|
NAME |
APPLE III |
|
MANUFACTURER |
Apple |
|
TYPE |
Professional Computer |
|
ORIGIN |
U.S.A. |
|
YEAR |
May 1980 |
|
BUILT IN LANGUAGE |
Business BASIC |
|
KEYBOARD |
Full stroke 74-key with numeric keypad |
|
CPU |
MOS 6502A |
|
SPEED |
2 MHz |
|
RAM |
128 KB (up to 512 KB) |
|
ROM |
16 KB |
|
TEXT MODES |
40 or 80 chars x 24 lines |
|
GRAPHIC MODES |
40 x 40-48 (16 colors), 280 x 160-192 (6 colors), 560 x 160-192 (2 colors) |
|
COLORS |
16 maximum |
|
SOUND |
One channel 7 octaves |
|
SIZE / WEIGHT |
44.4 (W) x 46.2 (D) x 12.2 (H) cm |
|
I/O PORTS |
Monitor, Internal Slots (4), RS-232, Floppy disk port |
|
BUILT IN MEDIA |
One built in 140 KB 5.25'' disk-drive |
|
OS |
SOS |
|
POWER SUPPLY |
Built-in power supply unit |
|
PERIPHERALS |
4 expansion slots, 5 MB Profile hard disk unit, dual floppy disc unit, color video card, provision for extra memory |
|
PRICE |
$1995 |
|
Apple III
|
|
Apple III
The Apple III was designed to be a business machine. It was partly compatible with the Apple II (thanks to a few options in the operating system). It used a powerful memory management system and worked under SOS (Sophisticated Operating System), which was a great, device -independent, operating system. This OS was the "ancestor" of ProDOS (the "professional" Apple operating system) and some parts of this system were used later in the Lisa and Macintosh OSs. Despite its unique features, the Apple III had a lot of technical |
|
problems, namely, the horrible case
design. It caused the internal temperature to get
so hot that the motherboard would warp and some of the socketed chips would become unseated. To remedy this, Apple told people to literally pick up the computer several centimeters off the desk and drop it! It was a miserable flop in the marketplace. The Apple III was followed in December 1983 by the Apple III Plus, which had an Apple IIe style keyboard and a new video interface. Four months later, it was discontinued. |