Apple II The great rival.
Without the Apple II, it’s possible the PC would never have existed. Although a subject of debate, it’s generally agreed that the Apple II was a primary influence on the PC. Many IBM engineers owned one – as did many customers, who found that they could easily do jobs, such as working on spreadsheets, that were nearly impossible on a giant mainframe.
Sporting an 8-bit MOS 6502 processor, with between 4KB and 64KB of RAM, it debuted in June 1977 for a base price of US$1,298. It had an incredible production run, selling from 1977 to 1993. Developed by Steve Wozniak, the Apple II stands in stark contrast to products developed by Apple’s lesser Steve (Mr. Jobs). Chiefly, the Apple II is designed around an open architecture, with a removable lid allowing easy access to the motherboard and expansion slots. Much like the PC, the Apple II would be the subject of numerous clones over the years.
Even though the PC was newer, the Apple II retained advantages over the PC, such as having eight expansion slots over the PC’s five, and much more convenient gaming, with bundled joysticks and games that loaded in seconds.