Apple Beginnings

: The Answers"> The Answers Here are the answers and bonus information to boot. See how you did. The questions can be both difficult and tricky. But Im not sorry. If you get 7 answers correct, then you must be one of the first Apple employees and still work at the company. A score of 5 is very good and youve been using the Mac for at least a decade. A score of 3 correct answers shows that youre on the road to productivity and content creation with a Mac (or listening hard to that iPod). Apple Beginnings: Answers Question 1. What was the list price of the Apple I computer? Answer: $666.66 The advertisement said "Byte into an Apple." The semi-homebrew computer was the first from the team of Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. It was a bare board and came with 8KB of RAM (from 16 512-Byte chips soldered on the board), a built-in video terminal subsystem (you could connect it to a television instead of a teletype) and Apple Basic loaded on a cassette. Apple Computer and Apple Corps—the Beatles company that only exists to sue—have scrapped over the Apple brand over the past 25 years or so. The fight started up again in 2003 and appears to be heading to court over Apples success with the iPod music player and the online music store. Question 2. What was the operating system of the Apple III computer? Answer: C. The Apple Sophisticated Operating System The "Sophisticated " OS for the Apple III was pronounced "Applesauce" inside the company. Like many things associated with the troubled Apple III computer, the branding for the OS was troublesome, as SOS must fight the common association with Morse Codes S.O.S. distress call. From the I-did-not-know-that department: In addition to this year being Apples 30th anniversary, it is also the centennial anniversary of the standardization of the SOS distress call, which was decided at the second Berlin Radiotelegraphic Conference. Question 3. When did Apple discontinue the Apple II line? Answer: C. November 1993 Most people believe that the Macintosh quickly supplanted the Apple II computers. However, it took years for Mac sales to overtake the popular Apple lines, which had a very high profit margin (more than 50 percent) and a large installed base in the education market. In October 1988, Apple execs said that the company would begin to "phase out" the Apple II lines. But that transition took years. For example, in 1991, Apple offered a NuBus card for the Mac LC (low cost) with a IIe onboard. Finally, in late 1993, Apple dropped the Apple IIe off of its product rolls. The Apple II history site has an interesting story of the fabled "Mark Twain ROM 4" for the IIGS that tried to bring more Mac features over to the Apple platform. Of course, today, there is no dissonance between the Mac and Apple branding. "Apple" doesnt mean that old Apple IIe and software for the primary education market (well, it still does the latter but thats not a bad thing anymore). Apple is the iPod and digital content and cool stores. Bonus Question: The "two Steves" founded Apple Computer. What are their full names? Answer: Stephen Gary Wozniak and Steven Paul Jobs. Next Page: Young Macintosh Days: Answers.