The Apple II At 30

turnitover sends us to eWEEK for an appreciation of the Apple II on the 30th anniversary of its shipping. An overview of the history of the Apple II puts it in context. A nice tidbit: how important the floppy drive was to sales. The article quotes Sellam Ismail, the proprietor of VintageTech, which maintains archives of computers, documents, and software: "You could think of the Apple II's importance on two levels — the Woz level and the Steve Jobs level." The former refers to its allure to hackers, and the latter to its appliance-like polish, a first for its time, There is also an interview with Woz, who says, "[A]t the start there were no computers in the home — we had to make the word computer compatible with homes."

The first computer I owned

I got an Apple ][+ with 48k back in 1981. I had a chance to use a couple of computers before then, but this was the first one I spent any real time with. I taught myself to program on it and it sparked my life long interest in computer graphics and game development (which I attempt to do professionally today). I have the awesome manuals that came with it to thank. That's the way to do a computer right. And now it makes me feel very, very old. I wish I still had that particular computer, I should have never given it away. I still have an Apple IIe, two Apple //c's, and a Laser 128. What Woz did with Apple is the most inspiring and amazing thing. What an engineer!

Re:The first computer I owned

I feel old too [jdkoftinoff.com]

My Apple ][ was something that challenged and taught me.

Woz is brilliant and I spend countless hours pouring over the big red book with the fold out schematic of the Apple ][. Not only open source but open hardware too. The Apple ][ was fundamental in my development as a computer programmer.

Computers now have lost the special aspects of the Apple ][... simplicity and understandability.

--jeffk++

Re:The first computer I owned

That's what I love about Linux. I know the hardware is still closed, but one can go into /etc and look at the scripts that control the system - in (almost) human readable form!
Now I'm no hardcore hacker (basic bash is as gritty as I get) but it's beautiful that the system is configured by a heap of text files and scripts.

Having said that - /etc could certainly be better and more logically organised!

Yeah, UCSD p-code Pascal! :)

My first real computer (not to count my very dear hex-codes programmable calculator, though at that time I did not know it was hex codes, just some numbers and first couple letters, in 4th or 5th grade :) ) was a Bulgarian clone of Apple ][. Yes, with (equally pirated) p-code system written in that strange unknown place called UCSD, had something to do with mythical California... I still do not understand how did they fit p-code interpreter, compiler, libraries (including graphics), editor and file browser runnable on 32K and loadable from a 5" floppy (it was not 360K, more like 128K, right?)... Eat THAT, JVM! :)

Moscow, 1984, I think... (Hmm, interesting year... ;) ).

Paul B.

The Call That Changed a Life

What is the call that changed a life?

call -151

Or you could just go watch...

...Cringely's Triumph of the Nerds again. Same thing, just a few years earlier.

What's changed in 30 years?

What's the big thing that seems to have changed at Apple over 30 years?

In 1977, Apple Computer included the schematics for all of the motherboard and CPU design for the Apple ][.

In 2006, Apple Ceased & Desisted [macobserver.com] a site for merely linking to a service manual.

Please come back Woz, we miss you.

Re:What's changed in 30 years?

The face of computer business has changed. It is all about patents and copyright now... not providing a good product to the consumer.

Re:What's changed in 30 years?

The face of computer business has changed. It is all about patents and copyright now... not providing a good product to the consumer.

Yup. Companies like MS & Apple seem to prefer buying out other companies & suing competitors rather than actually innovating.

We need some engineers like Woz back in positions of importance again....

Re:What's changed in 30 years?

What's the big thing that seems to have changed at Apple over 30 years?
In 1977, Apple Computer included the schematics for all of the motherboard and CPU design for the Apple ][.

In 1935 your Grandad's Hallicrafters shortwave set came with a schematic. In 1965 your Dad's RCA Color TV did not. What begins as the private preserve of the technical hobbyist becomes domesticated and mass market.

Re:What's changed in 30 years?

My 1981 13" Mitsubishi ColorTV came with schematics.
My 1983 JVC VCR ($500 retail) came with schematics.
My 1989 19" Panasonic Stereo TV ($700 Retail) came with schematics.
My 2001) 43" Hitachi Projection HDTV (monitor 1080i/540p) has schematics available that I used to replace the convergence chips with.

It is true that most electronics - especially the Wal*Mart disposable type - do not have schematics. I was actually shocked that my 43" TV has them available for the public.
What I find offensive is that some appliance parts (refrigerator and dishwasher) from some manufacturers are not available to the general public - at least in my experience. I've read that some specialty ICs for TVs are only available to contract holders (repair shops) for said manufacturer.

Re:What's changed in 30 years?

Macs have always been PC's. They are computers, and they are personal (except for the servers, and even then, the recent ones could be used as a workstation). They are not and never will be "IBM PC Compatible", though right now is the closest they've ever been.

Just to remind you... the IBM PC lived and died by its BIOS. Without a BIOS, it can't be an "IBM PC Compatible". The Mac used to live (and potentially die) by its ROM, but Apple wisely turned it into an intangible brand and got rid of that thing.

I liked it.

I learned about computers on a ][c at Motorola back in the day and enjoyed the crap out of the novelty of it at the time. I consider myself very lucky to have been born at just the right time to experience the PC explosion - Mac or otherwise. It lead to my purchase of a Laser 386SX [I couldn't afford the extra $300 for the DX (math processor) model] by VTECH (buy a cordless phone lately?) loaded with Windoze 3.1, 2 MB of RAM upgradable to 4 MB and an 85 MB HDD. Yeah yeah, glory daze I know, but what a heady time to be a new user. I was never smart enough to get into the programming aspect of it, but it was cool enough to me to be a knowledgable user on the cutting edge of reboot after reboot.

The D5 clip of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates is good..

SJ gives a good overview of the original goals of the Apple ][ and later the Mac. He gives interesting details of the Apple ][... "we wanted people to be able to code themselves," and on Woz's implementation of Integer Basic and how broken it was (and that Woz knew he needed to fix it with something that supported floating point, but never got around to it). Was pretty neat.

There are some clips on the "All things Digital" conference site, and I believe on iTunes as well.

Slots

From TFA: "[Jobs] opposed the inclusion of expansion slots... Woz himself had to demand their inclusion, and the two compromised on having four."

Of course, the Apple ][ had seven (7) slots.

RTFM = Best Evar.. BASIC, etc, etc

The BEST thing about starting with the Apple ][ was the manuals. They explained clearly and with examples how to use the computer and write BASIC programs. Nothing since has been as comprehensive, or easy to use.

There are so many layers and problems which todays desktop make difficult, and were easy back then. A much better introduction to computers couldn't be had.

uh huh

But does it run Vista?

*duck*

Ultima IV!

one of the best games ever. i really (honestly!) miss the days spent swapping 5.25" disks in my apple IIc.

It wasn't the floppy drive

It was color that made the Apple so successful. Anything else, on the market, close to Apple's price was monochrome. Color just knocked people's socks off.

I just wanted to take a break.

Why am I wasting time here? I should proofread my Physics term paper. I call for a moratorium on Apple fluff pieces during finals week.

Floppy Drive

The value of the floppy drive is best appreciated by those of us who spent hours typing in code only to entrust it to that gambling device which was the cassette tape drive, or to face the reality of having no storage device at all. I remember leaving my trusty Commodore 64 on for a few days straight before I got my tape drive.

Good old times...

Like any geek 30+, I had an AppleII too (in fact, the computer's name was TK2000, a brazilian clone). And I must say that the world of computers were sooo funnier then... Obviously I'm takking from a romantic point of view, where typing 500 lines of BASIC code to save it in a K7 tape (after 3 hours debugging your mistypings) is real fun! I remember a book called "the black book of TK2000" that contained several hard-to-find informations that allowed me to really explore my machine, and the assembly programs that made it read even bugged tapes without errors. :-) And, last but not least, Karateka! :-)))

After that, I had a MSX (I don't know if this japanese computer was famous in other countries, but here in brazil it was) with a single-sided drive, and some years later my first 386SX. :-) IRQs, DMAs, conflicts, fun, fun, fun! :-) But since then, everything went downhill (or uphill). From 64Kb to 4Gb of RAM in 10 years...

Today, you buy a computer, connect it to your 8Mb internet connection, download a 2Gb game in half an hour and play games that are almost real... You don't need to worry about tapes, typing, basic, anything. It's obviously better... But it's sad too. There's no fun anymore...

Yes, I know I'm getting old... But I really think that I was happy and I didn't knew...

And in production for almost 18 of those 30 years!

Check out this fascinating time line [apple2history.org] for an overview of when each model was being produced, along with some computer industry milestones for context. The site has in depth history on the whole story.

Versions of the Apple II were still going strong when Linux and Windows 3.1 were released.
Retirement finally came shortly before Windows 95, but by that time software emulation had become more convenient.

SLM

INIT HELLO

I first saw the apple //e in high skool. I never really learned anything in class, but got lots of cracked games and stuff. Even so, it's what got me into the IT world. I didnt get my own computer until I bought a highly modified ][+ with no disk drives for $200 in 1987 and I still have it, although it's always been rather unstable, probably due to overheating issues. I still have dozens of NIBBLE magazine programs to type in! I currently have a pretty large collection of 8bit Apple stuff, and I have every model except for the original Apple ][ and the Woz edition GS (if that counts as a seperate model). One day I'll have to set up a SCSI drive and archive all my disks I still have. Love playing castle wolfenstein, loderunner, INFOCOM games, Leisure suit larry, et al.

Again forgetting Commodore

It was Commodore, not Apple, who released the first true home computer.
It was Commodore, not Apple, who "brought computing to homes" by making their machines affordable.
Lastly, it was the success of Commodore, not Apple's, that made computing mainstream.

Re:Again forgetting Commodore

Well, at the trade show where both the PET and the Apple II were anounced, what do you think got the most attention? A dull grey box that showed random data on the screen when turned on and then just a blinking prompt and had no functioning BASIC, or a futuristic nice-looking box with built-in monitor and tape-drive and a working BASIC that you could work with immediatly?

Apple was good at deceptive commercials, like saying that the Apple II was the best-selling computer of all time, when both Commodore and especially Tandberg (with the TRS/80) outsold them plenty. It wasn't until VisiCalc that the Apple II became really popular, and then mainly in business. In the term of number of sold units Commodore beat everyone, first with the VIC-20 and then with the C64.

Revisionist History?

I've read the book "On the Edge", about Commodore. The author (usually via quotes) bashes early Apple.

First, it claims that Apple greatly exaggerated sales figures. Apple was a distant 3rd in sales behind Commodore PET and TRS-80's until VisiCalc (first spreadsheet) arrived, which was written for Apple because the PET and TRS's were booked in the development shop. It was not chosen for technical reasons, but because it wasn't being used at the time.

Altough Apple beat PET on floppies, the floppy was so expensive that it didn't help Apple's sales volume much. Plus, PET had more stuff in ROM such that one didn't need external programs as much. Commodore was able to produce ROM much cheaper than Apple could get because they owned a major ROM company. (PET sold better in Europe than the US, so US'ers don't remember PETs as much. Still, it sold more than Apple until 1980 or 81.)

And, the Commodore-64 eventually beat the daylights out of Apple II as far as sales volume. It probably had far more impact on consumers than Apple. Apple exaggerates the power, influence, and abilities of the Apple II. The only thing that saved Apple as a company from the PC clones was they lucked into desktop publishing with the Mac. Had the Commodore Amiga captured that niche, Apple would perhaps be dead instead of Commodore now.

The book did give praise for Apple's clever marketers, but not its machines.
     

Re:Revisionist History?

I don't think anyone would argue that the Apple II was technically inferior to the machines that came later from other companies. The Commodore 64 was released five years after the Apple II, that's ages in computer years and features several custom chips for its special features. Apple stuck to the same off-the shelf mentality for a long time, because that's what their customers wanted. The Apple /// was a complete flop, so was the Lisa. People liked their Apple IIs. The Apple IIGS was late to the party, if they had moved in that direction sooner, maybe it would have made a difference, but technical superiority isn't everything in mass marketing. Ask Sony.

While the Mac was buoyed by the desktop publishing revolution, the Amiga did manage to capture a niche: video and graphics. Amiga computers are still used today by many video professionals. There is a Video Toaster sitting eight feet from me (and its PC successor, the VT[4], in the box I'm using right now). Unfortunately for Commodore, the potent Amiga / Toaster combo were way too far ahead of their time; home video was nowhere near reaching the mass market revolution that is going on right now. In those days, printing out really, really nice documents was something people could get their heads around, especially in the ugly reality of dot matrix printers and fanfold paper. These days, thanks mostly to good timing and savvy purchases, Apple all but owns the video and graphics niche as well.

Commodore failed simply because of horrible management, just like Atari. Hell, the Amiga never even should have been a Commodore product, it was designed by Jay Miner, the Atari engineer behind the Atari VCS and the Atari 400/800. Atari was offered the Amiga and payed for some of its development, and for some reason decided not to see it to completion. No doubt the same kind of idiocy that lead Atari to pass on the rights to the Nintendo Entertainment System. When Commodore slipped in and sneakily purchased the Amiga out from under them, a livid Jack Tramiel, president of Atari, (who founded Commodore and introduced the PET/VIC/C64 series and eventually got all pissy and left Commodore to purchase a money hemorrhaging Atari) sued Commodore and scrambled to slap together the Atari ST as a competitor, practically out of spite. Engineered in something like 6 months, while the Amiga languished in legal limbo, the Atari ST (dubbed by some, "the Jackinstosh") actually wasn't too bad (if quirky) and featured a single-tasking OS from Digital Research, the guys who passed on the IBM PC operating system allowing Microsoft to step in to save the day. While slightly faster than, and sharing the same CPU as the Amiga and the Mac, the Atari ST was nothing compared to the much more complex and amazing multi-tasking Amiga. The ST would eventually sport an inexpensive laser printer (two years after Apple) and the ability to run Mac and PC software better than the real thing. Atari tried to compete in desktop publishing, and some big name publishing software got their start on Atari, but Atari couldn't shed its gaming stigma and refused to spend the marketing dollars to correct that. Commodore didn't fare much better in the image department and didn't even bother to make a laser printer or try to compete with Mac at all it seems, although the Amiga outsold the Atari by a substantial margin. Maybe that's all they cared about. They later tried to get into the game console business with a dumbed down Amiga with a CD-ROM, but it was too late for Commodore and the faded away in all but the video realm. Atari eventually did find their niche in music thanks to built in MIDI and sequencer software like Cubase, and it is still used by a few musicians, although nothing like it was in its heyday.

Apple made it out almost by default because Atari and Commodore were so inept ... and because they developed an affordable laser printer before anyone else. Not unlike how Apple were the first to develop a fast and affordable floppy system -- engineered by who? W

Who would we be without Apple?

I had the opportunity a couple months ago to attend a speech by the Woz. I'm sure the creation of Apple Computers is not a foreign story to many of us here but it's a really neat experience to hear it direct from the man himself. He just has such an overwhelming passion for technology and the way it affects our lives. Quite aside from the normal mac vs pc wars here on Slashdot I think it is important to remember the history involved. I am sure many of you are like me. We define ourselves by our relationships, our hobbies, and our passions. Who would we be without the invention of the personal computer? What would we be doing with out lives absent the idea of bringing computers out of the corporation and in to every last home? I learned basic at 4 years old. I don't remember a time in my life when computers weren't a huge part of it. I salute Jobs and Wozniak both for having the vision (and the luck!) to spawn a revolution.

I always thought the Apple lovers were wankers

I brought my C-64 to school in 1988 and made all the Apple Machines look stupid. Now when I went to College I fell in love with the Mac but always though the Apple II line got too much attention.

Apple //c for me and I had an awesome teacher!

My parents got me an Apple //c with a green monochrome monitor (not that tiny one -- the box one used for IIe] after TI-99/4A [wikipedia.org] (didn't die). I played a lot of games on it, but I also learned BASIC and LOGO. At school, I had an awesome sixth grade teacher (Mr. Mangel? I wonder if he reads /.]) who was a geek and perfect mentor for me since I was into computers. I remember I got introduced to LOGO and he had one of those Apple robot turtle like a plotter on the floor/ground. It was neat!

Apple II, TRS-80, and Commodore Pet

Happy 30th Birthday to all of them, because all of them were introduced the same year. I think the only reason to single out the Apple II is that Apple is still around, since the TRS-80 and Commodore Pet were technically at least as good as the Apple II.

Re-release it!

Seriously. Re-release it as a kit for kids to learn computers on. I remember getting a 'computer kit' from Radio shack as a kid that was basically a bunch of resistors and transistors and wires. (the 150 in 1 from here - http://musepat.club.fr/sfair.htm [musepat.club.fr] ) An Apple II would be a nice modern equivalent....

Was it true that..

I never had an Apple II or access to one but was told that the manual had a bit about the tapes and noted that if you could understand the noises they held when played on a normal HiFi deck 'you were a mutant and would go far in life'. True?

What really amazes me

Is that between 1975 and 1979 (just 4 short years) we went from the Altair kit and its switches and LEDs to the Atari 800 with multimode graphics, sprites, extensible OS and 4 channel sound. In the middle was the Apple II, affordable mass storage on floppies etc.
Interesting info here including several machines I'd never heard of:
http://www.blinkenlights.com/pc.shtml [blinkenlights.com]

Nostalgia inducing post

CALL -151

F666G

BRUN

PEEK (-16336)

PEEK (-16384)

CALL 768

PR#3

PDL(0)

POKE -16302,0

CALL 62454

CHR$(13)CHR$(4)

CHUGGA CHUGGA ;)

Good memories

I learned BASIC on a TRS-80 model IV at school and a Timex Sinclair 1000 at home. I remember drooling over my uncle's VIC-20 and playing moon lander. Luckily, my piano teacher's boyfriend kept his Apple ][+ at her house, and I got to use while my sister practiced. Later, we had a //c at home. The ][ series were great _learning_ machines--taught me the fundamentals of the DOS and disk storage, 6502 assembly, and more. Didn't see too many people doing that with the 64's or early macs. Still, _any_ computer was cool back then... Amiga, TI-94/A, old PETs at school, Tandy's PC Jr clone... I wasn't particular in those days. I recall the //c with 12" monochrome monitor and Epson fx-80 printer came to about $1600, which is probably around $3500 in 2007 dollars. Personal computing power has gotten CHEAP. I swore off Apple products after the ]['s were abandoned. I returned when the OS went 'nix.

Apple II at 30?

I hate to sound like a troll here, but isnt that like saying The Model T at 90.
It was an innovative computer but do we need to constantly go back these Apple II's and Tandy's and Commodore 64 references all the time to feel the nastalgia?

The Apple II is 30?

Wow. My high school was really behind the times. I remember starting a BASIC programming language class on an Apple II when it was a young whipper snapper of 17 back in 1994. I say starting a class, because in actuality, all we ever did was play Oregon Trail. I still haven't made it to Oregon. :(

They still have legs...

I just picked up an old Apple //c and started going thru our library of old programs. It still does some amazing things. I have two students who are enthralled with this thing. They know more about how memory and disk basics after two weeks of this thing than they ever knew. Synapses 10 years dormant are snapping back into action... PEEKing POKEing. Where's my hole puncher - I need to make double sided disks!

Apple/Commie Wars.. revisited

Apple might be 30 years old, so in 6 more years we can revisit the C=64 / ][e wars .. I'm still betting on C=64.. the SID chip was the pwn.

I'll give my props to the Apple duece because it was a pioneer.. /me pines for the days when not everything supported ANSI..

I have one thing to say to all of you ][ users...

pr#6

Memories...

Haha. The Apple ][ always brings back such fond memories.... I always had so much fun (in 3rd/4th) grade when I would copy the BASIC programs out of the 3-2-1 contact magazines at the school library. And those late nights up with my egomaniacal friend who would force me to write horrible text based games, "Less than Mortal Kombat" being our crowing achievement (years later)! It got 200 downloads on AOL! (lol)

I owned serial number 71 (Apple II)

I loved my Apple II. My previous home cmputer was an Intercept Junior one board PDP-8 emulator (had to key in programs I wrote in Octal - yuck!)

I did 3 fun things with my Apple II:

1. wrote a very simple Basic Chess program that Apple gave away on the early demo program cassette tape
2. played with Bill Budge's 3D graphics library with the Lisa assembly language IDE
3. later, using UCSD Pascal, I wrote the world's first commercial Go playing program (Honninbo Warrior)

For me, my Apple II opened the door to what owning your own computer is all about: freedom to do what you want. This might be difficult to understand for some people, now that almost everyone has the freedom of owning their own computer.

Relative speed

I had a IIgs back in the day, and one of the things that had always impressed me about it was how it held up to much "faster" computers running Win3.1.

The Finder was faster and more responsive. The applications more polished and less buggy. The whole thing was both more reliable and more configurable. The only downside was the lack of true multi-tasking and the need to reboot when you changed from GS/OS to ProDOS or DOS 3.3. There were, however, some great DeskAccessories that pretty much filled the gap considering what 3.1 was able to do.

This was, of course, before Windows 95. I would contend there wasn't any serious usability comparison to be made between Windows and anything else until then, and Windows didn't seriously multi-task until then either.

Afterward is a whole other ball of wax, and one I don't feel like arguing.

But I would still rather fire up AppleWorksGS or BeagleWrite then try to do any work on a Windows 3.1 machine. There's just light-years of difference.

I still have an Apple II+ in the garage

with dual floppy drives, a copy of AppleWriter II, and a 172k RAM board I used to load programs from the first floppy into memory in, letting them execute at about 1000 times faster speeds than if I read them from floppy.

Good times ...

I think the floppies are all goo by now, mind you.

Re:Still works since 82..

Some Apple II Crack Screens from days gone by:

http://artscene.textfiles.com/intros/APPLEII/ [textfiles.com]

Re:Zonk 1, 2, and 3

I still remember playing Odyssey CRPG on the Apple ][ and where in the world is Carmen Sandiego, good times, good times.

Re:Updated version.

As a freethinking Atheist I feel all religions should be banned globally. The quicker religions are banned, the quicker we will achieve peace globally.

As an atheist, I must ask by what means do you hope to achieve such a ban, let alone enforce it? Are you willing to be more tyrannical than Stalin?

Re:Zonk 1, 2, and 3

Zork [wikipedia.org], not Zonk. I'm assuming that's a braino, since the 'N' key is nowhere near the 'R' key.

All those text-only Infocom games had the best graphics ... the graphics in your head.

SLM

Re:Zonk 1, 2, and 3

The good old days of really simple games, where game played mattered the most and the GFX and sound were a last thing on the devs minds.

It was the last thing on Infocom's mind, certainly.

But the truth is that gamers jumped ship as soon as PC graphics and sound began to deliver the goods. Perhaps you began with the Atari, the Commodore VIC or C-64. Maniac Mansion. Monkey Island. Commander Keen. Wolfenstein 3-D...

Re:Updated version.

As a freethinking Atheist I feel all religions should be banned globally. The quicker religions are banned, the quicker we will achieve peace globally.

I don't know what definition of "free" you use, but that's not very "free" thinking in my book (or most people's books, for that matter). A truly enlightened man would wish to educate those he feels need it, not try to snuff out their way of thinking with force.

Re:Updated version.

Windows = Christian (Large userbase, heirarchical)
Linux = Buddhism (Smaller userbase, approaching state of Nirvana)
Mac = Islam

Looks like it's time again for:

Traeger's Law on Advocacy:
"1. Any form of advocacy will lead to an analogy (e.g. computer advocacy and car analogies). These analogies will usually suck.
2. There will be at least one reply a) claiming the opposite, b) offering a 'better' analogy, c) trying to further the analogy to all elements in the field, or d) taking the analogy into minute details. The resulting analogy will usually suck even more."

Examples:
1.
- Macs are like Mercedes, PCs like Fords.
- RISC is like a manual transmission...

2.
a) No, MACS are like Yugos... (note: not an exact opposite)
b) Actually, RISC is like a two-stroke...
- No, a Mac is like a lion, PCs are like fish, because...
c) SUNs... Compaqs... toaster-ovens...
d) The Mac's multitasking is like the Porsches brake-system...

Godwin's Law can be seen as a special case.

Re:Updated version.

As a freethinking Atheist I feel all religions should be banned globally. The quicker religions are banned, the quicker we will achieve peace globally.

Like the systems set up in USSR and China, those bastions of free thinking peacefullness.

Re:Updated version.

Bullshit; linux ain't *shit*. (..And you know it..)

Re:Updated version.

It takes guts to publicly admit that you neither have a clue about Mac users, nor about Islam.

Re:Updated version.

"Windows = Christian", "Linux = Buddhism" & "Mac = Islam" etc...

So working by this theory, I guess it makes the "ZX Spectrum = Scientology" (Very smaller userbase, unwilling to consider its an out dated, cult like way of thinking).

Maybe there's something to this theory, especially when you compare a photo of Clive Sinclair with one of Xenu.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sinclair.600pix .jpg [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Xenu_BBC_Panora ma.jpg [wikipedia.org]

Re:IIc vs IIe

Easy to answer: The IIe wins over the IIc because Karateka wouldn't run on the IIc.

Re:6502 dissembler

] CALL -151

That puts you in the 'monitor'. From there you could modify or inspect memory. You could also list chunks of memory, which would be disassembled into 6502 assembly, which is easier to read than a stream of hex numbers. For example, typing:

FDEDL

would list out the part of the ROM responsible for printing a character to the screen (a routine located at memory address $FDED).

Typing:

300: 01 02 03 04

would insert the values 1, 2, 3 and 4 int memory locations $0300 through $0303.

As far as I know, all Apples had this at least through the //e. I assume some of the later models had it, but I never used any of those.

Re:Updated version.

Windows=Scientology.