Apple IIe (1983) Trash to Treasure | 'The Most Personal Computer' | Part 1

[@RMCRetro]

Thanks for watching! If you'd like to support the channel and watch each video 1 week early head over to patreon.com/rmcretro Neil - RMC

[@ynotwalk7391]

be sure to wash your fruit before you use it, neil!

[@MD4564]

Can't wait for the next episode :)

[@berglandvideo]

I believe the sticker on top is for the Star Trek-style game "Apple Trek". To move the USS Enterprise between locations, you had to enter a distance and a compass heading (apparently, the universe was flat in the 1980s LOL). One of my favorite games on my favorite computer when I was a teenage nerd. Thanks for bringing back fond memories!

[@icerunner]

Yes! Thank you, that was the exact game!

[@georgemaragos2378]

HI - i had the same on a post it note, plus a dos variation of the original program written by Mike Mayfield in 1971 They are degrees of a compass the which way the ship will move, it is easy to get it wrong and go the wrong way Note in the IBM version you also had to direct your torpedoes in degrees

[@CantankerousDave]

Space is still flat in Star Wars and Star Trek in the 2020s.

[@berglandvideo]

@@CantankerousDave 😂 👍🏻

[@snowman5020]

Save the sticker! It's a great part of this machines history!

[@Ojref1]

Practically every kid in the US that went to public school in the 1980's used or interacted with an Apple II. Thank you very much for presenting (and restoring) this for us to enjoy.

[@countzer0408]

Not just the US, here in New Zealand as well. We used them at High School. Many great memories of playing Ultima III and IV, Taipan, Loderunner, etc…

[@BubblegumCrash332]

I was the only kid in the US using a Vic-20 at my school I guess lol

[@CommodoreFan64]

@@BubblegumCrash332 No because before Apple took over most of the US educational market by 83 - 85 into the very early 90's, Commodore with the PET series, and Vic-20 along with Radio Shack Tandy TRS-80 line were the dominant K-12 educational sector computers because they ran BASIC which was seen as the standard, and the future of computer OS's in the late 70's, and early 80's, they were robust machines they could be had at then reasonable prices with Commodore(you only needed a single 8in floppy disk drive for a lab full of computers with the PET series which saved money) , and Tandy offering educational discounts.

[@CantankerousDave]

I grew up in a college town - we grew up with networked PLATO machines the late 70s/early 80s.

[@CDRiley]

Not just the US here in Antarctica as well.

[@Dinnye01]

It's LOVELY to see Mark working. He is a role model to us all.

[@marccaselle8108]

When I was in elementary school in the mid to late 80s, the computer lab was full of apple 2e computers and it was amazing. I got to play the Oregon trail and number munchers and multiplication puzzles too.

[@rbrtck]

Same here, albeit in junior high/middle school for me. My whole family had dysentery. I mean on the _Oregon Trail_ .

[@josephrowe2202]

This guy has the most soothing voice ever.

[@metalmusic1401]

I remember having these in our Australian primary schools back in 1996 such magnificent memories

[@bryndal36]

We had them in year 9 in 1983.

[@io4439]

1983 year 11, my Aus high school had BBC Model B's installed and the Econet thingy which was situated in a back room.

[@Dorelaxen]

This is what we had in school, back when it was called "computer lab" (is it still called that? I dunno.). Keeping our disks labeled with our names, getting to use the teacher's gen 1 Mac on Fridays. Good times.

[@tetsujin_144]

Our computer lab in middle school was chock full of Apple IIe's. Even our computer lab teacher was (fittingly enough) named Mr. Tewey.

[@kofeyh]

Yep, had these Apple //e as lab computers for a couple years at college. Uff da, feeling old now.

[@Megatomic]

1986 basic programming I and II on an Apple IIe. Once we were done programming for the day our teacher would let us play games, my friends and I all loved Telengard. Man I have such good memories of those days.

[@TheSudsy]

I always relate the Apple II series to the BBC micro series. Sturdy, expandable, Top Tier BASIC, reasonable graphics, flexible. Might be a best seller "over the pond" but most UK users "know about it" but haven't seen or used one.

[@TheSulross]

Apple II and BBC Micro is an apt comparison - each had a build quality like a Chieftan battle tank and each served well in the duty of THE computer for respective education market

[@LonSeidman]

This must be one of the original //e's - mine will boot with "Apple //e" at the top of the screen vs. Apple ][. We got ours in late '83 or early '84 so I think I might have the 'enhanced' version that came with the 65c02 processor. Also interesting that your 80 column card blocks the slot above it - mine is smaller.

[@matthewmartin4602]

Love seeing Mark on your channel for these trash-to-treasure videos!

[@mattsword41]

Great to see UK perspective on this. Like you, being in the UK never seen one of these let alone used but obviously seen lots of videos from US based channels like Adrian's Digital Basement. As US users as so familiar with it, there's quite a bit of assumed knowledge that we brits just dont have :)

[@skynetd-termination98]

I was 9 years old when I was introduced to the IIe when a forward-looking teacher started an afterschool programming class. Wrote my first "Hello World!" in BASIC on that IIe and never looked back...thanks for the nostalgia guys!!

[@Hwi1son]

I spent hours on my Apple IIe that my teacher gave me when the school was gonna toss it. I loved it, I didnt have much but that PC was mine and it meant more than I can say. I've built many PC's since those days and I love hardware and the Apple IIe was the start to that. I was very young then and I only cared about the games at the time. But... it was a start. Thank you Mr. Webster for the Apple IIe you gave me! 30 years later and I'm still grateful

[@bhhenry]

Such memories -- so happy to see you doing this series. I would put the two disk drives to the right and the monitor on top. Start up Snakebyte as a warm up and then Robot Odyssey for some serious gaming. I think a big part of the market of these in the US was Education. My school was full of these. And I think that's what kept the sales going into the 90s.

[@sergeleon1163]

Always nice to see such differences around the globe. In mainland Europe, the Netherlands where I'm located an early Apple computer was a rare sight. At schools we started with Commodore C64 and had many Compudata PC's under the Tulip label. Tulip later bought up rights to commodore even.

[@AaronOfMpls]

The disk drives stacked to the right was what my school did if there was room, e.g. in a classroom with only 1 or 2 computers. We had large enough monitors that they didn't necessarily need more than the computer itself as a riser.

[@rbrtck]

That was how the Apple IIes at my school were configured, and how I configure mine at home now, too. My Commodores all have their drives on the left, however, because their right sides (from my perspective) have cables coming out of them. That's what I was used to back in the day, and that's how I configure them now, too.

[@ellindsey000]

I found an Apple IIe in a pile of trash on the curb last summer, and of course immediately brought it home to clean and repair. Fortunately the only things wrong with it was an old, cracked RIFA filter cap in the power supply, and intermittent failure of the video ROM. Both were easy fixes. I haven't been able to fully test the floppy drive as I haven't been able to find any known good 5 inch floppy disks to test with. I also found a printer that goes with it, which I haven't repaired yet. It's going to need complete disassembly and cleaning, there appears to have been a family of mice living in it.

[@danyoutube7491]

Are you sure? I didn't think the Apple IIe came with a mouse!

[@AaronOfMpls]

@@danyoutube7491 It was an unwanted aftermarket addition

[@alisondenu5317]

@@danyoutube7491 It had optional paddles, which ought to be used on you for that comment. :p

[@danyoutube7491]

@@alisondenu5317 Noooo, forgive me! :)

[@danyoutube7491]

@@AaronOfMpls Lol

[@bobbus_74]

Great to see this. The Apple IIe was one of those computers that felt pretty unattainable for me as kid in the early eighties. Although I read a lot about them in magazines like C&VG at the time, I never met anyone who had one. I guess we were in the poor neighbourhood 😬.

[@rbrtck]

I only knew one guy in high school who had an Apple II, and yeah, his family had a lot more money than everyone else's. The rest of us were lucky to own a Commodore 64 or Atari 8-bit, although truth be told, these computers for the masses were easily more technologically advanced than the Apple II in most respects. I still wanted an Apple II because of all the software support it had, as well as an 80-column mode that was actually supported (you could add 80-column capability to the C64 and Atari easily enough, but there was no support for it from the software industry). Now I own at least one example of every computer I had ever wanted, including an Apple IIe to match what I had often used in school, and using it just brings me right back to that time (only the best aspects of it, too).

[@jbmaru]

I got an Apple //c secondhand from my cousin in 1988, that was my first computer. I spent hours playing the games, building pinballs and drawing in mighty 16 colours. Another cousin had a couple 030 Mac II's at his home (his dad was a developer) and I was gobsmacked by those machines from the future.

[@lawrencehubbard2985]

One of many things of your channel that I enjoy is the repair of the component boards. Why they failed and the difference between the old and new parts. I went though my electronics trade school in 1984 and it great seeing these old machines brought back to life.

[@andrethib]

can we just take a moment to appreciate the woodgrain dymo labels on the floppy drives?

[@fnjesusfreak]

For what it's worth, the "Apple Presents the Apple" disk you tested the machine with actually runs Pascal. I cut my teeth on the Apple //c which is actually a more compact version of the //e. There was actually an upgraded version of the //e which had a modified character ROM with 32 semigraphics characters, a slightly improved and bugfixed firmware and BASIC, and a 65C02 processor, which is the version I used to have.

[@rbrtck]

Additionally, the early Apple IIes had a keyboard with larger white lettering, while later ones had smaller, slanted black lettering. This change happened before the internal enhancements you described. Apple sold an Enhancement Kit that came with three ROMs and a 65C02 CPU to upgrade older IIes fully to the IIc-like newer IIes. Modern versions of this kit are still being sold today by other companies. By the way, there are more physical differences than just the color and font of the key lettering. The older, original IIe design is impervious to yellowing, as far as I can tell--this includes both the case and the keys. The later design has a case that is subject to yellowing, and while the keys generally do not yellow, the spacebar is an exception to the rule, and it almost always yellows pretty badly.

[@MrSketchydave69]

I first saw an Apple 2 in 1981 on a music course at John Dankworth & Cleo Lane's house. The Alpha Syntauri music synthesizer was being demonstrated by some guy from the BBC. It used a lightpen to draw waveforms and write music. It also feaatured a beige oblong box with a touch sensor and tremelo arm and played electic guitar sounds.....was amazing at the time!

[@icerunner]

3 stone cold classics in one comment: Cleo, Johnny and an Apple II!

[@jimcook1161]

The Mountain Music sound card featured here was at the heart of The Alpha Syntauri system.

[@mikerichards6065]

I didn’t see an Apple 2 until I moved to the States in 1986, by which time it had become the cute 2c with built-in floppy drive. Their rareity over here must have been the price - I recall adverts in the early 1980s for Apple 2, disk drive and monochrome monitor for round about £2000 - a time when a £1 would get you more than $2. But these machines were in a league of their own in terms of engineering, expandability and build quality - there weren’t many machines that could take the weight of drives and a monitor and survive a classroom environment. The closest has to be the BBC B - another very expensive machine at the time which was engineered as well as the Apples.

[@mojoblues66]

Very well said! I wonder if you own a Mac.

[@mikerichards6065]

@@mojoblues66 well now you mention it :) Though an Apple with an expansion port is something of a novelty these days!

[@rbrtck]

@@mikerichards6065 Apple was once the definitive hobbyist computer brand, but that was all the vision of the primary inventor, Steve Wozniak. The other Steve, Jobs of course, who helped "package" this hobbyist computer for mass consumption always had the opposite vision of computers as "turn-key" commodities that were complete right out of the box and "just worked" with little or no setup or tinkering required. Had the Apple IIc sold better, the expandable Apple IIe wouldn't have lasted for as long as it did, but the computer world wasn't quite ready to accept no expandability. Even the Commodore 64, which came with all of the necessary ports, has an expansion slot in the back (which doubles as the cartridge port). The Mac, which was originally non-expandable, even gained expandability because the market demanded it, but eventually Jobs' vision won out. In short, Apple has indeed done a complete 180-degree turn in terms of vision, but my point is that both visions were present in extreme forms from the start. Woz initially prevailed because he invented the first Apple computers, but Jobs dominated more as time went on, especially after Woz had departed from Apple. For all I know, you might well know everything I think I know about this and much more, but this is for anyone who might be reading it. Apple is the complete opposite of what they started out as.

[@Hiphopasaurus]

Do you know for sure that the tolerance on those caps are +/- 10%? Many old electrolytics back in the day had massive tolerances of -50% to +80 (or even 100%) meaning 1600uf on a 1000uf cap is actually fine. 10% electrolytics might not have been necessary and would have probably been fairly expensive... perhaps not following with the "manufactured to a price point". What was the issue with the PSU that prevented it from starting? You re-capped it but said all of the caps were basically okay. Was there another fault or did it just start working?

[@davefiddes]

Agreed. There was one dead/dying cap. Cargo-cult capacitor replacement is mildly irritating. Much prefer Adrian Black' or CuriousMarc's approach to understanding and fixing problems. Everyone learns more from that.

[@guillaumegaudin694]

Yeah, plus higher capacity than expected makes no sense for used caps.

[@Breakfast_of_Champions]

Those caps were the long high quality versions, no reason to suspect budget parts there.

[@JamesPotts]

@@davefiddes agree with your agreement. Recapping for the sake of recapping is extremely annoying.

[@Spritetm]

@@guillaumegaudin694 Actually, it's somewhat of a quirk that happens when capacitors become electrically leaky (as in: they get the equivalent of a resistor in parallel with the capacitance) and you measure them. Most measurement devices do their measurement by charging the cap with a known current and then measuring the voltage: the lower the voltage, the larger the cap. Because current 'leaks away' by the parasitic series cap, however, the current going into the cap is lower, it will charge to a lower value, and the measuring device thinks it's higher capacitance. What I don't get, by the way, is how changing the caps fixed the dead PSUs... with caps in this state, I'd expect all sorts of noise and malfunctions, but not a PSU that outright won't start. Perhaps the resoldering fixed something else.

[@Hiphopasaurus]

In the U.S. in the 80's for sure, virtually every school was loaded with Apple IIe's. I believe Apple had worked out some kind of deal with education to get them in as many classrooms as possible. Apple made the IIe series up through into the 90's - which seems crazy for something purely from the 8-bit-micro era. I can so clearly hear the startup beep and disk drive click when turning them on. Nearly every paper I wrote in 6th, 7th and 8th grade was written using AppleWorks and turned in printed from an ImageWriter printer!

[@rztrzt]

In South Africa it was a similar story, We had IIe & IIe machines. It became problematic when sanctions were introduced and apple pulled out of the country.

[@delusionnnnn]

Apple had aggressive marketing and pricing for the educational marketing. They weren't cheaper than what they replaced, but they were cheaper than what you could get them for in the general retail market, and the educational software market was massive compared to the other platforms. What they replaces were, in large part, Commodore PET computers, which was a large part of the educational market before Apple IIs took over the market. I remember seeing both, with the PETs and VIC-20s being much fewer in number.

[@AaronOfMpls]

Yup, my elementary school was full of Apple IIe's in the late 80s-early 90s, and every teacher used a Mac to keep track of grades and create worksheets and such. And my home state is a big reason why the Apple II line was practically the ANSI standard school computer. In the '70s, Minnesota was a tech hub; Control Data Corp and Honeywell were both home-grown, and IBM had a major facility here too. As such, the state had established the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC) to get computers and computing into schools. At first, this meant terminals connecting to shared mainframes. But by the late '70s, microcomputers had become a thing, and MECC looked at which of them would be most useful in the classroom. They chose the Apple II as the best option, and started porting the existing MECC educational software to it -- as well as writing more of it. As a state-owned organization, MECC provided its software -- mainly edutainment games like "The Oregon Trail_ and _Number Munchers,_ though they had some utilities too -- for free to the state's schools. It also sold site licenses to schools elsewhere (starting with neighboring Iowa), and individual copies to home users. The large software library really helped sell North American schools in general on the Apple II range, and I wouldn't be surprised if Apple worked out deals with school districts as well to encourage it further. As for MECC itself, by 1983 it was making enough of a profit from software sales that the state of Minnesota stopped subsidizing it, and converted it to a for-profit company. But as technology moved away from the Apple II, MECC wanted more capital to develop for other platforms and sell more to home users. So the state sold it off to venture capitalists in 1991. MECC had an IPO in 1994, got acquired by another company in 1995, then kinda fizzled out and disappeared by 2000 in a series of mergers between edutainment companies.

[@CommodoreFan64]

@@delusionnnnn A lot of Radio Shack Tandy TRS-80 model III units were in the educational sector before Apple became the main player as well, but by the DOS/WIn 3.1 386, - early Win95 era many schools stated to realized Apple's actual market share outside of the educational sector was actually not that huge compared to IBM PC, and Clones so many started to shift fully to PC so kids would not be left behind as mine did which hurt Apple's bottom line as at one point after Jobs was kicked out of the company they were being kept afloat from those Apple II series educational sector sales, and it nearly caused them to go bankrupt from those losses in sales, as the Apple Mac line just could not sale the same numbers as the Apple II series.

[@AaronOfMpls]

@@CommodoreFan64 Yup, my my high school had gone mostly to Windows 95 PCs by the time I entered it in '97, and in '98 they went all-in on networked Windows NT PCs. Though plenty of the teachers kept their old Macs for grades and such until after I graduated in 2001. And I do remember how Apple was pretty much circling the drain around '97, until a.) the NeXT merger brought Steve Jobs back as as a leader and the NeXTSTEP OS as a modern foundation for new Mac OSes, and b.) the looming Microsoft antitrust suit led MS to bail out Apple so they'd have _some_ competition at least. And after that was the iPod in the early 2000s, and suddenly the Mac's small market share didn't matter so much any more. 🙂

[@paulpeterson7853]

We had the //e's in our high school computer lab in the mid 80s... I have fond memories of learning BASIC, COBOL, and PASCAL on these machines... thanks for the vid!

[@mainah4589]

I feel such an attachment to this amazing system, I was gifted a near mint apple IIe by my bus driver, unfortunately my dad thought it was junk and thew it away when I was a kid...

[@DaveF.]

An Apple product made to be upgraded and/or repaired. Makes you wanna cry.

[@GregoryLindsey1979]

The gaps in the old case were simply to shove a number of ribbon cables through -- they didn't really line up with specific cards. Probably just to save money on case tooling!

[@MSmith-Photography]

Takes me back to elementary school back in the early 80s. Good memories.

[@Colin_Ames]

This is going to be an interesting series of videos, I’m sure. The Italian parent company of my employer in the UK, and then the USA, designed and manufactured electronic measuring systems and machine controls. Their custom PLC programming software was run on Apple IIe, as were various utilities used in the testing of the gauge systems. I used the Apples in my position as a field service tech.

[@savagemadman2054]

When growing up, the schools in Canada (at least on the west coast) were filled with Apple IIGSs. In my elementary school, every classroom had one in the corner and a there was a lab of about 25 of them. The school library and offices were equipped with Macs. By about grade 7, the elderly Apple IIs were all rapidly replaced with shiny new Power Macs. Even though the IIGS was probably technically less powerful that the DOS PC my family had at home, I was envious of how much nicer graphics and sound (especially sound) seemed on them. I recall that in the end they were all just stacked up outside, exposed to the elements, waiting for disposal for some time. Even though it was a publicly accessible area I'm pretty sure none of them vanished.

[@rager1969]

That serial card will be very handy in conjunction with a PC running ADT Pro to make disks on the Apple II

[@TinSandwichUK]

In 1983, as someone that had never even switched on a computer let alone used one, I attended a very intense 6 moth course on microprocessor technology. First job was with a well known high street brand electrical goods retailer that had decided to branch out into the PC business. The first two months was in house component level training on the few different PC's they sold and with a 'scope, the circuit diagrams and a box full of assorted chips, I hit the road as a computer engineer. The Apple IIe was easily my favourite machine to work on as once the lid was popped off, everything was easily got at, especially as the majority of the chips were socketed, which made 'scoping a simple task. However, due to the design of some of the sockets and the co-efficient of linear expansion, chips were prone to becoming a little loose in their sockets especially the memory chips. I quickly learned that as soon as the lid was off and the anti-static wrist strap was on, 9 times out of 10 the fault was sorted by just making sure all the chips were pressed fully home into their sockets. Apart from that, the Apple IIe was a very reliable machine. If there was a P.S.U problem, I carried a spare and the faulty one would be repaired by the bench engineer back at the depot. If my memory serves me well, the monitors that sat nicely on the 2 floppy drives was a Microvitec Cub. Enclosed in metal the same colour as the floppy drive casings and just the same width as the two drives. Happy days for a couple of years until the chips became bigger in function, smaller in size and surface mounted. All that component level training was redundant as any logic fault was fixed by swapping out boards.

[@alancheatley4378]

Imagine having this back in the early 80s! that with the drives would be expensive, plus the software in the UK be very limited. Like Mark, I've never touched an early Apple computer, plenty around today lol I've always been a PC man.... and ...Amiga man.

[@neilworms2]

Btw as an American who was in school in the 1990s, Oregon Trail was a mainstay of people in my age group. Most schools in the US had plenty of Apple IIe computers with Oregon Trail on them, and all of us played it as a children when we had computer time in classes. I'm really happy your dad gave you that, because that was the quintessential experience for tons of American kids around my age (late 30s to early 40s). Its to the point where some news articles refer to older millennials as the "Oregon Trail Generation".

[@davesmith1044]

You let Mark outta the cupboard, Fantastic!

[@DaveVelociraptor]

A brilliant video and a great return to Trash to Treasures for such a vitally important 8 bit machine. Every RPG I can think of has roots in the Apple II.

[@Cherijo78]

PR#6 for life! I thoroughly enjoyed watching you all get to enjoy a machine that was not as common over there. My family was first given an apple two plus by my uncle who worked developing peripherals for them around 1987 when it had become obsolete. We had a ][gs and Mac pluses by that point in my classroom. Our local school system had apple ][e's forever because the software itself was still just fine for kids in lower grades particularly. I will never forget the many late nights I spent sneaking into the computer room to type code from books and play Choplifter and LodeRunner!

[@mymomsaysimcool9650]

My best friend (and neighbor) had an Apple//e and I had the C64. Friday and Saturday late nights were spent at both houses playing pirated games while listening to Headbanger’s Ball on MTV eating Red Barron Pizzas. Miss those times.

[@dennisdoms220]

Greetings from the US. Not sure how much to "kibitz" here but I'll offer a couple of tidbits. )I used to work for a publication that specialized in Apple II support.) The change in the case design (rear access ports) was probably due to FCC interference compliance in the US. The original Apple II case was simpler but over time some attempts at better shielding were added. The 80-column card displayed in the video during the introduction to the Apple II series is actually a specific type for the IIe where the 80-column firmware is integrated into the system ROMs. There were third-party 80-column cards for the Apple II but these required their (slot-mapped) firmware support and some additional circuitry whereas the Apple IIe version was primarily a memory expansion card. The II cards can work in the IIe (usually in Slot 3, usurping the built-in capability and possibly with some compatibility considerations) but not vice-versa. The shift-key mod was primarily a kluge for the original Apple II which did not have lower-case capability built in, unlike the IIe. The Apple II series pricing was not as competitive in many markets outside the US and our experience was that it was primarily seen as a "business" computer rather than a "hobby" computer. The original Apple II could be operated with only a cassette player for storage. (My original system was set up this way until I could afford to purchase the rather pricey Disk II kit.) The original ROM actually started directly into a system monitor. The Autostart ROM was released later and allowed the system to start from a recognized boot peripheral like the DIsk II controller, but the mechanism was simple in the early days and if a potentially bootable disk was not recognized in the drive the system could seek indefinitely trying to read the (unavailable) disk. This was improved in some later models like the IIc where the firmware could detect and warn that no bootable disk was found. If you don't have a disk available in the IIe, Ctrl-Reset should stop the autostart function and start the ROM BASIC interpreter, but no disk operating system will be resident. All comments quick and dirty. If you have questions I may be able to help with, you might be able to dig my e-mail address out of your access, but there are also Apple II user forums in a great many places (including Facebook) that may be able to assist. Have fun and thanks for the project videos. :)

[@conroypaw]

I was introduced to Apple Computers in 1983, in the fifth grade, when my school obtained one, black, Bell & Howell model Apple II Plus. It was the most advanced, sophisticated and easily the coolest looking computer, I had ever seen up to that point. It left all the Texas Instruments TI-99s, Commodore VIC-20s and Radio Shack Color Computers in the dust. The school could only afford one machine, and needless to say, time spent on the computer was a precious rarity. It sat in the corner of school library, where the assigned faculty could keep an eye on it, not that they knew anything about computers. I'm certain that other schools, closer to the city of Chicago, Illinois could afford classrooms, or computer labs with scores of Apple II computers. But out in the distant suburbs, where corn, soybean, and pig farms were still common, this lone computer was a technological marvel. Many of my friends had computers, or home micros as you would say in Great Britain. My close friend at the time had a Timex Sinclair 1000. We had spend countless afternoon hours on that hopeless keyboard entering programs what we found in magazines and were extremely delighted when we actually got them to work, However, British micros never had a huge presence here, at least not in the Midwest. Soon, late in 1983, my parents decided that their children should have a computer and after shopping around at several computer stores, and consulting with an uncle who was the technology expert of the family, we came home one day with an Apple IIe with 13" green screen monitor, duo disk drives, and a Canon dot matrix printer. This setup would last me from sixth grade until my freshman year in college. This computer got me interested in computers because of its design philosophy. It was made to be tinkered with, upgraded, and modified. It was adaptable and new devices were becoming available. Sure, the Commodore 64 had color, better sound, and just as many devices, but I could just point to my computer as proudly state "It's all on the inside." while my friends had all of their devices and attachments strewn across their desks and tables. "We have more games!" they would tell me. I'm sure that there were more games published for the Commodore 64, but they didn't own them. Even if they did have them, it usually was on cassette. I just showed them my boxes of disks, and I literally had hundred of games, as the Apple IIe also introduced me to floppy copying parties, and having the Duo drives, meant that I could copy disk quite readily. While visiting the occasional bulletin board did yield some treasures, the best way to gain new software was by trading with friends and acquaintances. Only later in junior high school did I realized that having an Apple computer meant two things. One, my parents and the parents of my friends that also have Apple computers or Apple compatibles were well to do. These personal home computer systems were not cheap, by any stretch of the imagination. The junior high school I attended did have a computer lab, but it was equipped with TRS-80 Model 4s, They were much older than my Apple IIe, but surprisingly, they really weren't much less capable. I was surprised and a little disappointed in learning that. Second, some of my other friends had IBM PCs. Now, these machines made my beloved Apple IIe look and feel like a toy. These were BUSINESS machines. Large, heavy, powerfully, they needed a fan to help keep them cool. Some of them even had internal storage! The high school for my district had a computer lab, a publications room, and a typing classroom, all equipped with IBM PCs, mainly Model 5150s. Seeing how the software was used for desktop publishing our literary arts magazine, the school newspaper, and yearbook, I realized that my Apple days were numbered. By then, some friends had switched over to Apple Macintosh, or Apple II GS, one even had an Amiga. I took my Apple IIe (and printer) to college, only to find that the university computer labs were all equipped with IBM PS/2s and I had better jump onboard, if I wanted to use the latest word processor and print beautiful, fully formed characters from a laser printer. I came home on Thanksgiving holiday to find, sitting on my old computer desk, where my Apple IIe had resided for the past six years (now residing in my dorm room), a mini tower. It hummed with an internal fan. It made whirling, clicking noises. It had a hard drive! It displayed graphics in 256 color at 640x480 resolution on a 13" VGA monitor! It ran DOS 5.1! It It used 5.25" and 3.5" floppy disks! It could play Wing Commander from Origin!!! It was an IBM clone with an AMD 286 clocked at 6 MHz (12 MHz with turbo) and had 2 MB RAM. It was faster than some of my friends' 386 SX16. I was in love! That Christmas, the Apple IIe came home and the IBM clone joined me for my second semster at the University of Illinois, but that's another story. I miss my Apple IIe and think about it a lot, especially after discovering all the various retro computing channels. This particular episode warms my heart. Hats off to you and PR#6 to all the other Apple fans!

[@stevescutt2865]

:) Nice one guys. Primary school 1983/84, I remember only 1 boy having an Apple. My friend Paul. His Dad worked in computing..

[@Zeem4]

I had one of these that I bought from the local tip for £5. I had to repair the power supply, create boot disks from scratch by copying images over via the Super Serial Card, and some of the keys weree damaged. It also had an RGB output card that I never used. I ended up selling it for £80 on eBay and now wish I hadn't.

[@mal2ksc]

If it's still in use by the buyer, then consider it a paid refurb job. If it's broken, consider yourself lucky for making that the next guy's problem. :)

[@greencandletraction]

Really enjoy these fault diagnosis type vids. Fascinating stuff. Thank you, keep up the great work 😎

[@jameslewis2635]

I think that this is one of those machines that shows the difference in computing history between the UK and the USA. In the USA the Apple 2 was massively successful in schools where as here in the UK most schools were equipped with the BBC Micro. Normally, I would accuse this of being too expensive for the UK schools market but one thing I do remember is that the Beeb itself was not at all cheap, at least in comparison to other popular home computer brands available in the UK in that era.

[@RMCRetro]

It has a lot of similarities with the Beeb for sure, and the BBC was government subsidised for school buyers which made it affordable. It was expensive for the home in the context of what else was available, still not as pricey as the Apple but getting there

[@milk-it]

Great video, Neil. As a die-hard Amiga and IBM user from the 80s, I can tell you that, had I the chance to explore one of these machines, it would've turned my head back then! Can't wait to see the follow up videos. I really like watching repair videos - they're super educational and useful.

[@brianlawhorn9773]

Any time I see a Rifa cap I instantly think of Dave Jones yelling "Rifa Madness" . But as always a great video and I look forward to the rest of the series!

[@CommodoreFan64]

Love this video, I had an Apple IIe as a kid with dual disk drives, and an Epson dot matrix printer, along with my Commodore 64, and later C128, and it is indeed a very iconic computer here in the USA, as in the 80's and even into the 90's it was primary choice for computers in many schools due to Apple giving educational discount packages if they bought the color, and/or green monochrome monitors from Apple, my middle school used them all the way through the early 90's. One of the games I can recommend you give a go with the paddles is Arkanoid which is a fine port for the system. Some other games off the top of my head you must try are Jumpman, Karateka, Castle Wolfenstein, Ultima, Wizardy, Swashbuckler, Choplifter, Oregon Trail(always morbid fun to use friend, and family names as party members, and see how they die), Lode Runner, King's Quest, The Bard's Tale, Elite(not a bad port), California Games(not bad but I like the C64 port better), Maniac Mansion, Waste Land, Wheel of Fortune, and Jeopardy(both good American game show games), Pinball construction set is a must, and Tetris 2.

[@bfapple]

My dad has a European IIe exactly like this. His needs exactly the same PSU refurbishment (capacitor replacement).

[@trevorlack1726]

From memory, The Apple 2 was never really marketed in the UK, there were adverts in computer magazines but in a country saturated as you rightly said by Spectrums and Commodore 64s. It never really stood a chance especially as it was quite expensive as well

[@icerunner]

This one made it to Neil because my dad was an accountant for a company that imported Apple systems for UK distribution in the early 80s. Doubt I would have ever seen one otherwise.

[@electryc03]

Looking forward to part 2, These computers were used throughout my school years. Thanks for the memories.

[@guerillagrueplays6301]

Very much looking forward to this series! While I'm not a fan of modern Apple (or, really, much of anything the company did/has done since Jobs left the first time,) their 80s models are absolutely iconic and really helped to shape the future of computing, at least here in the US.

[@NeonEUC]

Perfect timing. I shall download it and watch it tonight on my beer night with no ads getting in the way. Looking forward to this Neil 😀

[@10p6]

Great video. But to add some flare or laughter for part two, you should find an Apple 2 wrist rest.

[@Trenchbroom]

UK rich kids got Commodores, working class kids got Sinclairs. US rich kids got Apples, working class kids got Commodores.

[@talideon]

Wasn't it Beebs the rich kids got? Commodore owners were closer to the Sinclair owners than the actual rich kids.

[@Trenchbroom]

@@talideon Rich kids whose parents were teachers, likely. Of course the same thing happened in the US with Apple (being the educational computer at the time), but I think the Apple II was more universally appealing to many high income households in the US where my understanding (as a Yank--could be wrong) is that the BBC's appeal outside of education/teachers/science was pretty limited.

[@rbrtck]

US working class kids liked the Apple II from school, but felt we had a superior computer (for what we mostly did with it) in the C64 at home. The C64 was more expensive in Europe (justified its price with superior technology), so you got what you paid for, but in the US, we felt we got a sweet deal. Atari had more traction here, and with that level of technology as competition, Commodore leveraged the C64's lower cost of manufacture to drag Atari into taking losses, and consumers benefited from high value for the money. If you thought that computer price wars were brutal in the UK and Europe, in the US it drove most manufacturers, even ones backed by major corporations, out of the business. Apple managed to stay mostly aloof from this, as the home/consumer market wasn't their main one. These are the computers Americans remember mostly from school, not unlike the Beeb in the UK.

[@rbrtck]

@@talideon I suppose that is true, although I think there was enough of a distinction between Commodore and Sinclair owners to be considered significant. Even if most households in the UK could afford either, certainly there were those who most definitely wouldn't buy a C64 with the ZX Sinclair as a less expensive (and ultimately more popular in this market) alternative. For some reason (quite possibly that the C64 was cheaper in the US), the same didn't happen in the US, as the C64 easily beat out all of the cheaper alternatives, but there still is a distinction between consumers in the UK. Instead of rich versus poor, maybe it's spendy poor versus cheapskate poor. 😉

[@rbrtck]

@@Trenchbroom Fellow Yank here, so I wouldn't know from experience, either, but I would guess that the Beeb must have had some mass appeal, not only from being ubiquitous in schools but from appearing on TV in _The Computer Programme_ , _Making the Most of the Micro_ , and _Micro Live_ (28 episodes total over five years, plus a two-hour special). It also has a pretty large software library, including many non-educational games, which I doubt would have happened unless there was significant ownership outside of education (rich people were less likely to pirate software, but there still had to be a decent number of people who owned Beebs).

[@rickkephartactual7706]

Back in the 1980's I was a Wiz on these machines. Recently I purchased an Apple IIe off of Ebay just to start playing with it again. I think I forgot just about everything I knew about them. I didn't even remember how to get a list of files on a disc, eventually (much too long) I found out it was the "Catalog" entry to get the list. It is going to be a long road getting back up to speed on these things. One funny thing that happened right after I got it my nephew (7 years old) came by the house, saw the Apple IIe and asked what's that. I told him it was one of the early personal computers, he looked at me like I was crazy. Took a while to convince him it was a computer. He has seen today's computers but he really only uses an iPad. This will be a fun journey.

[@robsretrostuff]

I got my O’level computing in 1985 (the first year our school had this subject) and my school had one computer, the Apple II. Great video and memories

[@dragonmac1234]

Like Mark this is the first time I've seen an Apple computer. In the 80's everyone I knew had a Spectrum, a C64 or an Atari computer. I think you should leave the paper label on there Neil, in my opinion it's part of the heritage of the machine.

[@PJBonoVox]

Same. I didn't even know of Apple as a company till the 90s.

[@dragonmac1234]

@@PJBonoVox I only heard of them as a company around time of the first iPhone, I didn't know they made computers. Growing up I had a ZX Spectrum, an Atari 800 (I later replaced with an Atari ST) and then a PC in the mid 90's.

[@jamesdecross1035]

Hey, thank you for this video. Perfectly timed. It is exactly the job I have to do on my Apricot.

[@delusionnnnn]

I think you may misunderstand the American experience of the Apple II market. For the most part, this was something we experienced in schools as children. As home computers, they were extraordinarily expensive, and were only available to wealthy and upper middle class people who could afford what was a $6,000 computer in today's money, in an era when a computer could do very little and wasn't an essential home device. This is why we had Apple II's at school (and some Commodore PETs) and went home to our Commodore 64s and Atari 400/800s, TRS-80's, or niche machines if we followed the siren song of some device that didn't have much staying power like the Coleco Adam or Ti-99/4a. Compare this to the C64 which was $550 in today's money by 1984 and sure, you'd need the disk drive for it to be truly useful, you could at least learn something or make do with a tape drive or a couple of cartridge games until then. I literally knew nobody with an Apple II at home, and knew of no schools without them. When I met people in the hacking community who grew up with Apple IIs, they generally came from affluent families on the east coast whose lives were very different than mine and my peers' rust belt backgrounds.

[@rbrtck]

Right, and this is actually fairly analogous to the British experience with the BBC Micro (or "Beeb"), which was widely used in schools and on TV in the UK government's massive campaign to get everyone computer literate. Unfortunately, the Beeb was too expensive for the vast majority of British households to afford, so at home they owned a ZX Spectrum (or "Speccy") or Commodore 64 instead.

[@delusionnnnn]

@@rbrtck Yup, for some of us Americans, it was interesting to hear about the computers you had over there that we'd never see. Typically not in computer magazines (obviously, no real reason to distribute a Spectrum magazine here in the US) , but in magazines with computer culture crossover such as Dragon Magazine where they'd review role-playing games.

[@shelby3822]

Good memories back in school using one with no prejudice towards Apple at the time

[@TheSulross]

you be with with an Apple II as I'd be with a BBC Micro - one thing they had in common is a battle tank like build

[@RetroJack]

Thank you for mentioning the Europlus - I remember using one of those in New Zealand back in '82 when the teachers were still arguing over whether or not computers should be part of the maths or science curriculum! 🤣

[@rbrtck]

Even at my university in the early 1990s there was a debate as to whether the Computer Science program belonged in the Math or Engineering department.

[@jonathanwhiteside6092]

I was shouting "Put the drive controller in slot 6" at the screen :) I got my own ][e in 2021 and used one in school in the late 70s & early 80s. Very nice machine.

[@agamon33]

Great video! I used these at school here in Canada from grades 5 through 9 in the mid to late-80's.

[@AbAb-th5qe]

In the UK, I think the BBC micro filled a similar role to the apple 2, being 6502 based, very expandable and used in schools

[@ukcroupier]

The only time I've seen one of these in the UK was when I was at college in 1983 but I never used it, I was more interested in the new mini computer they'd just got with 32 terminals.

[@tommylakindasorta3068]

This was the first computer I ever used, in a computer lab in middle school. I remember using a music program to write songs and playing games our teacher let us try. Good memories.

[@shibolinemress8913]

The Apple IIe was our family's first computer! Dad brought it home from the office, along with a dot matrix printer of course. My brother made spreadsheets with sports scores of his favourite teams, I wrote my term papers and such, mom had her own projects and somewhere in between, dad managed to get some of the work done that he brought home from the office 😉. The floppy drives and especially the printer were so loud that you could hear them through the whole house, so late night work was strictly forbidden! 😁

[@alextirrellRI]

I moved to a new city in 1997 for 6th grade, and my new school still had 2 Apple IIe's in every classroom, with a whole lab of them on one side of the building, while there was also a newer lab of internet-connected LC575's on the other side which we spent more time with. I spent many a recess or spare class moment playing with the Apple IIe's always being tech inclined and they were something new to me, only ever really experiencing Macintosh at home, and DOS/Windows and OS/2 elsewhere.

[@Pest789]

Wow I hadn't seen that racing game since I was a young kid. I had forgotten it existed.

[@jeminacek]

Such a suspense before finally learning what the 'e' stands for. Didn't expect that...

[@SiD3WiNDR]

Hearing "there weren't many of them about" (in UK) and then remembering Adrian's video where he was fixing stacks of them (in US) was a nice demo of how different computer (and console) landscapes were on both sides of the Atlantic :-)

[@freddienz]

My very first computer. Back in 1983 as soon as it became available. Cost $NZ3,000 including a printer. 2 years hire purchase. Worth every cent.

[@cazb73]

Years ago, ~1990, a year - two after Czechoslovak revolution, i had part-time work in Olomouc's university hospital. One day I was sent to the laboratory office, where I've seen exactly this setup, with green monitor.

[@finlaymclellan8754]

An enjoyable video. I don't know any of my friends that had an Apple. We all had ZX Spectrums and C64s mainly.

[@MikeDancy]

I had the Tandy CoCo 2 and my buddy had the Apple IIe. That was the point in time when I realized that I had the less desirable product.. I've been coveting the Apple IIe ever since then.

[@davidknoll]

There will be no smoking the RIFA in this video.

[@dustinhipskind7665]

At my school, in rural Michigan, we were still using many Apple II/e systems still in 1997. It was an odd sight to see entire rooms of these for so long.

[@NorthWay_no]

A classmate had a clone in his family, but the first one I saw was a Norwegian(?) clone that was more of an alarm system, playing Night Mission Pinball onboard a floating coastal-traveling faire/show of the old kind that sold everything from candy and computers to home improvements. Incidentally, the building next to where I work has a not insubstantial vintage car/vehicle collection on display, including a retro electronics area with at least one Apple II, a BBC B and more.

[@electricadventures]

Lovely recovery of a wonderful member of the early computing family. I am lucky to have a IIe Platinum model, so a little bit newer than the one you show. They were popular in Australia but mainly in academia in the Universities. Earlier schools either had BBC Model B's or Microbees (depending on which state).

[@realzneo]

Great episode!! Great to have trash to treasure back!!

[@snowman5020]

Great video again guys. Good to see you back to this sort of thing. Fascinating, can't wait to see you do more with it.

[@brad3042]

My first exposure to Apple II was in high school. My science teacher had it set up and I'd often boot it up to play Jeopardy.

[@JonMichaelDeShazer]

A lot of us Americans who grew up in the 1980s used these in elementary school running LOGO or BASIC.

[@solobackpacking]

Steve Jobs - Apple //e "It's better than what Woz and I dud in 1976." Jobs had absolutely no contribution to the design of the Apple // series.It was entirely Woz,

[@doublej1076]

I'm paused at about the 24 minute mark, waiting for Neil to hit Ctrl-OpenApple-Reset to drop to the Basic prompt. Like Mark I also first saw an Apple ][ on Wednesday. But my Wednesday was some time in the fall of 1981. And may not have actually been a Wednesday.

[@booboyBL]

The Apple IIe is the main retro computer that I would LOVE to have. Unfortunately, I can't afford the prices being asked for working ones, and don't have the skill level needed to repair a non-working one, (unless it was a very simple repair). I'd love to come have a play on this one but that's unlikely as you are too far from me. Still, I do love to watch 'Trash to Treasure', so I can enjoy these machine vicariously.

[@GeVeBeGaming]

Awesome as always, very interesting machine, easy to fix and upgrade, very different from modern Apple machines.

[@dpassen1]

Loved this video, Neil. I’m sure a lot of your American viewers will feel the same pangs of nostalgia for this machine that your British and European viewers have for other machines you’ve spotlighted.

[@allboroandroid3829]

In elementary school back in the 90's, my school still had A2's to mess around with, we had 4 in the class and only one Oregon Trail Disk. I recall we would swap the disk between each other as we all playd at the same time, lol.

[@raggersragnarsson6255]

I remember using an Apple 2 in college in 1987 and 88 in the UK. I never had a chance before then as it was quite expensive and mainly used in business, but I was aware of them before then. .

[@DavieTait]

We had an Apple IIe at Fraserburgh Academy back in 1983/4 , had 2 5 1/4" floppy drives , a full colour monitor and a Graphics Tablet , school used it for admin and it was kept in the small "computer room" we had in 1983/4 with 6 48k Spectrums and a Vic 20

[@drtbantha]

The color fringe on white text in graphics modes was always an issue with the Apple II -- it was an impressive video system for 1977 but backwards compatibility left it seeming a bit weird by the mid '80s. The AppleColor monitors that were released alongside the platinum IIe and //c both had monochrome switches that would disable their color circuitry, leaving you with only black and white.

[@mancavehobbies6213]

Awesome ...SO HAPPY TO SEE MARK LOVE THAT GUY

[@joneggelton]

They were rare here in the UK, but the Apple IIe was the first computer I ever used! In 1983, I was aged eleven, and somehow my primary school won one of these in a competition. We also got the 'Logo' language, complete with that little turtle robot which drew shapes on huge sheets of paper.

[@LMacNeill]

The school I attended from 7th grade through 12th grade (September of 1982 thru May of 1988) had a computer lab that was equipped with 25 to 30 (I don't remember exactly how many) Apple ][+ machines. Over the years, most were upgraded to Apple ][e machines, with a ][c and a ][gs thrown in for good measure. They also got a Mac SE in 1986 (I think? Maybe early '87?). I took A.P. Computer Science my senior year and learned how to program in Pascal on an Apple ][e. This video brings back a lot of memories. 🙂 Definitely looking forward to the continuation of this series in the future. Thanks!

[@QR_Code]

first computer i ever worked on. learned basic and logo and played oregon trail, lemonade, and tapper 😄 i remember drawing the space shuttle on grid paper and writing a program in basic to make it move across the screen. i was a smart kid hahaha

[@Peter_S_]

I remember loading Lemonade Stand from cassette and figuring out the math that resulted in perfect sales for any given weather.

[@icerunner]

Just you mentioning Lemonade and I can hear all the chiptunes from it perfectly in my head .

[@garyhart6421]

The first Apples I come into contact with were, the all in one units (Macintosh SE ?) running QuarkXPress and a Quadra 605 running Photoshop back in 1997.

[@raycreveling1583]

My first job in Print we had the Qudra 650 running QuarkXpress (3.32), Pagemaker and Photoshop.