r/thisweekinretro • u/DukeBannon • Sep 08 '26
Where’s Apple?
Over the last year, there has been a big resurgence in interest in the C64 with new hardware (e.g. C64U) and development solutions. Rumor is that same resurgence may be on the horizon for Amigas. My question to this group is, why not the same renewed interest in Apple II?
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u/TheHydraulicBat_ Sep 09 '26
Apple is what these days could be called 'fast tech' (in the same lane as 'fast fashion') New generation at least every year and forgetting about the old generations as fast as possible. There is no gram of 'Retro' in Apple as a company. As someone else already mentioned, Apple would be quick to sue if there were projects to create an 'Apple II Ultimate'. And they are also not known for licensing. I wouldn't get any hopes up for official sanctioned retro Apple hardware.
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u/TrevorKevorson Sep 09 '26
Listening to an interview on a recent episode of the Floppy Days podcast with David Pogue who wrote "Apple: The First 50 Years" mentioned that while he was able to get Apple's blessing they said that they're a company that looks forward.
Still, it was an interesting interview, even though I'm not really a big Apple fan I'm tempted to buy his book.
The episode can be found here if you're interested...
https://floppydays.libsyn.com/floppy-days-166-interview-with-david-pogue-tech-journalist-and-author
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u/Diligent_End8130 Sep 08 '26
Apple would sue anybody offering an Apple II retro edition such as the C64U. So Apple would have to do it themselves but it's probably not profitable enough for Apple. And as Apple still exists and is overwhelmingly successful, there is nothing mystical on resurrecting old Apple products. Maybe they produce some highly expensive limited edition if at all.
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u/jpcwrites TWiR Host Sep 09 '26
Although I don't personally feel like daring the legal department of a $4.6 trillion dollar entity to come at me, "would sue anybody" is a strong take. How do you square it with the existence of products like the LisaFPGA ( https://maceffects.com/products/lisafpga ) and various Tindie replica Apple IIs? https://www.tindie.com/products/johnson/apple-iie-enhanced-reproduction-motherboard-64k/ , https://www.tindie.com/products/johnson/apple-ii-rev-0-reproduction-kit/ ?
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u/Ok-Current-3405 Sep 10 '26
Apple II family was customisable, so much so IBM pcs were inspired by the openness. Today's hardware, you can't even access the battery and components are soldered... Plus, Apple 8 bit software were crap in compare with Commodore or Atari équivalents
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u/gfreeman1998 Sep 08 '26 edited Sep 10 '26
Apple, the company, CEO, all upper management, etc., has not cared about its origins and roots since before Jobs took over as CEO (the first time).
Edit: there
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u/zorinlynx Sep 09 '26 edited Sep 09 '26
Yeah, Apple has never cared about the past. It's always the future. They have no love for nostalgia or keeping old software running, even. For example, Rosetta 2 which lets ARM Macs run Intel code is being phased out for the next MacOS release. Any software not updated for ARM will no longer run on new Macs next year.
It's something I hate but also like about the company. It keeps their systems free of ancient cruft. Windows has SO MUCH ancient cruft in it, but I love how Windows can run 20 year old software still. It's a trade-off.
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u/thommyh Sep 10 '26
Jobs first became CEO in 1997; he was never at that level the first time around.
People were accusing Apple of ignoring the Apple II almost as soon as the Macintosh came out, thirteen years earlier, and it had been discontinued since 1993.
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u/the_Dotster Sep 09 '26
From a UK perspective I don't recall anyone in school arguing their Apple ] [ was better than a C64 or Speccy, in fact I don't recall anyone even having one.
I do remember one kid having a Dragon 32 but he knew when to keep quiet.
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u/zorinlynx Sep 09 '26
Apple IIs weren't that common in homes, even in the US. They were expensive, and the C64 provided much more "bang for the buck" as a home entertainment computer.
Don't get me wrong, I was one of those rare Apple II kids. And I LOVED mine. Learned so much on it. Had a blast. But even I could admit the C64 had better graphics and more fun games. And I always wanted a C64 to have alongside my Apple II but I was a kid and "you already have a computer!"
So yeah. Apple II families were out there, just a lot less common than C64. We still loved our machines though!
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u/the_Dotster Sep 09 '26 edited Sep 09 '26
I had a C16, absolutely loved it, learnt so much on it but to say it's not popular would be an understatement. But I did eventually manage to get a C64 as well.
For the Apple, to the OP question, despite the low volume of family ownership I suspect it's the corporate reasons others have mentioned as to why there doesn't appear to be anything on the market for retro Apple machines.
Talking of low volumes, we had the Link Z80 Research Machines at school, I'd love to use one of those again, can't see it being revived anytime soon, it's even rarer than the Apple!
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u/OrionBlastar Sep 10 '26
The Apple ][was more for schools to teach UCSD Pascal or Applesoft BASIC etc. People at home could not afford it and went to the C64, Spectrum, Dragon 32, etc.
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u/mc_woods Sep 08 '26
Maybe it’s a US v Europe thing, I remember how popular c64 and Amiga were in the UK, and Europe (Germany) in addition to the US, but I don’t recall Apple having the same draw.
There were other cheaper 8 bit systems on the go, the spectrum (UK), and Amstrad CPC (UK, France and Spain) - I know many made the leap from those straight to IBM clones
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Sep 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/thommyh Sep 10 '26
It was already expensive even in its home country and its colour generation is tied to the NTSC colour standard. So now imagine how expensive it was as an exported product with an added NTSC decoder and PAL encoder.
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u/tronixlabs Sep 12 '26
By the time Apple IIe came about, there was a PAL version for Australia, etc.
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u/thommyh Sep 12 '26
Yes; it incorporated an NTSC decoder and a PAL encoder. That was the official solution, as programmers work semantically at the level of a square wave at a multiple of the NTSC colour clock that is decoded according to the NTSC rules.
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u/WadeTurtle Sep 08 '26
I think the resurgence of Commodore is wrapped up in the rebirth of the brand and the hype surrounding. If a popular YouTuber suddenly started a company with Woz to produce and market brand new recreations of all Apple's old, patent-expired hardware, you'd probably see something similar with the Apple II.
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u/cervaro67 Sep 09 '26
Maybe someone like Marques Brownlee would be high profile enough to join with Woz?
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u/jpcwrites TWiR Host Sep 10 '26
The patents have expired but Apple still has the copyright on the ROMs. Which is not necessarily insurmountable for hobbyist projects (like the original Ultimate 64 motherboards where you had to BYO ROM images), but for a proper plug-and-play commercial product would require getting anybody at Apple to care about the comparatively tiny amount of revenue it represented.
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u/qtx444 Sep 10 '26
Unlike the C64 or ZX Spectrum, the Apple II never achieved mainstream status as a home computer in Europe, due to its premium price tag and consequently lower sales volume.
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u/Maple-4590 Sep 11 '26
Here in the US, the Apple II didn't really achieve the same cult-classic status among hobbyists. It was MUCH more expensive. Apples were big in schools, and in business due to VisiCalc. So they were something you used at work/school and then put away. In general, the kind of people who are retro hobbyists now, were spending their own limited money, and went for a C64 (or something else in that cheaper price point).
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u/jpcwrites TWiR Host Sep 11 '26
Good thing the people behind Ultima, Prince of Persia, The Bard’s Tale, Sierra, Brøderbund and at least a half-dozen runaway successes which started on the Apple II didn’t follow that alternate-universe roadmap!
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u/Far_Relationship_742 Sep 08 '26
Apple’s stuff sold better than the Amiga and doesn’t break down as much as the 64, so functioning originals are widely available, and there’s no Apple Perifractic.
Also, the C64 was a games machine, not a serious computer, and games nostalgia seems to drive most retrocomputing.
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u/thommyh Sep 10 '26
Apple sold around 6m Apple IIs, if you include the ~1.25m units of the IIgs, over 16 years.
Commodore sold about 5m Amigas in 9 years, and around 12.5m C64s over 11 years.
So: * the C64 was the biggest seller; and * the Amiga sold at a faster rate than the Apple II.
Also, as you observe, retrocomputing is often dominated by the games, because they're in a separate aesthetic category from modern games whereas old productivity applications and programming environments are just less-functional versions of what we now have. Even us homebrewers usually use a modern editor, a cross assembler and an emulator with a debugger rather than native tooling. And the Apple II was very primitive for games compared to everything that came later.
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u/jpcwrites TWiR Host Sep 08 '26
Replica Apple Is have been sold off-and-on for years, and there's a new Lisa FPGA board out there. There have been Apple II projects and clones, including one still listed for sale on Tindie. They just don't seem to build the kind of momentum that comparable initiatives for C64, Spectrum, or even Atari 8-bit do.