Apple IIe Platinum

Posted by musovern on Mar 8th, 2018 in Apple, Vintage Computers | 0 comments

This was the last version of the Apple II series that was first released in April 1977 and finally discontinued in mid 1993, making it the only home computer in production for more than 15 years.

The major difference from the previous Apple IIe version is that the keyboard had been redesigned to be functionally equivalent to the keyboard of the Apple IIGS. The new keyboard incorporated an 18-key numeric keypad including two programmable function keys and cursor control keys.

The Platinum also had a new light grey-coloured case, a new motherboard design with a reduced chip count, and included a revised owner’s manual, a guide to AppleSoft BASIC and two double-sided training disks.

Finally, the IIe was shipped with the Apple 64 KB / 80-column upgrade card already installed.

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Apple IIGS

Posted by musovern on Mar 7th, 2018 in Apple, Vintage Computers | 0 comments

The IIGS was the first Apple computer system to utilise the Apple Desktop Bus (ADB). The ABD is a low-speed bi-directional serial bus that connects input devices, such as keyboards, mouse devices, and graphics tablets to the IIGS. It was later incorporated into the Macintosh line of computers, from the Macintosh II and up. ADB was eventually phased-out in favor of the more standardised USB (Universal Serial Bus) in the late 90’s.

As the Apple with the best color graphics, the IIGS also has the best sound. It utilises an Ensoniq sound chip, which has an entire 64K of RAM dedicated to it and is capable of playing 15 simultaneous sounds.

The IIGS has a GUI (Graphic User Interface) in 16 colors (up to 4096 colors in special graphics modes), a slow but powerful 16 bit CPU, great sound, and was loved by Apple fans everywhere. Sounds like a success – but by this time Apple was spending all its time and effort marketing the Macintosh line of computers, and the IIGS died a slow and uneventful death.

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