After having sold more than 750,000 Apple II and II+ systems, making it one of the best-selling brands in the global computing market, Apple released an updated version of the II+, the Apple IIe ('e' standing for enhanced). With a production run of nearly eleven years that spanned from January 1983 to November 1993, the IIe is the company’s longest-lived model to date.  Like its predecessors the IIe was met with great success and was widely used in schools, especially in North America.

The Apple IIe was based around the 6502A CPU, which ran at 1.023MHz. It ran the Apple DOS 3.3 operating system. The computer came with 16K ROM and 64K RAM as standard, which could be doubled to 128K by plugging in Apple's Extended 80-Column Text Card, which also extended the 40-column display to 80 columns.

Most of the success of the Apple IIe is based on the seemingly infinite expandability of the original Apple II and Apple II+.  Although the large amount of peripherals available meant that savvy users could upgrade their II’s to match the functionality of the IIe, the IIe was sold with many of the add-ons as standard.  Some of these upgrades include a full ASCII character set with the ability to input both upper and lowercase letters. Alongside avoiding the need to personally upgrade components, the IIe combined various components into complex single chips.  This not only decreased production costs but also increased reliability.

With all these changes, the IIe boasted high backward compatibility with the vast and continually growing Apple II software library.  Smart decisions like this dot Apple’s production history, and they are undoubtedly contributing factors in the company’s survival through challenges that would have ultimately destroyed many others.  As of 2017, Apple Computers are the only remaining competitor – with an appreciable market share – to Windows machines (then IBM PC Standard).

In the UK the Apple IIe with 64K RAM cost £845 in April 1983.

Manufacturer: Apple
Date: January 1983

This exhibit has a reference ID of CH209. Please quote this reference ID in any communication with the Centre for Computing History.