←back to thread

Why the Apple II Didn't Support Lowercase Letters (2020)

(www.vintagecomputing.com)
136 points colinbartlett | 1 comments | 10 May 25 21:15 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
Show context
ourmandave ◴[10 May 25 22:32 UTC] No.43949552[source]▶
Because you we're lucky to even get 40 columns (80 with an expansion card)?
replies(1): >>43949852 #
SoftTalker ◴[10 May 25 23:23 UTC] No.43949852[source]▶
80 columns would have been borderline unreadable on the NTSC televisions they were using as displays.
replies(2): >>43949902 #>>43951931 #
1. flomo ◴[11 May 25 06:53 UTC] No.43951931{3}[source]▶
Sure. As a practical matter, 90% of Apple II systems were plugged into a monochrome computer monitor which did 80 column text just fine, and the other ~9% had a fancy color monitor. Nobody* used an Apple II with a TV, except in maybe the very early days.

This is why you should ignore the specs, the Apple didn't really compete with Atari/Commodore/etc. It got crushed by the IBM PC.