Monthly Archives: December 2014

Apple III and III Plus differences

Last night, I decided it would be a good idea to move a 512K memory board from a 5V Apple /// that has become increasingly flaky over the past few month, to a III Plus. While the effort was ultimately unsuccessful (more on that in a later post), the exercise gave me the opportunity to note some differences between the two boards. I took some pictures. Here they are.

Clock/Calendar Chip and Battery

Of course, we all know the story of the bad batch of clock chips Apple bought from National Semiconductor.  It seems to be one of the few problems commonly associated with the /// for which Apple isn’t blamed.  When end users and dealers began receiving their new ///s in late 1980, one of the first things they noticed was that the inbuilt clock wasn’t functioning normally. Sometimes, it would speed up randomly; other times, it failed to roll over properly and continued to count up.  If you ever wondered what thirty-three o’clock looked like, you could ask your Apple ///.

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Quark Word Juggler protection

Quinn’s comments on my previous post about the downfall of Quark, Inc. pointed out the need for me to take a better picture of the Word Juggler dongle.  So here you go.

Quark Word Juggler dongle

In addition to providing hardware-based DRM for the software, the dongle for Quark Word Juggler also allowed users to create powerful custom keyboard macros.

Also, here’s a shot of the custom keycaps you got when you bought Word Juggler.  These are not stickers that you peeled off a sheet and applied yourself.  Quark shipped actual plastic keycap replacements for your Apple IIe keyboard.

Quark's custom keycaps for Word Juggler functions.

Quark’s custom keycaps for Word Juggler functions.

Two-page Word Juggler ad from a November 1983 issue of InfoWorld.

Word Juggler ad page 1

Word Juggler ad page 2