Perhaps you’ve just drifted by and wonder what all the fuss is about. Why on earth is there a site like this dedicated to a computer which was discontinued many years ago? What? These people aren’t just collectors of historic machines, they actually use these old things? Why would they want to use a computer with a standard clock speed of 2.8MHz?
I think there are actually some very good reasons.
Firstly, it’s an education. There is so much you can learn from an Apple II. It will reveal to you how modern computers haven’t lived up to the promise of the past, by showing how much it can do with a small amount of processing power, RAM and storage. You will see that clock speed is certainly not a valid measure of a computer’s usefulness, in fact you will probably learn that software is vastly more important than hardware, in spite of the fact that that modern computer industry is driven by faster and faster hardware. There are many wonderful things to learn from it, and on it. Marvel at Wolfenstein 3D on the GS. Try to grasp how brilliant Karateka is at 1MHz. Create a HyperCard stack on the GS and shake your head when you see how much better the GS version is than the current Mac version, and it’s even free too.
Secondly, the Apple II doesn’t change. This means that what you learn about them is valid forever, and whatever you create for them will work as long as there are Apple IIs around. If you feel like writing a program for them, you don’t have to worry that a new version of the operating system will render your program non-functional or obsolete.
Last but not least, they’re fun. The IIGS has a very elegant operating system, and some of the best quality software ever written. Many things are a pleasure to do on it. Sure, they’re not going to work with the blinding speed of the latest machines, but most things work just as well on a GS as on a current machine. Sometimes, slower can be relaxing. You don’t have to feel that the computer is always one step ahead of you. If you happen to work on other systems all day, you can get away from them and play with something refreshingly simple and relaxing.
What I haven’t mentioned yet is the Apple II community. If you do decide to go and get that machine you saw at the swap meet for five dollars, there is a community of knowledgeable, interesting people online who would be more than happy to see you enjoy your Apple II, just as they do. We’ll tell you how to clean it up, where to get it some more RAM and a hard drive, and how to start doing some really amazing stuff with it. So what are you waiting for? Go get it!