In 1977, the year when Star Wars made its first impression on movie goers and the box office and Elvis bid the world farewell, the Apple II made its premier appearance in the stores.  The Apple II was different than any computer before it, because it was the first computer too already assembled.

     The Apple II was not only the first computer to come preassembled, it had many new features unknown to the computer world.  The Apple II came with a plastic case, which was painted in a beige and until 1998 beige was the only color computers come in.  Colored graphics, which by some to be the "holy grail in the industry", came built into the Apple II.  Sound and speakers was added for to get a better experience.  Memory, an important feature in a computer was now expandable, up to 64K could be added.   BASIC was coded on to the ROM so   programming could go on with more ease than ever before.  For all of these new feature plus two game paddles and demo cassette, the price should be though the roof,    Übut the computer turned out be one of the cheapest in the market, costing consumers only $1,298 (the monitor was not included).  Apple also released an add on disk drive in 1978.
     The Apple II was fast for a computer of its day with its CPU going 1 Mhz.  Its RAM started out at 4K and its ROM at 12K.  Production of the Apple II ended in 1980, when the Apple III hit the markets.  Many of the features that were but into the Apple II were thought of and designed after Steve Wozniak was playing around with the program he made for Atari called breakout.  In the game a ball bounces around the screen, Wozniak decided that the first the game should be put into BASIC, a computer language that he had written, so he burned some ROMs with certain BASIC programming codes to easily rewrite breakout.  Next he decided the breakout would be cooler if it had sound and would look better with paddles and if th   Üose paddles were in color.  Wozniak thus created the Apple II easiness to program, its color monitor, and its speakers.
     The Apple II had great affect on society in 1977.  The Apple II brought the power of computers into the hands of the individuals.  Small companies were able to make their businesses more efficient because they could use their Apple II’s to keep track of expenses, costumer list, etc.  When the Apple II was released elementary and secondary schools were able to get computers for their students, enhancing their education.
     The effects of the Apple II are seen in every computer to date, but we have the luxury of of choosing macintosh’s that are not beige, but in a nice variety of colors instead. The plastic cases have become more durable.   The monitor now has the option to have millions of colors, only a few more than the Apple II’s 6 colors.  The imac, the newest addition     to the Apple family (seen above in flower power) has a speed of 600 Mhz and has a starting memory of 64 MB (that's 65788 K more than the Apple II).  Have great sound features that allow people to listen to sounds from games to music on CDs.  Prices of the imac start at $899, the model above starts at $1199 (this model includes monitor), so prices have remained steady and affordable since the Apple II, despite the major advances since then.
     Credit for the Apple II design and programming goes to Steve Wozniak, he designed BASIC and made most of the changes to the Apple II, after the Apple I came out.  Wozniak designed both the Apple I and Apple II, he was able to make whatever changes he wanted, but he had no eye for the final product, its final look.   Ste    ve Jobs  had that eye for the final look, the look that would sell it.  He gave the Apple II a look that no computer had before, a look that would make it stand out to buyers.  Jobs did not want the consumers to see the computer and think they would have to put it together, so he made he designed the case so it had no visible screws or bolts.  The case also allowed easy access to the expansion slots, unlike other computer which stated "CAUTION! NO USER
SERVICEABLE PARTS INSIDE", leaving no place for expansion slots and doesn’t allow the computer memory to be increased.
 

Bibliography
http://www.hypermall.com/History/
http://www.apple-history.com/aII.html
http://apple2.org/
http://welcome.to/1977
http://www.apple.com
http://www.emulation.net

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