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Apple Adapters
The Apple II (sometimes written as Apple ][e, and the IIGS and IIc Plus were rendered in small caps. The Apple ///, IIc, and later IIe models used slashes: ///, //c and //e. more...
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There have been some errors in the Apple II's name due to the numerous variations and forms on the "II".
Life after death
Today, emulators for various Apple II models are available to run Apple II software on the Mac OS/Mac OS X, Linux, Microsoft Windows, and other operating systems. Numerous disk images of Apple II software are available free over the Internet for use with these emulators. However, many emulators cannot run software on copy-protected media, or can run only software employing fairly simple protection schemes, unless somebody "cracks" (removes the copy restrictions from) the software. Cracked software was widely pirated in the Apple II's heyday (with commercial cracking software such as the popular "Copy II+" program being sold in stores with the purpose of "creating legitimate back-ups" of protected software), and some of it is still available if you know where to look, although this is of questionable legality. For those who prefer to obtain their old software on the up-and-up, the Lost Classics Project had as its goal convincing copyright holders of classic Apple II software to officially allow unrestricted free distribution of their software and has "freed" a number of programs.
One unusual homage to the Apple II is an XScreenSaver "hack" named bsod. The bsod screensaver duplicates the appearance of computer crash screens for various operating systems (including the Windows Blue Screen of Death, after which it is named). In the case of the Apple II, the screensaver actually emulates the CRT display typically used with the computer, so the screen will appear to twitch as text blocks turn on and off, a common quirk of analog NTSC displays. Another module called "Apple2" shows a working Apple II being used to type and run three different programs in Applesoft BASIC, also with glitch-complete CRT emulation and even typos (or "syntax errors"), though the error messages are displayed at edit time (like Integer BASIC) instead of at run time (like Applesoft BASIC).
Industry impact
The Apple II series of computers had an enormous impact on the technology industry and on everyday life. The Apple II was the first computer many people ever saw, and its price was within the reach of many middle-class families. Its popularity bootstrapped the entire computer game and educational software markets and began the boom in the word processor and computer printer markets. The first microcomputer "killer app" for business was VisiCalc, the earliest spreadsheet, and it ran first on the Apple II; many businesses bought Apple IIs just to run VisiCalc, because it was the only spreadsheet available at the time. Apple's success in the home market inspired competitive home computers such as the VIC-20 (1980) and Commodore 64 (1982, with estimated sales between 17 and 25 million units). Through their significantly lower price point, these models introduced the computer to several tens of millions more home users, acquiring most of Apple's market share in the process.
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