On June 10, 1977, Apple launched the Apple II, one of the first pre-built desktop computers. It went on to sell about 6 million units over the course of the next 17 years, making it the longest lived and most successful of the three micro computers that arrived on the market in 1977. Some people say June 5, 1977 was the Apple II’s introduction date, but June 5 was the Commodore PET. The Apple II was just a few days after.
In its original configuration, it sold for $1,295 with 4 KB of RAM, and it plugged into a household cassette tape recorder for storage. Apple did not sell monitors until 1983, so you could either acquire a composite monitor or a third-party RF modulator that allowed you to use it with a television.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.
