The Apple III (code name: SARA) is the first computer ever designed from the ground-up by Apple Computer. It was designed to include many of the "extras" one had to buy separately for the Apple II: an 80 column card, a serial card, larger memory, etc.

In addition, it came with the most advanced operating system for small computers of its day...SOS or the Sophisticated Operating System. It is still an advanced operating system today; so advanced, in fact that Apple based its ProDos Operating System for the Apple IIe, IIc and GS on SOS. The Macintosh's HFS, or Hierarchical Filing System was also based on a similar system offered with the III at its introduction in 1981.

Shipments of the machine started in 1981 or so and almost immediately there were problems. The biggest one: the chips would pop out of their sockets after only a few hours (primarily due to heat). This led to the famous "two-inch drop" where owners would pick their machine up and drop it two inches to reseat the chips.

This short-term solution was not totally satisfactory, however, and Apple ended up replacing every main circuit ("mother") board. At about that time, IBM came out with the PC and Apple introduced its Lisa and Macintosh lines. A III+ was introduced with a new IIe-style keyboard and a few other upgrades. But in 1984, Apple ended its production run at approximately 100,000 machines.