June 5, 1977: From a Little Apple a Mighty Industry Grows

1977: The Apple II, the world's first "practical" personal computer, goes on sale.

The Apple II is the computer that made Apple a driving force in a new industry. The company's original computer bore little resemblance to what we would now call a PC, but that all changed with the appearance of its successor, the Apple II.

Featuring an integrated keyboard, built-in BASIC programming languages, expandable memory, a monitor capable of color graphics, a sound card and expansion slots, the Apple II resembles today's modern desktops in the way a '38 Plymouth resembles a Cadillac Escalade. Cruder, perhaps, with fewer bells and whistles, but a smoothly functioning machine nevertheless.

When Apple dominated the education market, it was largely the Apple II that filled classrooms around the United States, indeed around the world. Some of these machines remain in use today.

The Apple II remains one of the most successful personal computers ever built and, in fact, remained in production until October 1993, when the Macintosh finally put it out to pasture. In all its iterations, around 6 million of these puppies rolled off the assembly line.

(Source: Apple2history.org)