Apple //c

1984 was a very productive year for Apple. In January they introduced the Macintosh and within four months they introduced the latest in the Apple II line, the Apple IIc. This computer proved to be very popular. For example; it took 2 1/2 years to sell 50,000 units of the original Apple II, it took IBM 7 1/2 months to sell the same amount of PCs. In April 1984 Apple introduced the IIc at a day long exposition in San Francisco, Apple sold 50,000 IIc's in a little over 7 hours to more than 2000 retail dealers.

The IIc was targeted at the segment of consumers who owned low end computers and were now ready to move up to a more powerful computer. Apple felt that this was a niche in the home computer market as yet untapped. Apple dubbed the IIc as the 'appliance' computer in that it was designed to be as easy and convenient to use as would your toaster, television, or stereo system.

It was designed so that all you needed was in one box to get you up and running. The IIc was capable of hooking to any standard TV, composite monitor, or RGB display. The theory I guess was to make it very portable, just find a TV and your up and running.

Still the IIc was indeed a rather powerful machine for its time. It came with a new breed of 6502 processor, a low power consumption CMOS version called 65C02, The 65C02 processor came with 27 new instructions and was backward compatible to the older 6502 processors in the Apple II, II+, and IIe family. It came with a whopping 128k RAM (that's large for that time period) and a 16k ROM.

Like the other Apple IIs, the IIc comes with Applesoft BASIC burned into ROM and a machine language monitor. The overall look and feel of the IIc is a change from the Apple II family, compact yet very comfortable to type on. New in the IIc is the ultrahigh-resolution mode of 560 x 192.

There also is an internal speaker with a volume control on the side of the case. On the right side of the case is a built in 5.25 single sided floppy drive and on the back panel are all the peripheral ports. This is a departure from the previous Apple products in that there are no slots for drop in cards. In fact you can't even open the computer unless you disassemble it.

The IIc was after all intended for a consumer who did not want to be bothered with installing cards or setting up expansion interfaces. They just want to use it.

The Apple IIc displayed here is one of 5 that I have acquired from various local thrift shops and flea markets. This one was added to the museum on August 3rd 1997. It was purchased at a flea market along with an Apple color composite monitor and a box of software.

System Architecture		Memory
Microprocessor	65C02	Standard on system board	128k
Clock speed	1 MHz	Maximum on system board	128k
Bus type	Apple Proprietary	Maximum total memory	128k
Data bus width	8-bit	Memory speed and type	200 ns
Address bus width	16-bit	System board memory socket type	16 pin DIP
Interrupt levels	N/A	Number of memory module sockets	16
DMA channels	N/A	Memory used on system board	???
Standard Features		Disk Storage
ROM size	16k	Internal disk and tape drive bays	1 X half height
Optional math coprocessor	none	Standard floppy drives	5 1/4 X 143k
Parallel port type		Optional floppy drives:
RS232C serial ports	yes	* 5 1/4 inch 143k	1
Mouse ports	yes	* 5 1/4 inch 1.2MB	No
UART chip used	N/A	* 3 1/2 inch 800k	optional
Maximum speed	N/A	* 3 1/2 inch 1.44MB	No
CMOS real time clock	no	* 3 1/2 inch 2.88MB	No
CMOS RAM	none	Hard disk controller included	No
Video & Graphics		Sound
Graphics Processor		Sound Interface device
Screen size - Col x Rows	40/80 x 24	Sound generation
Resolution - Colors/High		ADSR capable
Resolution - Colors/Low
Max colors		Programming language
Sprites or Missiles		Built in language	Applesoft Basic
		Built in M L monitor	no
Expansion Slots		Keyboard Specs.
Total adapter slots	none	Number of keys	63
Number of 8/16/32 bit slots	none	Upper/lower case	yes/yes
		Keyboard cable length	N/A
Physical Specs.		Environmental Specs.
* Height	2 1/2 inches	Operating voltage @ 60 Hz	117 VAC
* Width	12 inches	Maximum power supplied
* Depth	11 1/2 inches	Power supply output - volts
* Weight	7 1/2 pounds	Power supply output - amps

Introduced	April 1984
Discontinued	November 1990
Original Price	$1295