Apple II

The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer designed mainly by Steve Wozniak and released by Apple in June 1977. It was one of the first successful mass-produced microcomputers, and unlike many of its rivals it came in a moulded plastic case with a built-in keyboard and could display colour graphics on a television.

Its eight expansion slots made it easy to extend, and the Disk II floppy drive, released in 1978, gave it fast and cheap storage. VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program, was released for the Apple II in 1979 and helped turn it into a serious business machine as well as a home and school computer.

The line was improved many times over the following years, with the Apple II Plus in 1979, the Apple IIe in 1983, the portable Apple IIc in 1984 and the 16-bit Apple IIGS in 1986. Apple finally stopped selling the Apple IIe in 1993, after more than five million machines of the family had been sold.

The Apple II has a very large game library, including the first Ultima and Wizardry games, Lode Runner, Choplifter, Karateka and Prince of Persia, which was first developed on the Apple II.

Today, AppleWin is the most complete Apple II emulator on Windows, emulating the Apple II, II Plus, IIe and Enhanced IIe along with many expansion cards. MAME also emulates the whole Apple II family, including the Apple IIGS, on every major platform.