Editing Apple IIc (section)

===Expansion capabilities===
{{main|Apple II accelerators}}
Expanding the IIc is difficult since it was designed as a closed system; however, many companies figured out ingenious ways of squeezing enhancements inside the tiny case. Real-time clocks, memory expansion, and coprocessors are popular, and some products combine all three into a single add-on board. Typically, in order to add these options, key chips on the motherboard are pulled and moved onto the expansion board offering the new features, and the board is then placed into the empty sockets. While sometimes a tight squeeze, this offers users without the Memory Expansion IIc a way to add memory.

Applied Engineering offered several "Z-Ram" internal memory expansion boards, which also include Z-80 SoftCard functionality for [[CP/M]] capability.<ref>{{cite web |title=Applied Engineering Repository - Apple IIc |url=http://ae.applearchives.com/apple_c/ |website=Applied Engineering |access-date=October 23, 2020 |archive-date=September 27, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220927134739/http://ae.applearchives.com/apple_c/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Some companies devised a method for squeezing in an entire CPU accelerator product, by means of placing all the specialized circuitry (i.e. [[CPU cache|cache]] and logic) into one tall chip that replaces the 40-pin 65C02 microprocessor, speeding up the machine from 4–10&nbsp;MHz. Notable examples are the [[Apple II accelerators|Zip Chip and Rocket Chip]].

Although the IIc lacks a SCSI or IDE interface, external hard drives were produced by third parties that connects through the floppy SmartPort as an innovative alternative connection method (e.g. ''ProApp'', ''Chinook''). While these specialized hard drives are relatively slow due to the nature of how data was transferred through this interface (designed primarily for floppy drives) they do allow for true mass storage. The ''CDrive'' mounts internally and is very fast due to its direct connection to the CPU. Speech and music synthesis products plug into the IIc's serial ports. Three popular such devices are the ''Mockingboard-D'', ''Cricket'', and ''Echo IIc''.