Anatomy of an Icon: Inside the Apple IIc

Lacking a built-in display and a battery, the IIc doesn't qualify as a true portable by today's standards, but it is compact enough to set up and tear down easily. Its integrated peripherals (two serial ports, an 80-column card, a disk interface, and a built-in disk drive) made the engineering feat possible, a first for the Apple II. The IIc also introduced mouse input to the Apple II series, and heralded the coming of a new design language called "Snow White" for Apple's products. It's a marvelous and popular little machine: Apple II creator Steve Wozniak recently told me that the IIc is still his favorite computer of all time.