Apple III Owner's Guide
The Apple III Owner's Guide (Apple Computer, Inc., 1981) is Apple's own guide for the Apple III, written for SOS 1.1. Appendix E, "System Specifications", is the published specification for the machine, and Appendix C gives the input/output port specifications.
What is in it
[edit | edit source]- Size 17.5 in (44.45 cm) wide, 18.2 in (46.23 cm) deep, 4.8 in (12.19 cm) tall; cast aluminium base with a moulded plastic cover; weight 26 lb (11.8 kg).
- Processor "based on the 6502B microprocessor, with extended addressing capability"; clock 2 MHz peak, 1.4 MHz average.
- Main memory 128K of dynamic RAM. ROM memory: 4K, for initialisation and diagnostics - SOS and the languages load from disk.
- Power supply: high-voltage switching type, +5, −5, +12, −12 volts; 100 watts maximum, 107 to 132 volts, 60 Hz.
- Ambient temperature 15 to 35 °C, "critical factor is deformation temperature of diskette cases".
- Three text modes (40×24 and 80×24 black-and-white, 40×24 in 16 colours) and four graphics modes (280×192 black-and-white, 280×192 in 16 colours, 140×192 full 16 colour, 560×192 black-and-white).
- Video: an RCA phono connector carrying black-and-white composite only, and a DB-15 carrying black-and-white composite, colour composite, RGB, composite sync and the four supply rails. Colour signals appear as a 16-level grey scale on the black-and-white outputs.
- Audio: built-in 2-inch speaker and a miniature phone-tip jack, with three audio generators - a 64-level 6-bit DAC port, a one-bit square-wave generator and a fixed-frequency beep - producing tones from 31 to 5090 Hz.
- One RS-232-C DB-25 female serial connector; two DB-9 joystick connectors; one DB-9 shared with the first joystick for the Silentype printer; four 50-pin expansion slots inside the cabinet.
- Keyboard: 74 keys, 61 on the main keyboard and 13 on the numeric pad.
- Mass storage: one built-in 5.25-inch drive, 143,360 bytes per diskette, with up to three more on a daisy chain.
Download: Apple III Owners Guide 1981.pdf