Before the Mac

Released the same year as the Apple III, the Osborne 1 was the world's first commercially successful portable computer. At 24 pounds, "portable" was optimistic — but it proved the market existed.

Apple's first attempt at a serious business machine — and a cautionary tale about what happens when a CEO overrules the engineers. Over 14,000 were recalled at launch to fix chips that literally popped out of their sockets. Steve Wozniak's original design was deemed 'too cheap.' The result nearly killed the company.

Apple's proprietary floppy for the III. Used a novel single-sided format that was incompatible with the Apple II drives already in the field — customers couldn't easily migrate, and software vendors had to choose a side.

The dedicated display for the Apple III, released alongside it in 1980. Designed specifically for the III's text-heavy business use case with a green phosphor screen optimized for long viewing sessions.

Before Apple changed personal computing with the Macintosh, it conquered classrooms and homes with the Apple IIe. This was the mature form of the Apple II idea: cheaper, more capable, and built to last. While Lisa aimed high and failed commercially, the IIe became the dependable machine that kept Apple relevant long enough to reach the Mac era. Not revolutionary in the way the Macintosh was — but arguably just as important.