On this day in 1980, Apple introduced its newly designed-by-committee Apple III personal computer at the National Computer Conference in Anaheim, CA. Later that day, the conference attendees were loaded into double-decker buses and taken over to Disneyland, which Apple had rented for half the day at a cost of $42,000, to continue the celebration.
The good times didn’t last long though, as the numerous design flaws in the Cupertino company’s first business computer were quickly exposed. The III’s sordid history has been well documented, and there’s little reason to rehash it all here. I just wanted to take a moment to remind folks that for everything that was initially wrong with the III, the later model and the redesigned III+ were excellent machines that easily outperformed the competition from IBM.
Perhaps I’ll send a short email to Steve Jobs reminding him of this milestone. I bet he’d like that.
* Update: There are of course many great photos of Apple-themed birthday cakes floating around the ‘nets but shockingly, not a single Apple III cake. Hmmm. I wonder if Cakes by Karen could whip up something…