Applied Engineering, headquartered in

Carrollton, TX Carrollton is a city in Dallas, Denton, and Collin counties in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 133,434, making it the 23rd-most populous city in Texas. History The area was first settled by Jared Ford i ...

, was a leading third-party hardware vendor for the

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...

series of computers from the early 1980s until the mid-1990s.

History

{{original research, section, date=September 2018 In its day, Applied Engineering built a solid reputation among Apple II owners for their innovation, excellent build quality, and generous warranty support. AE was quick to fill in gaps in the market for Apple II add-on boards and expansion options, often developing products for the Apple II line that neither Apple Computer nor other third-party vendors offered. By the early 1990s, as Apple Computer, Inc., began to withdraw support for the Apple II series and focus on the

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

line, the market for Apple II hardware and software began to wane. Many Apple II users began to migrate to other platforms, such as the Macintosh and

IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...

-compatibles. In an attempt to capitalize on its well-known brand name among previous Apple II owners, Applied Engineering began to market products for the Macintosh and

Commodore Commodore may refer to: Ranks * Commodore (rank), a naval rank ** Commodore (Royal Navy), in the United Kingdom ** Commodore (United States) ** Commodore (Canada) ** Commodore (Finland) ** Commodore (Germany) or ''Kommodore'' * Air commodore ...

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

lines. However, because of stiff competition in already active markets, and AE's late entries, Applied Engineering could not duplicate the success it had experienced with the Apple II. Around the same time, cost-cutting measures were implemented, such as shortening warranty periods, charging for technical support (via a 1-900 number) and a using inferior parts, turning off loyal and long-time customers. Eventually dwindling Apple II sales and a failure to shift into other markets caused Applied Engineering to go out of business by 1994.

Product offerings

Some of Applied Engineering's best-known products for the Apple II included: *RamWorks — memory expansion card for the

Apple IIe The Apple IIe (styled as Apple //e) is the third model in the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer. The ''e'' in the name stands for ''enhanced'', referring to the fact that several popular features were now built-in ...

*TransWarp — CPU accelerator card for the

and Apple IIGS *Vulcan — internal

hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magnet ...

*PC Transporter —

NEC V30 The NEC V20 is a microprocessor that was designed and produced by NEC. It is both pin compatible and object code compatible with the Intel 8088, with an instruction set architecture (ISA) similar to that of the Intel 80188 with some extensio ...

(

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

8086-compatible) card that allowed Apple IIs to run

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

programs The TransWarp family of Apple II accelerators consisted of multiple products. The original TransWarp took over from the standard 1-MHz

6502 The MOS Technology 6502 (typically pronounced "sixty-five-oh-two" or "six-five-oh-two") William Mensch and the moderator both pronounce the 6502 microprocessor as ''"sixty-five-oh-two"''. is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by a small te ...

or 65C02 used in the Apple IIe with a 3.6 MHz version of the 65C02 (which could also be run at 1.8 MHz, selectable through hardware) and turned on and off completely through software. The TransWarp was later followed by a TransWarp II and TransWarp III, the latter of which was announced but never actually went into production. With Apple Computer's release of the Apple IIGS, Applied Engineering followed with a TransWarp GS, which provided an accelerated version of the 65C816 processor on which the IIGS was based. Multi-function cards were a mainstay of AE's product offerings, of which the Serial Pro serial interface card was a typical example. Besides offering a standard RS-232 serial port, the card included a ProDOS-compatible real-time clock, thus combining two cards into one and freeing up an extra slot. When used with a

dot-matrix A dot matrix is a 2-dimensional patterned array, used to represent characters, symbols and images. Most types of modern technology use dot matrices for display of information, including mobile phones, televisions, and printers. The system is al ...

printer, the Serial Pro offered several screen-dump print options, such as printing either of the two Apple II high-resolution pages alone, both in a single dump, or the first high-res page rotated or inverted.

Partial product list

For all Apple IIs except IIc/IIc Plus

* Serial Pro — Apple II serial (RS-232) card * Parallel Pro — Apple II parallel (IEEE 1284) card * Buffer Pro — Buffer add-on for Parallel Pro * Vulcan — Internal hard disk and controller * Vulcan Gold — Internal hard disk * PC Transporter —

(

8086-compatible) PC co-processor card * Super Music Synthesizer — Apple II sound card *

Phasor In physics and engineering, a phasor (a portmanteau of phase vector) is a complex number representing a sinusoidal function whose amplitude (''A''), angular frequency (''ω''), and initial phase (''θ'') are time-invariant. It is related to ...

— Apple II sound card * TimeMaster H. O. and TimeMaster II H. O. — Apple II real-time clock card * A/D + D/A Card — Analog/digital signal acquisition and industrial control card * I/O 32 Card — 32-bit TTL/CMOS digital I/O card * DataLink 1200/2400 — internal telephone modems * FastMath — Math co-processor card * Z-80 Plus — CP/M card Æ Applied Engineering Z-80 Plus CPM card

Æ Applied Engineering Z-80 Plus CPM card

Apple II/II Plus Specific

* AE 16K Card — Reduced-chip substitute for Apple's 16-kB Language Card * ViewMaster 80 — Videx- and Videoterm-compatible 80-column card with lowercase and light pen support

Apple IIe

* MemoryMaster — Early reduced-chip substitute for Apple's Extended 80-Column Card (80 columns + 64 kB RAM) * MemoryMaster IIe — replacement 80-column card with 64kB—256kB * RamWorks (a. k. a. RamWorks I, RamWorks Basic) — 80-column + memory expansion card with 256—1024 kB RAM * RamWorks II — 80-column + memory expansion card with 1+ MB RAM * RamWorks III — 80-column + memory expansion card with 1-3 MB RAM * RamKeeper — Battery backup option for RamWorks series (to use RAM as non-volatile

RAM disk Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...

) * ColorLink — Daughterboard RGB option for RamWorks series providing analog and IBM-compatible RGB output * Digital Prism — Daughterboard RGB option for RamWorks series providing IBM-compatible RGB output only * TransWarp, TransWarp II — Apple II accelerator card

Apple IIc/IIc Plus

* Z-RAM, Z-RAM Ultra, Z-RAM Ultra II, Z-RAM Ultra III — Memory expansion card * RAM Express, RAM Express II — Memory expansion card (the RAM Express is an Apple-branded IIc RAM card with Applied Engineering stickers applied to cover the Apple logo) * Z-80c — CP/M card

Apple IIGS

* TransWarp GS — Apple IIGS accelerator card * GS-RAM, GS-RAM Ultra, GS-RAM Plus — Apple IIGS memory expansion cards. The cards hold 1.5MB, 4MB, and 6MB respectively. * RamKeeper — Battery backed RAM drive for the Apple IIGS * Sonic Blaster — Apple IIGS sound card * Audio Animator — Apple IIGS sound card with external audio mixer and MIDI I/O * Conserver — Integrated disk drive organizer, surge protector, and cooling fan

Miscellaneous

* AE 1.6-MB Drive — 1.6-MB, 3.5-inch floppy drive for IIGS (Apple's 3.5-inch drives for the Apple II stopped at 800 kB; GS/OS driver needed for 1.6-MB utilization) * AE 1.44-MB Drive — 1.44-MB, 3.5-inch floppy drive for Commodore-Amiga 500, 2000 beat Commodore's own high density drive to market. Not compatible with the 1.76 mb Amiga Chinon high density floppy. * AE 800-KB Drive — 800-KB, 3.5-inch floppy drive for IIe, IIc/IIc Plus, and IIGS * TransWarp — 16 and 40 MHz accelerator boards for Macintosh SE

External links

ReactiveMicro.com
AE hardware supplier for TransWarp GS 32KB Cache Board, other TransWarp GS upgrades and GS RAM Plus PAL for ROM0/1 and ROM3 compatibility.
16Sector.com
Apple II Hardware supplier & Support site for AE Hardware / Software and other Apple II hardware.
The Apple2OnlineStore
Apple II+, IIe, IIc, IIc Plus & IIGS systems & accessories.
Applied Engineering Repository
Scans of company ads and catalogs, information about the company's history, and more. Apple II family Defunct engineering companies of the United States Companies based in Carrollton, Texas Defunct companies based in Texas Defunct computer hardware companies