throughout the 1980s for Apple II, Atari, Commodore 64, and IBM PC series of computers.

SuperDrive

This was made possible as the SuperDrive now utilitized the same MFM (Modified Frequency Modulation) encoding scheme used by the IBM PC, yet still retained backward compatibility with Apple's variable-speed zoned CAV scheme and Group Code Recording encoding format, so it could continue to read Macintosh MFS, HFS and Apple II ProDOS formats on 400/800 KB disks.

System/34 BASIC

BASIC interpreters written in the Seventies tended to "do odd things odd ways." For example, on the Apple II, a programmer could embed a DOS command into a program via PRINT, when prefaced by the character string CHR$(4).

Windfall: The Oil Crisis Game

Windfall: The Oil Crisis Game is a real-time business simulation game developed by David Mullich in 1980 for the Apple II.

Wizardry

Originally made for the Apple II, the games were later ported to other platforms.


2400 A.D.

The Commodore 64 port was in development by John Romero, but was shelved due to poor sales of the original Apple II version.

Batman: The Caped Crusader

Batman; The Caped Crusader is an action adventure game developed by Special FX Software (Jonathan Smith, Zach Townsend, Charles Davies, and Keith Tinman) and published by Ocean Software for the 8-bit home computers such as the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 and by Data East for other platforms such as the Apple II, Commodore Amiga and PC in 1988.

Bird Aviation Museum and Invention Center

These include Bird Respirator and a variety of inventions ranging from The Barbie doll by Ruth Handler to the Apple II primarily by Steve Wozniak.

Chuck Peddle

The most famous member of the 650x series was the 6502, developed in 1976, which was priced at 15 percent of the cost of an Intel 8080, and was subsequently used in many commercial products, including the Apple II, Commodore VIC-20, Nintendo Entertainment System, Atari 8-bit computers, Oric computers and BBC Micro from Acorn Computers.

Electrical connector

A few examples are monitors (MGA, CGA, EGA), the Commodore 64, MSX, Apple II, Amiga, and Atari joysticks and mice, and game consoles such as Atari and Sega.

ImageWriter

This, as well as guaranteed compatibility with both Apple II and Macintosh computers, made it popular in schools.

There were three different models introduced over time, which were mostly popular among Apple II and Macintosh owners.

Joel Billings

Designed for the TRS-80 and Apple II home computers, it is viewed as the first computer war game ever published.

Lazer's Interactive Symbolic Assembler

Lazer's Interactive Symbolic Assembler (Lisa) is an interactive MOS 6502 assembler for Apple II computers written by Randall Hyde in the late 1970s.

Macintosh IIfx

These I/O chips featured a pair of embedded 6502 CPUs, meaning that this Mac also had the core of two Apple II machines inside it (albeit at 10 MHz rather than the 1 MHz of the Apple II).

Programma International

Established in the late 1970s by David Gordon, it published a line of approximately 300 game, programming utility, and office productivity products for the Apple II, Commodore PET, TRS-80 and other personal computer systems.

Sirius Joyport

The Sirius Joyport was a game controller adapter for the Apple II computer designed by Keithen Hayenga and Steve Woita (who were employed by Apple at the time) and then licensed for manufacture and distribution in 1981 by Sirius Software.

Space Eggs

Space Eggs is an unofficial port of the arcade game Moon Cresta to the Apple II.

The Death Trap

Sakaguchi and Tanaka were friends at their university, often playing the Apple II game Wizardry, and computer games designed by Nasir Gebelli (of whom which would work for Square later on).

The Elektrik Keyboard

In the late '70s it added personal computers and MIDI music to its lineup, and began publishing Apple II computer software written by programmer Chris Oberth. The software, advertised in the company's catalog and sold on cassette, largely consisted of games including some that emulated popular arcade titles.

West Coast Computer Faire

It took place on April 16–17, 1977, in San Francisco Civic Auditorium & Brooks Hall, and saw the debut of the Commodore PET, presented by Chuck Peddle, and the Apple II, presented by then-21-year-old Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.