Two models of the Apple 2 series. Apple ][ (read Apple 2) was the first, followed by ][+ then //e (read 2e).
Apple was the first computer of Steve Jobs (you know, the guy who made the iPhone, the eBook, etc.). Note that Steve Jobs was a kind of visionary but the guy who actually built the Apple was Steve Wozniak.
The Apple was popular because it was affordable and, for its time rather powerful. That was possible because Steve Wozniak (and others) figured out how to build a computer in the cheapest (and most clever way).
As many HN readers, I learned programming when I was very young, on an Apple 2.
It's worth adding that the Apple II was really thefirst home computer, soon followed by others from Commodore and Radio Shack. There were other microcomputers, but they weren't aimed at a casual home market. The Apple II was the first personal computer that came "ready to use"... you just needed to connect a screen (which could be a regular Television of the time), plug it in, turn it on, and start programming it in Basic! There was no storage device included, but the Basic interpreter was in ROM, and gave you a prompt (kind of like a REPL) when you turned on the computer.
Commodore Pet: introduced in January 1977 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago. What was shown had many differences from what eventually shipped, but Commodore started accepting orders. They only shipped 500 machines by the end of the year and it is hard to find out when the first ones actually went out.
Apple II: introduced on April 17, 1977 at the West Coast Computer Faire. It went on sale on June 5.
TRS-80: introduced on August 3, 1977 at a press conference at the Warwick Hotel in New York and was available for sale.
Radio Shack/Tandy and Commodore were big companies. They were later joined by Atari, Texas Instruments and eventually IBM.
The other players in the personal computing market back then were self financed (MITS, IMSAI, Ohio Scientific, Processor Technology, Cromenco, Northstar, Southwest Technical Products Corporation, Altos and so many others).
Apple stood apart as a venture capital backed startup. We later got Compaq and others but by that time none of the self financed companies were around anymore.
Apple is remembered as the number one in personal computing until the IBM PC came along. In terms of revenue that is true, but in terms of units shipped the much cheaper TRS-80 and the Pet dominated the late 1970s.
Thanks a lot for your thorough answer! I actually know about Apple 2 but had no idea about the two models and their naming scheme and was really curious what this was about
Models[edit]. See also: Timeline of computing. Early II-series models were usually designated "Apple ]["; later ...
Google does a bit worse for Apple //e, but the top item in “People also ask” is “What is Apple E”, with answer “The Apple IIe (styled as Apple //e) is the third model in the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer. The e in the name stands for enhanced, referring to the fact that several popular features were now built-in that were formerly only available as upgrades or add-ons in earlier models.”, picked from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIe
DuckDuckGo is weird. Top results are useless for ‘Apple ][’ https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Apple+%5D%5B but fine for ‘Apple //e’ https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Apple+%2F%2Fe (the first one is the correct Wikipedia article — “The Apple IIe (styled as Apple //e) is the third model in the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer”).
I have an Apple II plus original reference manual here, and it uses “Apple ][“ (brackets) only on the cover. In the book text, it uses “Apple II” (Roman numeral) throughout.
People can be weird about this sort of thing, especially with Apple. I remember when the iPhone XR came out some people would insist on always writing "iPhone Xʀ", for example.
There is also LegacyClonk project which improves the original Clonk Rage. I myself don't enjoy OpenClonk at all even though I've spent probably over thousand hours with clonk starting from Clonk Planet
