The IIc holds a special place in my heart as the first computer I ever bought new having previously owned a secondhand Apple II EuroPlus. This computer along with AppleWorks saw me through four years of university churning out endless essays and my first two years of high school teaching churning out endless worksheets and science theory tests.
It was also the computer that gave me the first experience of an online community when I was given a discarded 1200/75 modem. What an adventurer that was. My Dad’s workplace was throwing out an Avtek 1200/75 modem in favour of a new 2400/1200 model that was being used on their DEC PDP11. Of course this meant there was no serial cable and no documentation so I was left to my own devices.
Thankfully I was a member of the Sydney Apple Users Group and their Apple II sysop Cameron Brawn was very helpful in providing me with the pinouts for a DIN-8 to DB-25 serial cable that should work with a IIc. I still have the pleasure of being acquainted with Cameron to this day.
Luckily I had taken an electronics class at high school and knew how to use a soldering iron. After much trial, error and finger burns I had a very basic functioning serial cable. Then I needed software to connect to the user group BBS. Beagle Bros’ communications package Point-to-Point had only just been released I figured I would try it out. Trying to find genuine boxed Apple II software in Australia in the mid 80s was a challenge. I managed to track down the Beagle Bros distributor in Australia, Dataflow, and managed to speak to the product manager for Education software, Connie McManus. Dataflow considered all Apple II software educational at the time. She gladly sold me the first copy of Point-to-Point into Australia as she didn’t think anyone knew what it was let alone wanted to buy it. This started manyy years of BBSing before the internet came along.
As fate would have it Connie and I would cross paths with each other many times over the years in my various careers. I would become a close colleague of her husband Steve as he was the Asia Pacific Manager for Claris when I was managing Apple Developer Relations for Asia Pacific. Most recently we live near each other and are both members of the same boating club.
The Apple IIc can certainly be credited with getting me into the computer industry and more specifically into the Apple Computer community in Australia. This lead to a job selling Apple computers to schools for a reseller, eventually managing K-12 sales nationally for Apple and then most recently 20 years managing Apple Worldwide Developer Relations group in Asia Pacific. All because of one little computer and a bodged together serial cable.
I am writing this on my Apple IIc now with AppleWorks 2.1, saved as an ASCII text file, saved to an image on a Floppy EMU, transferred to a modern Mac via the Virtual II emulator and then copied and pasted into WordPress.