MACHINE REFERENCE

Apple IIc

Name: Apple IIc
Brand: Apple Computer, Inc., Cupertino, California, USA

The Apple IIc was Apple’s compact Apple II, launched in April 1984 at US$1,295 with 128 KB, a built-in floppy drive and a handle, and no expansion slots at all.

Why it matters

The IIc is an Apple IIe folded into a case with a handle, and the engineering deserves respect. Apple fitted 128 KB of RAM, a floppy drive, two serial ports and double hi-res graphics into a sealed shell that fits a briefcase, and designed it to run in ambient temperatures up to 40°C, with heat from the drive helping to draw air through the vents. It also introduced the Snow White design language and the off-white Fog colour. The commercial side was less tidy. Apple aimed for a $995 price and landed on $1,295, and the machine that looked portable still needed a mains brick and a separate monitor, with no battery and no screen. Apple predicted 100,000 sales a month and averaged about 100,000 a year, although first-year figures of 400,000 also circulate. Early boards had a serial timing fault that broke some 1200-baud modems. It ran most Apple II software, but with no slots it could not take the cards that made the IIe so adaptable.

What to check before you buy

Check the power brick and the internal converter. The IIc takes 15 V DC into an internal converter, and an Apple II forum poster calls the supply the most common fault in these machines. The converter's case is welded shut, so a recap means levering it out.
Boot a disk and listen to the drive. Frozen oil in the head rails, bearings and motor pulley, and a dead write-protect LED, are the usual reasons for a drive that spins but will not read. Test with a known-good disk.
Press every key. The original keyboard has a spill guard and a dampener layer that disintegrate with age, and a parts seller says the early switches fail with age too. Check the key feel and that nothing is dead or stuck.
Find out which revision it is. The original ROM has no self-test and the early boards have the slow serial timing; later models have 32 KB of ROM, UniDisk 3.5 support and the Memory Expansion card connector. Listings rarely say which.
Check what is included. A Disk IIc, mouse, monitor and original brick are all separate purchases, and the IIc has no slots, so missing accessories cannot be replaced with cards. Ask for the 15 V brick and its DIN-7 plug in the photos.

Photo: Emiliano Russo, Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Released

1984

RAM

128 KB built in. The original model could not be expanded; from the Memory Expansion IIc revision (September 1986) a 34-pin memory card connector allowed expansion towards 1 MB (Wikipedia gives 1 MB in the text and 1.125 MB in the infobox)

CPU

WDC/Rockwell 65C02 at 1.023 MHz (Wikipedia). Carleton University lists 1.4 MHz, which looks like an error; every other source gives about 1 MHz

Launch price

US$1,295 (Wikipedia, Westport Tech Museum, Carleton); oldcomputers.net rounds it to $1,300. apple2history.org says Apple aimed for $995 but could not meet that cost. A UK launch price was not found in any source read for this entry

Manufacturer

Apple Computer, Inc., Cupertino, California, USA

Form factor

Compact all-in-one keyboard computer with a built-in carrying handle that doubles as a tilt stand. Carleton University gives 2.5 x 12 x 11.5 inches (about 6.4 x 30.5 x 29.2 cm) and 7.5 lb (3.4 kg); apple2history.org says the case was about 11 by 12 inches, sized to fit a briefcase. Off-white ‘Fog’ case in Apple’s Snow White design language, styled by Hartmut Esslinger (Wikipedia). Sealed case with no expansion slots

CPU

WDC/Rockwell 65C02 at 1.023 MHz (Wikipedia). Carleton University lists 1.4 MHz, which looks like an error; every other source gives about 1 MHz

Chipset

Apple IWM (Integrated Woz Machine) for the floppy drive, two 6551 ACIA chips for the serial ports, and Apple custom logic that made the machine look to software like an Apple IIe with a Super Serial Card in slots 1 and 2, an 80-column card in slot 3, a mouse in slot 4 and a Disk II in slot 6 (apple2history.org)

RAM

ROM

16 KB in the original; 32 KB from the November 1985 update that added UniDisk 3.5 support, a self-test and a mini-assembler (Wikipedia). Computing History and Carleton list 32 KB without saying which revision

Graphics

40 and 80 column text, 24 lines. Low-res 40 x 48 (16 colours), high-res 280 x 192 (6 colours), double low-res 80 x 48 (16 colours) and double high-res 560 x 192 (16 colours, effectively 140 x 192 in colour) (Wikipedia). NTSC composite output on an RCA socket, plus a video expansion port for the flat panel display and RGB adapters

Audio

1-bit speaker with a manual volume dial and a 3.5 mm mono headphone/external speaker jack (Wikipedia)

Storage

Built-in slim 5.25-inch floppy drive, 140 KB, single-sided. A second Disk IIc drive ($329 at launch, apple2history.org) plugs into the D-19 floppy port. 3.5-inch UniDisk drives were supported from the November 1985 ROM

Ports

Joystick/mouse (DE-9); printer and modem serial ports (DIN-5, two); video expansion (D-15); floppy SmartPort (D-19); 15 V DC power input (DIN-7); NTSC composite video (RCA); audio out (3.5 mm) (Wikipedia). Carleton counts the same set. No expansion slots; no internal modem

Apple DOS 3.3 and ProDOS, with Applesoft BASIC and Integer BASIC in ROM and a mini-assembler (from the 1985 ROM). Apple said it ran 90 to 95 percent of its roughly 10,000 Apple II titles, though copy-protected software caused many failures (Wikipedia). The keyboard could switch between QWERTY and Dvorak with a button (apple2history.org)

PSU

External 15 V DC power brick (nicknamed the brick on a leash) feeding an internal converter that makes the 12 V and 5 V rails (Wikipedia). A forum teardown identifies the internal converter as an Astec AA7341B, Apple part 699-0230. Carleton University gives 18 W. A battery can be connected to the DC input

Units sold

Disputed. Wikipedia’s infobox gives 380,000 to 420,000 sold in total (385,000 to 430,000 shipped), with Apple having predicted 100,000 a month and averaging about 100,000 a year over four years. oldcomputers.net and Carleton University both say about 400,000 in the first year, and Wikipedia cites Paul Kunkel’s AppleDesign for more than 400,000 in the first year, mostly with a monitor. These cannot all be right, so treat any single figure as unconfirmed. On launch day dealers ordered more than 52,000 units (oldcomputers.net, Carleton); apple2history.org says 50,000 orders in just over seven hours

Successors

Apple IIc Plus, launched 16 September 1988 at US$675: 4 MHz 65C02 using a Zip Technologies-style accelerator, built-in 3.5-inch 800 KB drive, internal power supply, discontinued November 1990 (Wikipedia). The Apple IIGS (1986) was the other Apple II line machine of the period

Internal power converter and its electrolytic capacitors

The IIc takes 15 V from an external brick into an internal converter, identified in one teardown as an Astec AA7341B (Apple part 699-0230). It holds eight electrolytic capacitors that the author lists for replacement, and its metal casing is described as welded shut, so it has to be levered out, not unscrewed. The same author found no leaks in his own unit and says a recap may not yet be needed. An Apple II forum poster adds that the supply is the most common fault in old Apple machines, ahead of motherboard chips.
Disassembling and recapping the Apple IIc internal power converter (Tinker Different) →
Drive that spins but will not read, or reports a covered write-protect notch

In a thread on IIc drive trouble the symptoms were a drive that lit up but loaded nothing, and AppleWorks reporting a covered write-protect notch. The causes given were a dirty head, label residue or a dead LED in the write-protect sensor, and mechanical wear described as oxidation and frozen oil in the head rails, bearings and motor pulley. The suggested fix is cleaning and re-oiling the rails and bearings, then checking drive speed by formatting under ProDOS.
Apple IIc disk drive trouble (Applefritter) →
Slow serial timing on early boards

Boards made before December 1984 had serial timing about 2.9 percent slow, outside the EIA tolerance of 2 percent, which stopped some third-party modems and printers working at 1200 baud or faster. Apple swapped the affected motherboards for users who could show they needed it. The original ROM also lacked a self-test and XON/XOFF serial flow control.
Apple IIc (Wikipedia) →

1984 On 24 April Apple launches the IIc at the Apple II Forever event in San Francisco at US$1,295, having aimed for $995; dealers order more than 52,000 units on the first day
1984 Boards made before December carry a serial timing fault that is about 2.9 percent slow, and Apple swaps motherboards for owners whose 1200-baud modems and printers will not work
1985 A revised ROM from November adds UniDisk 3.5 support, a self-test and a mini-assembler. The Apple Flat Panel Display, which has no backlight, is among the year's accessories
1986 The Memory Expansion IIc appears in September with a new logic board, a 34-pin memory card connector and a keyboard without the anti-spill mat
1988 The original line ends in August, and the Apple IIc Plus arrives on 16 September with a 4 MHz processor and a built-in 3.5-inch drive at US$675

BUYING NOW

Roughly £150-£250 / $150-$300 for a working machine. Search results showed a used IIc sold at £245 in the UK in August 2025 and one at $250 in the US the same month, with older forum posts talking about $150 to $250 for a computer and monitor. These are search snippets, not confirmed sale records. Low confidence

Bundles with the original power brick, mouse, monitor or box sit at the top of the range. Untested machines are cheaper. Check the power brick, the drive and the keyboard first, and be aware that several revisions exist (the original ROM, the 1985 UniDisk ROM and the 1986 Memory Expansion model)