Apple IIc

The Apple IIc, the fourth model in the Apple II line of personal computers, was Apple Computer's first endeavor to produce a portable computer. The end result was a "luggable" 7½ pound notebook sized version of the Apple II which could easily be transported from place to place. The "c" in the name stood for "compact", referring to the fact it was essentially a complete Apple II computer setup (minus display and power supply) squeezed into a small notebook sized housing. While sporting a built-in floppy drive and new rear peripheral expansion ports, it lacked the internal expansion slots and direct motherboard access of earlier Apple II's, making it a closed system. However that was the intended direction for this model--a more appliance like machine, ready to use out of the box, requiring no technical know-how or experience to hook up and therefore attractive to first time users.

History

The Apple IIc was released in April 1984, during an Apple held event called "Apple II Forever". The new machine was proclaimed as proof of Apple's long term commitment to the Apple II series and its users, an assurance the company's older technology would not be forsaken or dropped with the recent introduction of the Macintosh. While essentially an Apple IIe computer in a smaller case, it was not a successor, but rather a portable version to complement it. One Apple II machine would be sold for users who required the expandability of slots, and another for those wanting the simplicity of a plug and play machine with portability in mind.

The machine introduced Apple's Snow White design language, notable for its elegant case styling and a sleek modern look which soon became the standard for most Apple equipment and computers, and continuing for nearly a decade after. The origin of term comes from the Apple IIc's unique pure snow white coloring, the only Apple made computer produced in this color (other machines were typically beige or light grey). While relatively light weight and compact in design, the Apple IIc was not a true portable in design as it lacked a built-in battery and display.

Codenames for the machine while under development included: Lollie, ET, Yoda, Teddy, VLC, IIb, IIp.

Overview of features

Improving the IIe Technically the Apple IIc was the Apple IIe computer in a smaller case, retaining the same set of features. Building on the design, it did manage to offer a few minor improvements without affecting compatibility for the most part. First it utilized the CMOS based 65C02 microprocessor (instead of a plain 6502) which added 27 new processor instructions and drew less power (but hampered compatibility with a very small number of programs that used illegal opcodes of the 6502 processor, which were removed in the 65C02). The new ROM firmware allowed Applesoft BASIC to recognize lowercase characters, work better with an 80 columns display and fixed several bugs from the IIe ROM. In terms of video, the text display added 32 unique character symbols called "Mousetext" which, when placed side by side, could display simplistic looking icons, windows and menus to recreate a graphical user interface completely out of text, similar in concept to IBM ANSI. Note: A year later the Apple IIe would benefit from these improvements in the form of a four chip upgrade called the Enhanced IIe.

Built-in cards and ports

The equivalent of five slot cards were built-in and integrated into the Apple IIc motherboard. These included: An Extended 80 Columns Card, two Apple Super Serial Cards, a Mouse Card and a floppy drive controller card. For starters this meant the Apple IIc had 128K RAM, 80 columns text and Double-Hi-Resolution graphics built-in and available right out of the box, unlike its older sibling the Apple IIe. It also meant less of a need for slots as the most popular peripheral add-on cards were already built-in, ready for devices to be plugged into the rear ports of the machine. The built-in cards were mapped to phantom slots so software from slot-based Apple II models would know where to find them (i.e. mouse to virtual slot 4, serial cards to slot 1 and 2, floppy to slot 6, and so on). Of interest is the entire Apple Disk II Card, used for controlling floppy drives, had been shrunk down into a single chip called the "IWM" which stood for Integrated Wozniak Machine.

In the rear of the machine were its expansion ports, mostly for providing access to its built-in cards. The standard DE9 joystick connector doubled as a mouse interface, compatible with the same mice used by the Lisa and early Macintosh computers. Two serial ports were provided primarily to support a printer and modem, a floppy port connector supported a single external 5.25 drive (and later "intelligent" devices such as 3.5 drives and hardisks). A Video Expansion port provided rudimentary signals for add-on adapters but alone could not directly generate a video signal (Apple produced a LCD display and an RF-modulator for this port; the latter shipped with early IIc's). A port connector tied into an internal 12 volt power converter for attaching batteries; this is where the infamous external powersupply (dubbed "brick on a leash" by users) that was included plugged in. The same composite video port found on earlier Apple II models remained present, however gone were the cassette ports and internal DIP-16 game port.

Built-in accessories and keyboard

The Apple IIc had a built-in 5.25" floppy drive (140K) along the right side of the case—the first Apple II model to include such a feature. Along the left side of the case was a dial to control the volume of the internal speaker, along with a 1/8" monaural audio jack for headphones or an external speaker. A fold out carrying handle doubled as a way to prop up back end of the machine to angle the keyboard for typing, if desired.

The keyboard layout mirrored that of the Apple IIe, however the 'Reset' key had been moved above the 'ESC' key. Two toggle switches were also located in the same area: an "80/40" columns switch for (specially written) software to detect which text video mode to start up in, and a "Keyboard" switch to select between QWERTY and DVORAK layout. The keyboard itself was built-in to the front half of the case (much like a notebook computer) and had a rubber mat placed beneath the keycaps which acted as a liquid spill guard.

Technical specifications

Microprocessor

65C02 running at 1.023 MHz
8-bit data bus

Memory

128K RAM built-in
32K ROM built-in (16K ROM in original)
Expandable from 128K to 1 MB (only through non-conventional methods in original)

Video

40 and 80 columns text, with 24 lines¹
Low-Resolution: 40×48 (16 colors)
High-Resolution: 280×192 (6 colors)*
Double-Low-Resolution: 80×48 (16 colors)
Double-High-Resolution: 560×192 (16 colors)*

*effectively 140×192 in color, due to pixel placement restrictions

¹Text can be mixed with graphic modes, replacing either bottom 8 or 32 lines, depending on video mode

Audio

Built-in speaker; 1-bit toggling
User adjustable volume (manual dial control)

Built-in storage

Slim-line internal 5.25 floppy drive
140K, single-sided

Internal connectors

Memory Expansion Card connector (34-pin)*

''* Only available on ROM 3 motherboard and higher; original IIc: NONE

Specialized chip controllers

IWM (Integrated Wozniak Machine) for floppy drives
Dual 6551 ASIC chips for serial I/O

External connectors

Joystick/Mouse (DE-9)
Printer, serial-1 (DIN-5)
modem, serial-2 (DIN-5)
Video Expansion Port (D-15)
Floppy drive SmartPort (D-19)
12 Volt DC connector input (DIN-7, male)
NTSC composite video output (RCA connector)
Audio-out (1/8" mono phono jack)

Revisions

The Apple IIc was in production between April 1984 until August 1988, and during this time, did go through some small changes. These included the existence of 4 ROM revisions, two motherboards (including a bug fix for one), and a slight cosmetic change to the external appearance of the machine. Note the original IIc ROM is identified as ROM revision "255". These revisions are detailed below.

Serial port timing fix

The original Apple IIc motherboard (those manufactured between April and November 1984) derived the timing for its two serial ports through a 74LS161 TTL logic chip. It was later found that this method's timing was 3% slower than the minimum specification requirement and caused certain modems and printers, which operated at 1200 bits per second (baud) or faster, to not function with the Apple IIc. It had no ill effect on serial devices that operated slower however (e.g. 300 baud modem). The solution was primarily to replace the TTL chip with an oscillator in the manufacturing process. Apple dealers at the time would swap effected motherboards, free of charge, to users who could prove they had an incompatible serial device.

UniDisk 3.5 support (ROM revision '0')

This update, introduced November 1985, came in the form of a new ROM firmware, which doubled in size from 16K to 32K. The main new feature of this ROM was the ability to support "intelligent" devices such as Apple's UniDisk 3.5 (800K) floppy drive, in addition to an external 5.25. A new self-test diagnostic was provided for testing built-in RAM and other signs of logic faults. The Mini-Assembler, absent since the days of the Apple II Plus, made a return, and new Monitor "Step" and "Trace" commands were added as well. Of interesting note, this ROM added rudimentary support hooks for an external AppleTalk networking device that had yet to be developed, as noted by the "APPLETALK OFFLINE" message when attempting to boot virtual slot 7. The IIc had no built-in networking capabilities however, and the external device was never released. The upgrade consisted of a single chip swap (and a trivial motherboard modification), which Apple provided free only to persons who purchased a UniDisk 3.5 drive. A small sticker with an icon of a 3½" floppy diskette was placed next to the existing 5¼" diskette icon above the floppy drive port, to indicate the machine had been upgraded.

The Memory Expansion IIc (ROM revision '3')

Introduced in September 1986, along side the Apple IIGS, this model introduced a new motherboard, new keyboard and new color scheme. The original Apple IIc had no expansion options, requiring third party cards to perform hardware tricks by removing the CPU and MMU chips and squeezing a special board into these sockets, which then used bank switching to expand RAM (much like the Apple IIe's auxiliary slot). The new motherboard added a 34-pin socket for directly plugging in memory cards, no longer requiring trickery, and could address up to 1 megabyte using Slinky-type memory cards. The onboard chip count had been reduced from sixteen memory chips (64Kx1) to four (64Kx4). The new firmware removed any code for the cancelled AppleTalk networking device, replacing it with support for memory cards (which caused some shuffling: Memory now lived in virtual slot 4, the Mouse moved to slot 7; bumping out the future AppleTalk support). The new keyboard did away with the rubber anti-spill mat and offered generally more tactile and responsive keys that felt more "clicky". At the same time the color of the keyboard, floppy drive latch and powersupply cords changed from beige to light grey, to match the new Platinum color scheme of the Apple IIGS. The case remained snow white however. Generally only then-current purchasers of the Apple IIc received this new model, however owners of previous model IIc's were entitled to a free motherboard upgrade if they purchased one of Apple's IIc memory expansion boards (they did not receive the new keyboard or the cosmetic changes however).

The Memory Expansion IIc, fix (ROM revision '4')

In January 1988 a new ROM firmware update was issued, solely to address bug issues in the new memory expandable IIc. Changes included better detection of installed RAM chips, correction of a problem when using the serial modem port in terminal-mode, and finally a bug fix for keyboard buffering. The ROM upgrade was available free of charge only to owners of the memory expansion IIc. This was the final change to the Apple IIc until a new Apple II model, the Apple IIc Plus, replaced it.

International versions

Like the Apple IIe before it, the Apple IIc keyboard differed depending on what region of the world it was sold in. Sometimes the differences were very minor, such as extra local language characters and symbols printed on certain keycaps (e.g. French accented characters on Canadian IIc such as "á", "é", "ç", etc, or the British Pound "£" symbol on the UK IIc) while other times the layout and shape of keys greatly differed (e.g. European IIc). In order to access the local character set, the "Keyboard" switch above the keyboard (used for switching between QWERTY and DVORAK layouts on US models; a feature not available in international IIc's) was depressed, which would instantly switch text video from the US character set to the local set. In some countries these localized IIc's also supported 50 Hz PAL video and the different 110/220 volt power of that region by means of a different external powersupply--made simplified since the IIc had an internal 12 volt power converter. The international versions removed any English wording printed on the case (specifically the "keyboard" toggle switch, "Power" and "Disk Use" drive activity labels) with graphical icon symbols that could be universally understood.

Add-on accessories

Portability enhancements

At the time of the Apple IIc's release, Apple announced an optional black and white (1-bit) LCD screen designed specifically for the machine called the Apple Flat Panel Display. While it was welcomed as a means of making the IIc more portable it did not integrate well as a portable solution, not attaching in a secure or permanent manner, and not able to fold-over face down. Instead it sat atop the machine (temporarily wedging its support stand inside the top vertical grooves of the case) and connected via ribbon cable to a somewhat bulky rear port connector. Its main shortcoming was it suffered from a very poor contrast and no backlighting, making it very difficult to view. The display itself had an odd aspect ratio as well, making graphics look vertically squashed. A third party company would later introduced a work-alike LCD screen called the C-Vue, which looked and functioned very much like Apple's product, albeit with a reportedly slight improvement in viewability. Even so it too suffered from an overall poor visibility, as like the Apple display had no backlight or illumination and overall a very low contrast, making both products nearly impossible to use without a strong external light source. Consequently both sold poorly and had a very short market life span, making these displays fairly uncommon (and as a result, extremely rare today).

Third parties also offered external rechargeable battery units for the Apple IIc (e.g. Prairie Pack) with up to 8 hours per charge or longer. Although they aided in making the machine more of a true portable, they were nonetheless bulky and heavy, and added more pieces that would have to be carried. Adapter cables were sold as well that allowed the Apple IIc to plug into and power off of an automobile's DC power cigarette lighter.

To help transport the Apple IIc and its accessory pieces around, Apple sold a nylon carrying case with shoulder strap that had a compartment for the computer, its external powersupply and cables. It had enough room to squeeze in one of the above mentioned LCD display units inside. The case was grey in color with a stitched on Apple logo in the upper left corner. Expanding capabilities

While the Apple IIc had many built-in features to offer, many users wanted to extend the machine's capabilities beyond what Apple provided. It proved difficult since the IIc was a closed system that initially was designed with no expansion capabilities, however many companies figured out ingenious ways of squeezing enhancements inside the tiny case. Real-time clocks, memory expansion and coprocessor were popular, and some companies even managed to combine all three into a single add-on board. Typically, in order to add these options, key chips on the motherboard were pulled, moved onto the expansion board offering the new features, and then placed into the empty sockets. While sometimes a tight squeeze, this trickery worked quite well, and most importantly of all offered users a way to expand memory--something Apple did not themselves support until the Memory Expansion IIc model was introduced.

Some companies devised a method for squeezing in an entire CPU accelerator product, by means of placing all the specialized circuitry (i.e. cache and logic) into one tall chip that outright replaced the 40-pin 65C02 microprocessor, speeding up the machine from 4-10 MHz. Notably the Zip Chip and Rocket Chip.

Although the IIc lacked a SCSI or IDE interface, external hardrives were produced that connected through the floppy SmartPort (e.g. ProApp, Chinook, C-Drive) providing true mass storage. However they were relatively slow due to the nature of how data was transferred through this interface, designed primarily for floppy drives. Even add-on speech and music synthesis products were made available, by means of external devices that plugged into the IIc's serial ports. Two such popular devices were the Mockingboard-D and Echo IIc.

General Accessories

For those wishing to use the Apple IIc as a standard desktop machine, Apple sold an optional small 9" monochrome CRT display and stand or 14" color composite monitor. A mouse was another popular add-on, especially since it required no interface card and simply plugged directly into back of the machine (MousePaint, a clone of the popular MacPaint, shipped with the IIc's mouse). An external 5.25 floppy drive, matching the style of the IIc, was also made available. Later 3.5 floppy storage became an option with the "intelligent" UniDisk 3.5 which contained its own miniature computer inside (CPU, RAM, firmware) to overcome the issue of using a high-speed floppy drive on a 1 MHz machine.

External links

A2Central.com – Apple II news and downloads
comp.sys.apple2 – (Usenet newsgroup) – most active free Apple II user forum
Steven Weyhrich's Apple II History
Dmoz.org - Apple II
Apple II expansion cards
Applefritter has an Apple II forum
PCB pictures of the Apple II
Apple2clones has information on Apple II clones

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