Editing Apple IIe (section)

===Platinum IIe===
[[Image:Apple Platinum IIe.jpg|thumb|right|The Platinum Apple IIe with numeric keypad]]

In January 1987 came the final revision of the Apple IIe, often referred to as the Platinum IIe, due to the color change of its case to the light-grey color scheme that Apple dubbed "Platinum". Changes to this revision were mostly cosmetic to modernize the look of the machine. Besides the color change, there was a new keyboard layout with built-in numeric keypad. The keyboard was changed to match the layout of the [[Apple IIGS]], with the reset key moved above the ESC and '1' keys, the Open and Solid Apple modifier keys replaced by [[Command key|Command]] and Option and the power LED relocated above the numeric keypad. Gone were the recessed metal ID badges (showing the Apple logo and name, with "//e" beside it) replaced with a simpler "Apple IIe" silk screened on the case lid in the Apple [[Garamond]] font. A smaller Apple logo badge remained, which was moved to the right side of the case.

Internally, a (reduced in size) Extended 80-Column Card was factory-installed, making the Platinum IIe come standard with 128&nbsp;KB RAM and Double-Hi-Res graphics enabled. The motherboard has a reduced chip count by merging the two system ROM chips into one and using higher-density memory chips so its 64&nbsp;KB RAM can be made up of two (64 Kbx4) chips rather than eight (64 Kbx1) chips, bringing the count down to a total of 24 chips. A solder pad location on the motherboard, present since the original IIe, for (optionally) making presses of the "Shift" keys detectable in software, is now shorted by default so that the feature is always active. Next, in a move to reduce radio frequency interference when a joystick plugs into the motherboard's game I/O socket, filtering [[capacitor]]s were added. While this made no difference to the average user, it had the negative effect of lowering the available [[Bandwidth (computing)|bandwidth]] to the socket, which is often used by specialized devices for such purposes as measuring temperature, controlling a robotic device, or even simplistic networking for data transfer to another computer. In such cases, the specialized devices were rendered useless on the Platinum IIe unless the user removed the capacitors from the board.

There were no firmware changes present, and functionally the motherboard was otherwise identical to the Enhanced IIe.  This final model of the Apple IIe (which was not sold in Europe) was quietly discontinued on November 15, 1993, which (following the discontinuation of the Apple II<small>GS</small> a year earlier) effectively marked the end of the Apple II family line.