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Z-80 SoftCard
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The Z-80 SoftCard was a plug-in card, supplied by Microsoft for use with the Apple II personal computer. It had a Zilog Z80 CPU and was eventually renamed the Microsoft SoftCard.
It enabled the Apple II to run the CP/M operating system, developed by Digital Research, which was at the time an industry standard operating system for running business software on small computers.
This CP/M capability conferred by the Z80 SoftCard transformed the Apple II into a viable platform for running a much broader range of business software applications than had been possible up on the Apple II until that point.
The card was developed jointly between Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products SCP (who developed the initial prototypes) and Bill Gates and Don Burdis of Microsoft.
A copy of the Microsoft Basic programming language was also included in the Softcard package (and the Basic license offering is likely to have played a significant part in Microsoft's initial motivation for their involvement in developing the SoftCard)
It was first demonstrated publicly at the West Coast Computer Faire in March 1980.
An immediate success, there were 5,000 cards purchased in the initial three months at $349 each, and the card sold well for several years.
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Encyclopedia
The Z-80 SoftCard was a plug-in card, supplied by Microsoft for use with the Apple II personal computer. It had a Zilog Z80 CPU and was eventually renamed the Microsoft SoftCard.
It enabled the Apple II to run the CP/M operating system, developed by Digital Research, which was at the time an industry standard operating system for running business software on small computers.
This CP/M capability conferred by the Z80 SoftCard transformed the Apple II into a viable platform for running a much broader range of business software applications than had been possible up on the Apple II until that point.
The card was developed jointly between Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products SCP (who developed the initial prototypes) and Bill Gates and Don Burdis of Microsoft.
A copy of the Microsoft Basic programming language was also included in the Softcard package (and the Basic license offering is likely to have played a significant part in Microsoft's initial motivation for their involvement in developing the SoftCard)
It was first demonstrated publicly at the West Coast Computer Faire in March 1980.
An immediate success, there were 5,000 cards purchased in the initial three months at $349 each, and the card sold well for several years.
The SoftCard legacy
The extent to which the SoftCard bestowed perceived legitimacy upon the Apple II and upon Apple as a company is difficult to disentangle from the legendary struggle for 'business' credibility that Apple subsequently experienced with Apple II's successor the Apple Macintosh.
In terms of helping Apple to extricate themselves from the notorious 'toy' and 'unsuitable for serious use' initial characterisation of the Mac (which was exacerbated by the seemingly 'purely entertainment-oriented' impression which many GUI-detractors at the time gained from the game-like appearance of the Mac GUI, an attitude obviously long since rendered obsolete) the impact of operating system emulation (or rather non-availability, DOS emulation was not available on the Mac for its first three years) is extremely difficult to determine, and so it is equally problematic to make claims about whether the 'lesson of the SoftCard success' influenced any subsequent strategic decisions at Apple.
The direct connection between the SoftCard and Microsoft's subsequent strategy decisions seems clouded by the extent to which IBM (and PC compatibility) rather than Apple became the next focus of Microsoft's development efforts.
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