Design
The Apple II was designed to look more like a home appliance than a piece of electronic equipment. The lid popped off the beige plastic case without the use of tools, allowing access to the computer's internals, including the motherboard with eight expansion slots, and an array of random access memory (RAM) sockets that could hold up to 48 kilobytes worth of memory chips.
The Apple II had color and high-resolution graphics modes, sound capabilities and one of two built-in BASIC programming languages (initially Integer BASIC, later Applesoft BASIC). The Apple II was targeted for the masses rather than just hobbyists and engineers; it also influenced most of the microcomputers that followed it. Unlike preceding home microcomputers, it was sold as a finished consumer appliance rather than as a kit (unassembled or preassembled). VanLOVEs Apple Handbook and The Apple Educators Guide by Gerald VanDiver and Rolland Love reviewed more than 1,500 software programs that the Apple II series could use. The Apple dealer network used this book to emphasize the growing software developer base in education and personal use.
The Apple II series had a keyboard built into the motherboard shell, with the exception of the Apple II which featured an external keyboard. An upgrade kit was sold later to house the motherboard of an Apple II in an Apple IIe case.
Read more about this topic: Apple II Series
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“To nourish children and raise them against odds is in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons.”
—Marilyn French (20th century)
“You can make as good a design out of an American turkey as a Japanese out of his native stork.”
—For the State of Illinois, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“If I commit suicide, it will not be to destroy myself but to put myself back together again. Suicide will be for me only one means of violently reconquering myself, of brutally invading my being, of anticipating the unpredictable approaches of God. By suicide, I reintroduce my design in nature, I shall for the first time give things the shape of my will.”
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)