Apple III Owner's Guide
The Apple III Owner's Guide is Apple Computer's 1981 owner's manual for the Apple III, written for SOS 1.1. Apple product number A3L0001; the scan is 184 pages. Appendix E, "System Specifications", is Apple's published specification for the machine, and Appendix C gives the input/output port specifications.
Contents
[edit | edit source]From the guide's introduction and contents:
- Chapter 1, getting started: unpacking, plugging in, connecting the monitor, handling and inserting diskettes, the demonstration diskette, installing disk drives
- Chapter 2, standard procedures: startup, boot diskettes, turnkey systems, the console and keyboard
- Chapter 3, the operating system (SOS): devices, files and pathnames
- Chapter 4, the standard utility programs: backing up and formatting diskettes, configuring SOS for the hardware
- Chapter 5, the Filer
- Chapter 6, the machine itself: built-in devices and connecting external devices
- Appendices, including error messages (A), diskettes (B), port specifications (C) and system specifications (E); glossary and index
Figures it settles
[edit | edit source]From Appendix E and the SOS section:
- 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.
- 128K of dynamic RAM; 4K of ROM, for initialisation and diagnostics only. SOS supports a maximum of 512K of RAM.
- Power supply: high-voltage switching type, +5, −5, +12 and −12 V; 100 W maximum, 107 to 132 V, 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 in 16 colours, 560 × 192 black-and-white).
- Video: an RCA phono connector with black-and-white composite only, and a DB-15 with black-and-white composite, colour composite, RGB, composite sync and the four supply rails. Colour appears as a 16-level grey scale on the black-and-white outputs.
- Audio: a built-in 2-inch speaker and a miniature phone-tip jack; three audio generators (a 64-level 6-bit DAC, a one-bit square-wave generator and a fixed-frequency beep), with 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.
- Keyboard: 74 keys, 61 on the main keyboard and 13 on the numeric pad.
- One built-in 5.25-inch drive, 143,360 bytes per diskette, with up to three more on a daisy chain.
What this manual does not contain
[edit | edit source]No schematics, no service or take-apart procedures, and no power supply or board component values. Apple's service procedures are in File:Apple III and III Plus Technical Procedures.pdf, and the Astec AA11190 supply's component listing in Apple Astec Power Supplies Service Package.
Pages that cite this document
[edit | edit source]- Apple III: the specifications, the RCA and DB-15 video outputs, the audio generators and the temperature limit.
Download: Apple III Owners Guide 1981.pdf