Technology | Nostalgia | Life Story

Remembering the Apple II Series

Personal experiences of using the Apple II series of computers in the 1980s

This is an updated version of an article I wrote a few years ago for some of my now-defunct blogs.

Apple II Plus (Derived from photo by Bilby licensed under CC BY 3.0)

At School

Thanks to my high school computer studies class in the 1980s, the Apple II was the first computer that I ever used — and that makes it a very significant machine for me.

Author’s photo of his own high school computer studies book: Using the Apple II, September 1982

My high school year was the first one there to do computer studies. Initially, the class was not very well-equipped, and we had to make do with something like three Apple II machines.

I had nothing to compare it with, and it shaped my ideas about 8-bit microcomputers. Eventually, the class would get several BBC Micro computers as well.

In the early days, I remember playing Asteroids in an after-school activity and having to share the Apple II computer with a classmate. During lessons, we used them to learn BASIC programming.

Too Expensive for Home