Apple II
The Apple II range of personal computers, manufactured from 1977 to 1993, was a significant improvement over its predecessor, the Apple I, which was sold as a kit to computer retailers. In contrast, the Apple II, launched at the West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco on 17 April 1977, was a fully assembled self-contained consumer device, with a built-in keyboard, a power source, and permanent memory for the BASIC language. The central processing unit came with 4 KB of RAM, which could be increased to 48 KB. It also included a BASIC interpreter, graphics support, and a colour monitor.
Aggressive marketing through volume discounts to educational institutions led to widespread use in schools. Its success led to the Apple II Plus, Apple IIe, Apple IIc, Apple IIc Plus, and the IIGS.
Despite the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984, the Apple II series continued to sell well into the 1990s — Apple terminated the IIGS in December 1992 and the IIe in November 1993. Total sales of all models were about 6 million units. The series eventually supported over 1,500 software programs. By the end of its production in 1993, somewhere between five and six million Apple II series computers (including approximately 1.25 million Apple IIGS models) had been produced.
