Apple Advert - 8th December 1983

This is a curious and apparently one-off advert from Apple positioning the Apple IIe as part of a Professional Home Computer Package. It's also possibly the only Apple advert that exhibited any sort of humour, featuring as it does a cartoon of an angry bank manager.

And like many Apple adverts it contains the usual Reality Distortion, claiming the Apple IIe is "the most popular of all professional computers", despite the fact that the IBM PC - launched two years before - was already matching it for sales by the beginning of 1982, and by this time was vastly exceeding it^[1].

The IIe - e for "enhanced" - rolled up several features like lower-case, 80-column display and full 64K of RAM, that had previously only been available as add-on cards for the earlier Apple II models.

Apple had originally planned for the Apple III to replace the ageing Apple II, however after the newer model was launched it failed to sell, and so the company was forced to resurrect the II. Ironically, the IIe became the longest-lived computer in Apple's history, surviving from its launch in 1983 until it was discontinued ten years later.

The Professional Home Computer Package contained the Apple IIe, a floppy disk drive, an introduction disk and a bunch of discount vouchers for software. It retailed for £998 "or less", which is about £4,240 in 2024. Or maybe less.

The package wasn't actually aimed at the "home computer" market though, as this market - at least as defined by Sinclair Spectrums and Commodore VIC-20s - was something Apple had no interest in and which it would eventually go to various lengths to distance itself from.

Instead, it's aiming at professionals who want the computer in their office at home as well. As such, it differs from the company's advert for the original Apple II from 1977, which points out that the Apple II can be plugged into a television and can even run games like Pong.

It was this fundamental idea - the computer at home should be the same as the one at work - that would coalesce around the IBM PC and its clones, eventually killing off the whole idea of a home computer as a separate appliance.

Meanwhile, the advertised price of £998 is almost exactly the same face-value price as the original Apple II when it was launched in the UK, although £998 in 1983 would be £4,240 in 2024 whilst 1978's £995 is more like £7,450, so it's nearly half the price in real terms - and the newer version also includes a floppy disk.

The IIe's price actually compares quite well to contemporary PCs like Olivetti's M20, which cost £2,695, or £11,400 in 2024. However, the Apple II was derived from a 1977 design and was running a 1975-designed 8-bit CPU with 64K RAM, whilst the Olivetti ran a 16-bit 8086 and a 16-bit Zilog Z8000, with a minimum of 128K.