The Apple IIc was the compact (the "c" stands for compact) version of the Apple IIe. It had the same basic characteristics as the Apple IIe but included a lot of features which were optional on the IIe: floppy disk drive, 80-column display, color display, 128 KB RAM. But unlike the Apple IIe, it had no expansion slots, so it was hard to add features to this computer. It ran either with DOS 3.3 or with ProDos and had the first version of QuickDraw in ROM.
The Apple IIc was originally designed to be a portable version of the Apple II, but it wasn't a stand alone system, it had no batteries and no LCD screen (Apple would soon release these items), it could also be used with a small 9" monochrome green screen which plugged into the unit. The Apple IIc was mainly used as a desktop computer.
The original Apple //c shipped with a floppy disk called "The Apple At Play" which included, among other programs, a nifty application showing how the speaker could be driven to make polyphonic music. The "Music Recital" program played the first movement of Mozart's Piano Sonata in C, K545. A video demonstrating this (for nostalgia purposes) is posted in the movie section.
The original Apple //c shipped with a set of five 5.25" floppy disks:
1. Introducing the Apple //c (?)
2. The Apple At Work
3. The Apple At Play
4. Inside the Apple //c (?)
5. System Utilities
The Apple IIc was replaced with the Apple IIc+ in 1988.
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Fun facts, by Taneli Lukka:
The Apple IIc was a nice machine, but too expensive here in Finland to become a popular home computer so it was instead the favourite of semi-professional users and firms/factories because it was cheap compared to many professional systems and had good business software.
My first encounter with this machine was no less than spectacular. I was contacted by a man who wanted to sell his old computer to me so it wouldn't go to the trash bin. I bought it and found out that this Apple IIc had been this loyal Apple users only computer from the middle 80's until April 2005 when it was replaced by a PC laptop and put into storage! The machine has even had more memory added in the early 90's. This if something is a real testimony of the quality of Apple IIc, Imagewriter II-printer and the Appleworks software pack!
Another fun fact is that the pedestal of the 9" monochrome green monitor is a one big aluminum casting and weighs as much as the monitor itself!
Thierry Legros reports:
I have seen this Apple IIc into the movie "Explorers" from Joe Dante with Ethan Hawk. This is the computer the guy uses to connect his extra-terrestrial electronic board which creates a force field.
Please consider donating your old computer / videogame system to Old-Computers.com or one of our partners from anywhere in the world (Europe, America, Asia, etc.).
We had a iic as a kid growing up!!!
It had a COLOR screen and a 7 color dot-matrix printer. Top of the line at the time. My friends had Compaq''s and Atari''s!!!
