An Apple IIe in Every Kitchen by 2008
November 15th, 2007 by Benj Edwards
Last month I received the spiffy Apple IIe system you see above as part of a sizable donation to my computer collection (thanks Tom!). This particular IIe configuration hails from a high school in Ohio where it was used primarily as an AppleWorks machine in the mid-late 1980s.
After carefully peeling away decades of nasty, nasty sticky dirt and grime from the hardware, I naturally set it all up on my kitchen table (hence the ceramic duck, a must in every modern kitchen). Instead of splitting up the set for parts, I decided that it would be fun to keep it all together and preserve it as it was used in the school.
Much to the mixed delight/chagrin of my wife, I doodled on Deluxe Paint with the mouse and tried various games on disk every day for about three weeks while eating breakfast. Alas, after about a month in the culinary limelight, the Kitchen IIe’s novelty has finally begun to wear thin. It will soon move on to another table, but I plan to keep this “school system” together with all its original parts so it will remain a functional example of 1980s educational computing.
November 15th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Oh man, that is a nice setup. I recently picked up an old Apple II GS in my old middle school’s dumpster. I didn’t expect much, but when I cracked her open, I was more than a little surprised at the amount of upgrades it has.. I still want an older model apple II, though.
November 16th, 2007 at 4:43 am
You’re living a dream, Web II.0
Those black floppy drives are sexier than anything released later by Apple. All of my Apples a stocked (7 of them) in a closet, all waiting till I get a bigger house 🙂
November 16th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Yeah, that’s the most fun of getting old Apple IIs, Paul. It’s like opening a present every time to see what expansion cards are inside. 🙂 I’ve gotten some neat ones that way.
November 16th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
Our high school had an Apple IIe in the library back in the 80’s, and I remember having to reserve time on it, and having to take a basic computer literacy test to go near it. Other than that, the only kids I knew who had Apples had parents who were teachers.
November 17th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
I was one of those lucky kids who had not only teachers for parents but an Apple IIe at home. I remember the “e” stood for “Enhanced” and it certainly enhanced not only my basic computer skills but also my ability to play practical jokes on other kids in elementary school.
I would write a simple program at home that displayed my “school grades”, save it to floppy and then change the program once at an Apple workstation back at school. The kids that crowded around me as I pulled this elementary school stunt were absolutely in awe of me – and why not! I took endless satisfaction at being labeled a “computer genius” at age 10. This was right around the time movies like “War Games” were out and everyone thought if you could simply operate a computer you could change anything, anywhere, no matter how deeply we were stuck in the 80’s. Heck, if Ferris Bueller could change his grades with a computer than so could I!
The Apple IIe is still being put to work by my school teacher father who at age 60 will not get a new PC. “I’ve got one that works just fine already – and without the internet”, he says. However it is getting really tough to find ribbons(!) for that old Apple printer…
Long live the Apple IIe (Enhanced)!
November 19th, 2007 at 11:36 am
That’s a cool story, njohnson. I used to amaze kids at school with my knowledge of the Apple II as well, since I had an Apple II+ at home. Just being able to reset out of AppleWorks and get a BASIC prompt made me some kind of computer wizard in their eyes. I think I brought in my own disk of BASIC programs into my typing class one day. That was fun. 🙂
November 20th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
What was that program Apple had for schools? “Apples for Students” I think.
Thanks to that program, the only computers I used between the ages of 9 and 12 were Apple IIe’s.