Apple IIe and III Vic-20 and computer dust covers

Wed Jul 25, 2018

when i was a kid, i visited my neighbor, who showed me their family computer.

it was an  Apple III



the mother told me they spent well over $5000 and this is 1980 dollars

sounds like a lot but i visit wikipedia

The Apple III (often styled as apple ///) is a business-oriented personal computer produced and released by Apple Computer in 1980. It was intended as the successor to the Apple II series, but was largely considered a failure in the market.

Development work on the Apple III started in late 1978 under the guidance of Dr. Wendell Sander. It had the internal code name of "Sara", named after Sander's daughter.[2] The machine was first announced and released on May 19, 1980, but due to serious stability issues that required a design overhaul and a recall of existing machines, it was formally reintroduced in the second half of 1981.[3] Development stopped and the Apple III was discontinued on April 24, 1984, and its last successor, the III Plus, was dropped from the Apple product line in September 1985.[4]

price

With a starting price between $4,340 to $7,800 US, the Apple III was more expensive than many of the CP/M-based business computers that were available at the time.[1] Fe

it also had a monitor to.

so With a starting price between $4,340 and a monitor and memory upgrade and software yeah $5000 sounds plausible.

thought it was a monochrome monitor not color.

the father was a doctor mom was nurse, and they bought it for their sons.

the one thing that really stood out, though,




they put their apple III in a dust cover.

more like a see through dust cover, because they never actually used it. they never used it to play games or type papers AFAIK.




yep, they spent over $5000 in 1980 dollars for this Apple III and they never used it so they put it in a dust cover.

wow.

my mom was invited to a party and pretty much same story played out here, that family owned an Apple IIe



it was also



in a dust cover.

the dust covers both family used were clear, so you can see through, not opaque like here.

its 1983 price

The IIe was introduced on January 1983 originally selling for $1395, but it needed expansion of memory disk drives and monitor at the least to work.

i played oregon trail in green monochrome at school on this pc, well apple 2c

but wow to spend all that money on a computer and not use it



the world and reality of the 1980s i'm telling u

over $5000 in 1980 is an ungodly amount of money only to put it in a dust cover and not use it

by 1986 i convinced my parents to buy a tandy 1000sx



it was never not once ever in a dust cover.

i pretty much used it every day. again its 8088 and 7.16mhz speed no hard drive was agonizingly slow, and about less than a year later Radio shack came out with the tandy 1000tx with the 80286 8mhz processor, much much faster

its base price was $799, but i upgraded the memory for $100, bought the very expensive $450 CM-11

but yes it was never in a dust cover, and i used it every day pretty much until i found a buyer in college.

i mostly used it for games, i played all kinds of DOS games with tandy enhanced 16 color graphics and 3 voice sound, though i want to stress this was an agonizing slow experience with 7.16mhz speed 8088 cpu and no hard drive, just floppy, i was still happy as clams to play king's quest 3



i thought it was a truly magical experience.

i am unsure to what extent you can play this on an apple 2e or 3

occasionally i used it for word processing, the included desk mate didn't have spell check so i bought Sierra's home word processor.

it boggles my mind to spend $5000 in 1980 dollars on an Apple IIe or III and then put it in a dust cover and not use it at all.

one kid i visited had a commodore  vic-20 and he had it in the closet unusued and unattached to a tv, this was early 80s



but another kid had the commodore 64 with a huge collection of games and used it.

sometimes i wonder what if i went with commodore 64  instead of the tandy 1000sx. still, i managed to get a fair number of games with tandy as it was dos compatible.

so the reality of computers in the 1980s which is unimaginable even today

is that families spent over $5000 in 1980 dollars for an Apple 2e or 3, with monochrome monitor and very limited software, and then put a dust cover on the whole thing to prevent it from collecting dust due to lack of use.

by 1986 i got a tandy 1000sx for $799, though i paid a whopping $450+ for the cm-11 which in my eyes was far better than the cm-5 and i used it every day cause there were a lot of other kids with dos ibm pc compatible and we simply traded.

on paper a tandy 1000sx 8088 with 7.16 mhz speed and 640k ram is far superior to an Apple III is powered by a 1.8 MHz Synertek 6502A or B[9] 8-bit CPU and 64k ram

but again with 16 color graphics and tandy 3 voice sound it was SLOW. the theoretical on paper advantage of the 8088 7.16mhz  over the 6502 1.8mhz is washed away by its using 16 color graphics and 3-voice sound which eats performance

it does amaze me how much of a difference in price going from $5000 Apple III in 1980 to $799 by 1986 for tandy 1000sx

i want to stress after i bought the tandy 1000sx radio shack introduced the tandy 1000tx with 80286 and 8mhz plus 768k memory so it doesn't have graphics eat into the main 640k.

i was kinda disappointed since the tx was sooo much faster with 8mh 286 speed. it was ridiculously much faster. i imagine playing kings quest at good speed.  i actually went to radio shack and ask if i could trade in the tandy 1000sx for the 1000tx and they said no  

i didn't even own a dust cover for the tandy. it did get dusty which i cleaned it using a wet wipe, the internals got dusty so i vacuum sucked it out. but i pretty much used it every day i was at home and not on vacation