Apple IIe

The Apple IIe was a development of the Apple II, which was developed after the failure of the Apple III within a very short time as a " loss - stopper " by Apple and released in early 1983. He had a standard 64 KB of RAM installed and behaved essentially as an Apple II with pre- built Apple II Language Card. An upgrade (using a single plug-in ) to 128 KB RAM, Videx -compliant 80 - character display and doubled graphics resolution was already provided in the base unit and was soon done by almost all users.

For the first time in the Apple II series, the input and output of lowercase been possible without upgrading; the keyboard could produce all 7-bit ASCII characters, including all control characters, in the German version the first time, German umlauts, which were coded according to ISO 646. Between American and national keyboard layout and character set could be chosen under the front of the keyboard for the non - American models by means of a switch. From software perspective, the change was different from the IBM PC completely transparent, there were no driver needed, or the like for it.

The keyboard of the Apple IIe was also in contrast to the extended Apple II / II with a number pad; they possessed also the first of the Apple II series on the Apple III derived from open- Apple - and the solid- Apple key (later on the Macintosh to " Command" and "Option" renamed). Since these keys no ASCII code could be assigned, they were wired so that they emerged from the software point of view as the two fire buttons of an Apple joystick.

The IIe consisted of fewer components and thus was, despite its improved properties not more expensive than the Apple II , Apple released at the same time significantly more profit one. The production of the II was thus set immediately after the appearance of the IIe. Since the IIe several larger ASICs were used instead of the multitude of small standard ICs of the older models, the number of Apple clones reduced because their manufacturers these ASICs could not acquire and own developments were priced accordingly; However, this also means that a defective Apple IIe unlike the Apple II / II today can not be repaired easily, as these ASICs are no longer available.

As a disk operating system was first used yet the Apple acquired DOS of the older models, from the end of 1983, Apple ProDOS.

The Apple IIe was a huge success, on average about 60,000-70,000 computers were sold in 1983 in the month.

In 1985, he again received a hardware upgrade, which became known as "Enhanced IIe ": The MOS 6502 processor was replaced by the WDC 65C02, he received a new character generator which could generate graphics characters, and two firmware ROM chips were replaced. This update eliminated several known bugs of the firmware and made it compatible with the Apple IIc and to a lesser extent to the old Apple II original model from 1977, the Mini - Assembler and step- and trace commands were now back in place. Apple also sold update kits to the four required ICs and a new type label, which allows users of the older version could upgrade their device or in an authorized workshop for "Enhanced IIe ." The "Enhanced IIe " can be seen at the switch-on " Apple / / e", the older version shows "APPLE ] [ " or activated in the German character set rather comical "APPLE ÜÄ ". An Enhanced IIe and 128 KB of RAM is the minimum equipment to be virtually all 8- bit Apple II programs can run. This does not apply for the Apple IIgs - specific.

Appeared in 1986 again a new version of the " Platinum IIe ", which brought no innovations in software, but a more modern housing design offered, the chip number further reduced (thus the price dropped ) and had a built in number pad. In Germany, this computer was, however, no longer offered, since Apple sat there on the Macintosh. This version was still produced until the end of 1993, whereby the Apple IIe computer model produced the longest in the whole Apple company's history. A few units are still in individuals and in schools as a visual model in operation.

Open Apple IIe. Links the power supply, which did not require a fan. The hinged lid with Velcro fasteners is opened.

Zeitungsausriss with the advertisement for an Apple IIe ( June 1983)