Apple IIe becomes a high-profit hit: Today in Apple history

January 1, 1983: Apple releases the Apple IIe, the third model in the Apple II series—and the last one before Mackintosh will arrive a year later.

It is in great demand and confirms the enduring value of the Apple II brand.

Apple IIe: unplanned update

The Apple IIe replaced the Apple II Plus. Apple initially planned to abandon Apple II this model and replace the Apple III product line. However, the continued popularity of the Apple II and Apple III failure – thanks in large part to the high price and some glaring engineering errors – have pushed Apple to update its proven hit with a new workaround. (Apple, after all, continued to produce some versions of the Apple II until the early 1990s.)

The Apple IIe added some of the features that Apple II enthusiasts already enjoyed as standard, thanks to the new model’s impressive number of expansion slots. Features included support for 80-column text mode, 64 KB of RAM (expandable to 128 KB) and, for the first time, lowercase letters!

It also reduced the number of chips on the motherboard from over 100 to just 31. This allowed Apple to make more profit on each machine sold. In fact, the Apple IIe sold for about three times what it cost to manufacture the computer.

Critical and commercial success

The Apple IIe received excellent reception upon its release. Byte The magazine described it as “like an Apple II with all the extras built in… with lots of cool new features and functionality” for little extra cost.

The computer performed well in sales, with sales increasing from 60,000 to 70,000 units per month by May 1983. (That’s about double the average of its predecessor, the Apple II Plus.) And the new computer had legs: The Apple IIe continued to be Apple’s best-selling product. II even after Cupertino released its successor, the model Apple IIcin 1984.

While other Apple computers Lisa (released the same month) and the Apple III failed to gain popularity, the Apple IIe emerged as the clear winner.

Do you remember the Apple IIe? Did you have one? Let us know in the comments below.