The new Apple III - More computer power on your desk-top

This would seem to be the "missing link" Apple computer, as the world and popular culture seems not to register anything about it, and Apple's own history seems to skip from the [=adve_012|Apple II] to the Lisa or the original [=creative_computing_1984-05_001a|Macintosh] of 1984 Superbowl advert fame. 

But here it is - the Apple that time forgot. Although it apparently only sold 65,000[source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_III], it did, at least briefly, feature in the Personal Computer News "Top Ten over £1,000", coming in at number 4 in the chart of September 1st 1983, even though at £2,780 ([[2780|1983]] in [[now]] money) it was the most expensive on the list[source: "Top Ten over £1,000", Personal Computer News, September 1 1983, p. 11]. 

It ran "SOS" (Sophisticated Operating System) on a 2MHz Synertek 6502A CPU and as such was a development of the Apple II, although officially it was always claimed that it was a "cousin" of the Apple II line. It was still an 8-bit machine in the era of 16-bit machines like IBM's 5150 - the IBM PC - which would soon sweep away almost every other machine around. 

In an interview quoted in May 1982's PCW, Steve Jobs expressed the opinion that:

~"people who are chasing 16 bits and more memory are in the wrong race; that software design is the key to the future"[source: Apple III Benchtest, Personal Computer World, May 1982, p. 117]. 

Perhaps its biggest failing was that, in Apple terms, it was frankly ugly. It was also not especially cheap, with the III retailing for £2,545 when it launched in 1982 - which is about [[2545|1982]] in [[now]] money - and which, despite the machine reviewing well, was thought to be just too expensive for the UK market. 

After it flopped, Apple was subsequently forced to refresh the ageing Apple II line with the [=ads_019|Apple IIe].