Apple fan blog Cult of Mac.com reminds us that the famous Apple //e turns 35 years old today.
The Apple //e was the undisputed sales winner when compared with the other two Apple computers released that same year, the Apple Lisa and the Apple ///.
I have found memories of the Apple //e. It was the second computer that I owned, my first was a vTech Laser 128 – an Apple // clone, and my first computer from Apple. I had the same setup as the one pictured above. I loved that thing and used it form many years until the system board finally failed. The thing that I really enjoyed about the Apple //e was that it embodied that hacker sense instilled in the product by Steve “Woz” Wozniak. The //e was super easy to open (the top case just popped off), giving the user easy access to the many expansion bays and add-on cards. This computer fueled my interests in operating systems and hardware which would play a major role in my decision to enter the Information Technology field many years later.
I still have my old Apple //e 5.25-inch floppy disks, including the disk with my favorite Apple //e program, Apple Presents Apple. It was the first Apple //-series program I used. As the name implies, Apple Presents Apple, was the program Apple included with the //e that taught people how to use their new computer. My favorite game was the apple bin game, which taught you how to use the open and closed Apple keys (which would later become the Command key) as keyboard shortcut modifiers.
Happy Birthday, Apple //e!