uction of the Apple III+, the line was killed.
1984, January: Apple Macintosh introduced.
Price at Introduction: $2,495.00. Standard Memory: 128Kb.
1984, April?: Apple IIc portable introduced. Price at Introduction:
$1,295.00 Had 80 column display capability, a built-in 5.25 inch
diskette drive, mouse and printer ports, and a game port. The first
real 'portable' entry in the Apple II line.
1984: Commodore founder Jack Tramiel buys Atari from Warners, lays off most of the Atari staff.
1985: Steve Jobs leaves Apple to start NeXT computers, focusing on the
educational market. He receives substantial funding.
1985: Apple and Microsoft entered into a secret agreement.
This agreement granted Microsoft a license to use the windows and icons
in the development of version 1.0.
In exchange, Microsoft agreed to develop software for the Macintosh platform.
[Richmond Law Journal, 10 April 1995].
1985: Aldus introduces PageMaker for the Macintosh and starts
the desktop publishing era.
1986, January: Apple Macintosh 'Plus' introduced. Price at
Introduction: $2,599.00. Standard Memory: 1Mb. The follow up machine
to the original Macintosh (with 128k of memory) and the so called "Fat
Mac" (with 512k memory). The 'Plus' was the first of the Macintosh
line to allow memory expansion through the use of SIMM memory. Prior
to this all memory was soldered to the main logic board. The 'SE' is
usually found with from 1mb to 4Mb of memory.
1986, September: Apple IIgs ('Woz' Signature Edition) introduced.
Price at Introduction: $999.00 .
1986, September: Apple IIgs (Standard Edition) introduced.
Price at Introduction: $999.00.
1987: Apple Macintosh 'II'. The Mac gets big, and gets slots. The
Macintosh II arrives on the scene in a 'PC' size desktop case and has
the then new "NuBus" expantion slots for add-on cards. Based on the
Motorola 68020 microprocessor, and bringing support for color
displays, the Mac II sets the new standard for the Macintosh
line for a time... .
1987: Apple introduces HyperCard sofware.
1987, March: Apple Macintosh 'SE' introduced. Price at Introduction:
$2,898.00 (dual floppy version). The first of the Macintosh line to
'officially' support an internal hard drive. Prior to this all hard
drives were either external to the system unit, or were third party
internal units somewhat grudgingly accepted by Apple.
1987: Microsoft releases Windows 2.0 with substantially better performance
and an improved interface.
Competition from IBM and PC-clone makers diminishes Apple's dominance.
1987: Apple spins off its application software business as a separate
company and names it Claris.
1988: Apple sues Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard for replicating more of
the look-and-feel of the Apple interface in their Windows OS 2.03 system.
1988: Next unveils its innovative workstation computer which is
the first computer using erasable optical disks as the primary
mass storage device. The operating system
is based on the CMU Mach version of UNIX, but has pleasant graphical interface.
Quality output is produced by using postscript as the presentation format.
1988: IBM licenses Next's graphics user interface.
1988, September: Apple IIc Plus introduced. Price at Introduction:
$1,099.00. A 3.5 inch built-in diskette drive, integral power supply,
improved sound capabilities, and more... A significant improvement
over the IIc interms of function and convenience.
1989: Apple introduces its long awaited portable Macintosh: the
Powerbook. Standard sized keyboard, built in trackball
for a mouse, and LCD screen
1990: Apple introduces its low-end Macintoshes: The Classic, LC
1990: March: Apple Macintosh 'IIfx' introduced. The first real
'orphan' of the Macintosh line. Based on a 40mHz version of the 68030
microprocessor, Apple selected a rather odd 64 pin SIMM memory module
for this unit that was never used again in any other Apple
computer. This caused the unit to be unusually expensive to upgrade as
the rest of the Macintosh II series of computers returned to more
common configurations of memory.
1986: Steve Jobs buys the Pixar Animation studios from George Lu