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Retrocomputing

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    I respectfully think that it’s a real stretch to say that, if the Apple III had more memory and failed, and then the Apple II got more memory and succeeded, that counts as the Apple III not really failing. You could possibly count the OS developed for the Apple III as the precursor to ProDOS for the Apple II (I don’t know the technical details of that), but I can't really think of much else that made it back to the Apple II product line. That seems to have abandoned the Apple III as a dead end and gone off in a different direction. Commented Mar 31, 2022 at 4:34
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    In contrast, the original Macintosh was a machine that had some serious flaws, but it became a successful product line whose direct descendants are still selling well, it introduced a number of innovations to the marketplace that every other home computer copied, and Apple has several times reintroduced its distinctive case and form factor because of the nostalgia people feel for it. The Lisa or Xerox Star introduced a lot of technologies that , in hindsight, we see as ubiquitous. The Apple III? Is not really like that. Commented Mar 31, 2022 at 4:46
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    @Davislor SOS is indeed a precursor to ProDOS - or better ProDOS a cut down SOS to fit (barely) the memory of an 48 KiB Apple II. And no, the Mac wasn't a success at all. It was a flop like the Apple III and Apple Lisa. It wasn't until the Mac II line that the Macintosh was able to generate some profit (not counting the investment) - it was until ca. 1989/1990 that the Apple II was the sole profitable line, carrying all other developments. This only changed with LC Macs. Commented Mar 31, 2022 at 4:47
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    @Raffzahn Okay, that’s something it can say Apple was able to salvage from the Apple III. Commented Mar 31, 2022 at 4:49