Following are some highlights of the major Apple II systems released in the United States:

1977: The Apple II initially included 4KB RAM, a four color (later six color) display, built-in Integer BASIC, two game paddles, and one demo cassette. It was also available pre-assembled or in kit form. The following year, the Disk II 5.25" floppy disk drive was introduced, giving the platform a considerable lead against its rivals.

1979: The Apple II+ included 48KB RAM, six-color display, and a new BASIC from Microsoft, which established critical base specifications for the computer line. It was also at this time that Apple allowed media equipment specialist Bell & Howell to make the only authorized clone, a black Apple II+ that had special audio/video ports and a case accessible only with a screwdriver. This special Apple II+ was targeted at schools, where Apple hoped to firmly establish their platform.

1980: The mostly incompatible and expensive Apple III business system was released, but failed to catch on.

1983: The Apple IIe, Apple's most successful II-series system, included 64KB RAM and the vital ability to display both upper and lowercase characters. It eventually shipped with both DOS 3.3 and the newer ProDOS. The last IIe variation, known as the Platinum because of the color of its case, included a numeric keypad and several minor enhancements, and was manufactured into the early 1990s. This same year, the $10,000 next-generation Apple Lisa business system was introduced, but was unsuccessful.

1984: The compact Apple IIc was introduced with 128KB RAM and a built-in 5.25" floppy drive. The IIc+ was introduced in 1988 with a 4 MHz (versus 1.4 MHz) processor, high-capacity RAM expansion option, and an 800KB 3.5" internal disk drive, with the same capacity as the Apple IIgs. The first Apple Macintosh was released the same year.

1986: Apple released the 16-bit Apple IIgs, the true backwards compatible successor to the original 8-bit II-series of computers. Although Apple was built on the back of the II-series, within a few years the Macintosh began to receive most of the company's attention and resources.

Despite the famous proclamation of "Apple II Forever" during a 1984 event to unveil the Apple IIc, "forever" ended about 10 years later when Apple committed themselves exclusively to the Macintosh. Nevertheless, for technology with roots as far back as 1976, the Apple II series of computers had an amazing run.