Disk drives were an expensive peripheral computer device (almost half the cost of the computer) so most people used a cassette for loading and writing data, which was a time consuming and often unreliable process. While at HP Wozniak had designed a floppy controller using only five chips. Other disk drive controllers at that time used about 50 chips. It went into production with about 30 assembled each day.

In early 1978 Visicalc, the first electronic spreadsheet program, became available for the Apple II. Developed by Bob Frankston and Dan Bricklin, Visicalc required 8K of memory to run, which outperformed Apple’s main competitors (Commodore and Radio Shack). The combination of a lower cost floppy drive and the expandable memory of the Apple II, which was able to support 48K, helped sustain demand for the Apple II into the 1980s.

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