What's the difference betwee Apple II+.IIGS. IIe, IIc. and ///?

I know the II+ was a basic model 2 of the new-ish II series. Just an upgraded ROM I think? The IIc was the first to support any onboard color graphic circuity (though it sucks by modern standards this was quite a feat!). The IIgs was the first to support both hi-res color graphics AND onboard sound (GS = Graphics + Sound).
And I don't know much about the /// other than it was an utter failure.

I'm sure there is more to all this so fill me in too guys!

I know the II+ was a basic model 2 of the new-ish II series. Just an upgraded ROM I think? The IIc was the first to support any onboard color graphic circuity (though it sucks by modern standards this was quite a feat!). The IIgs was the first to support both hi-res color graphics AND onboard sound (GS = Graphics + Sound).
And I don't know much about the /// other than it was an utter failure.

I'm sure there is more to all this so fill me in too guys!

Um, I think the II+ also had onboard color graphic support, since I remember using my color TV as a monitor until I could afford a color monitor for it.

The IIe, and later the //e, came standard with 128k and supported low res, high res and double high res graphics along with built in lower case display. The //e, or 'enhanced' IIe, used all the same chips as the IIc so it could also display "mousetext" graphics.

The IIc was an attempt at a 'portable' Apple II and supported all the graphics modes of the IIe plus "mousetext" graphics, which the IIe didn't until the //e. It also came standard with 128k.

The IIGS came standard with 256k, until the ROM 3 version which had 1.125MB. It also supported all the standard Apple II graphics modes along with two super high res modes, 320x200 and 640x200. The 65816 processor could run at the standard 1MHz or a "fast"2.8MHz. It also was the FIRST Apple computer to use the ADB port and a synthesizer sound chip, the Ensonic ES5503 the same one that was used in the Ensonic Mirage and Ensonic ESQ-1 professional synthesizers. It also used a GUI similar to the Macs, GS/OS.

There was also the IIc+. the changes in it from the standard IIc were the addition of a built in accelerator for the 65C02 processor, running at 4Mhz, a built in 3.5 drive instead of 5.25 and the power supply was put inside the case instead of being an external brick. I'm sure there are others differences bu these are the ones I know of.

The Apple III, and the III+, were Apple's first attempt at a 'business' computer. They came standard with 256k of memory and had an Apple II emulation mode. I don't really know much more about these computers, never having had one.

That's my two cents worth,
Dean

The /// has some cool hardware support for memory banking all that memory into the 6502 address space. Zero page can be moved around. 32k of memory is constantly mapped, and 32k can be banked in from wherever you have memory available.

SOS, the unfortunately named operating system, was probably among the first to have device drivers with generalized/consistent access to system resources. The arrow/cursor keys repeated faster if you pressed them harder.

Several things from the /// made their way to the II line: the file structure and some OS calls from SOS came to ProDOS, the 80 column memory mapping structure, and a few other things I'm forgetting.

You can do a search on the 'net for lots of more info on the ///. I collected a couple of articles relating to low-level programming, and host the Washington Apple Pi public domain disks here:
http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/apple3.html

Go to http://apple2history.org/

You will find many answers.

The IIe did not come standard with 128K. The base configuration was an 80 column card with 4K RAM I think. The 64K memory card was an option.

Mike

Um, I think the II+ also had onboard color graphic support, since I remember using my color TV as a monitor until I could afford a color monitor for it.

Just for the record, the original II had color as well. Color was sort of the whole selling point of the II series. The only differences really between the II and the II+ was the II was equipped with Integer Basic instead of Applesoft in ROM. II+'s additionally almost always ended up with (or shipped with) a 16k "Language Card" for a total of 64k.

(Admittedly an *awful lot* of Apple II's ended up attached to black-and-white-or-green-or-yellow monitors, but they all had the ability to output color to a TV. Except for the European Apple II "Europlus", which required an additional PAL encoder card since the cheap shortcuts the Apple II used to generate colors on NTSC TVs didn't work on PAL.)

Other then that, well, as noted, it was possible to buy a IIe with 64k, in which case it would usually be equipped with a little 1K 80-column-only card in the slot otherwise used for the 64k upgrade card. 64k IIe's (and the very earliest "Rev A." 128k IIe's) didn't support the higher-res graphics modes. Apple offered a free upgrade from the Rev A boards, so there probably aren't many left in the wild.

The Apple II series page on Wikipedia is a pretty good chronological index of the differences between various II models.

--Peace

Apple ][ - released in 1977 with the base configuration being 4K of RAM. This was expandable to 48K on the main-board, and 64K with the Apple Language Card in slot 0. Original Revision 0 Apple ][ boards only had 4 hi-res colors: black, white, violet, green. Revision 1 added the color-killer circuit which removed the color fringes from text. The ROM has Integer BASIC, Sweet-16, and the mini-assembler. Rev 0 board does not do a power-on reset, and does not automatically boot a disk ][.

Differences between Rev 0 and Rev 1

Color Killer
Power-On RESET
Hires Colors (4 to 6)
24K Memory Map Problem
50 Hz Apples
Speaker and Cassette Interference
Cassette Input

Apple ][+ - released in 1979 with the base configuration being 48K of RAM, exapandable to 64K with the Language card.

Apple //e - released in late 1982/early 1983. The //e model had quite a few revisions as well. The unenhanced, Revision B model has a 6502B processor, and prints Apple ][ at the top of the screen. It has 64K of RAM, expandable to 128K with a memory card or Extended 80-columns card in the Aux Slot. Its ROM contains Applesoft, but not the mini-assembler.

Later //e models will print Apple //e at the top of the screen when booted.

You got most of the changes from rev0 to rev1. There are a few more.

rev 1 also had:
video circuitry slightly modified to provide better horizontal sync stability.
keyboard input strobe flip flop is connected to reset.
50 Pin bus - positions 35 and 19 were no longer bussed to all connectors

Find all about the rev 0 on my rev 0 recreation pages.
http://www.willegal.net/appleii/appleii-recreation.htm

regards,
Mike Willegal

Rocket,

Did you scope out the history pages. Lots of good stuff there, including a big section on why the /// was a fiasco.

The Apple IIgs was the first 16-bit system. All of
the other models were 8-bit systems. The upgrade
of the II series could be made with a replacement
motherboard and the IIgs can run the 8-bit software.

The IIgs has a different CPU from the other series
and a different data bus.

][, II, II+, IIe, //e and IIc, IIc+ and //c are all
8-bit systems.