When The Apple II Was New | Hacker News Reader

When The Apple II Was New

apple2history.org

43 pointsfogus24 comments

I had a wonderfully tricked out Apple II as a kid:

• Videx enhancer providing lowercase capability.

• Apple II Plus ROMs providing Microsoft basic. The original II Integer Basic ROMs were in an Apple language card in slot 7 with a toggle switch to activate the original ROMs.

• 64K RAM, the extra 16K provided by a Microsoft language card in slot 0.

• Epson MX 100 via serial card in slot 1.

• Novation Applecat in slot 2.

• Videx 80 column card in slot 3.

• Microsoft CP/M card in slot 4, because Wordstar.

• Disk ][ card in slot 6, attached to a pair of Disk ][ drives, modified with an external toggle switch to enable/disable writes, because hole punch argggh.

• Video output to both an Apple Monitor /// green screen and to Sony 13" Trinitron TV.

What, no Programmer's Aid #1 ROM?

Yup, Programmer's Aid in D0 on the ROM card:

http://i.imgur.com/cJLmZjj.jpg

There you go. Nice hack on the ROM switch as well.

The Apple ][ I played with had the PRAID1 ROM manual, but the chip was missing. I was fascinated with Woz's assembly code in the back, especially the music making library. I managed to hand-type that routine into RAM and make it run. I learned a lot from that one little book.

The original II manuals were treasure troves of information. They certainly don't write manuals like they used to.

BTW, I didn't remember how much functionality the Enhancer II added:

    * Full ASCII keyboard (128 ASCII codes) 
    * The complete printable ASCII character set
      - including lower case - may be displayed 
    * User definable keys - with down loading from
      disc [section: 5.f] 
    * Type ahead buffer [section: 5.g] 
    * Auto repeat [section: 5. a. 3] 
    * Fast repeat [section: 5. a. 3] 
    * Normal Apple ][ mode [section: 5.d] 
    * Typewriter like operation [section: 5.e] 
    * Shift-lock feature [section: S.e.l] 
    * Control-Reset protection (section: 5.C.1] 
    * Simple installation [chapter two] 
    * Microprocessor controlled (6500 series) 
    * Self test diagnostics [section: 5.h] 
    * A 2716 EPROM is used for on board firmware 
    * Complete firmware listings [appendix Y] 
    * Complete schematic [appendix Z] 
    * Dvorak keyboard option [section: 5.1]

http://www.apple-iigs.info/newdoc/VidexEnhancerII.pdf

Dvorak on an Apple II. I had no idea that was there.

Pretty slick collection there.

Didn't realise that you could do the ROM language card and the RAM version in the same machine. Must have been a bit crash prone if something tried to enable the RAM language card at the same time.

Now I've moved house I need to spend some time with my Apple ][ collection, sadly the Profile drive PSU has died while it was all in storage (lots of smoke after power was applied) and I think some of the other PSU capacitors are in a similar state.

Nice! I had a Franklin ][e clone at home while I was in high school, and then a real Apple ][e at work (during college). We built control cards that would connect to an external box (via opto-couplers!) which could drive stepping motors. Originally these were smaller motors, but eventually the drives included systems that could run milling machines, lathes, etc.

One nice thing is that the bus was easy to deal with. Clock speeds were low (all were back then) and the gold-plated edge fingers were (comparatively) big, so you could design a card that just plugged in.

The large size of the components and connectors was a unrecognized virtue -- you didn't need a microscope and surface-mount soldering station to throw something together. All you needed was the prototyping card, and some wire-wrap IC sockets.

Loved my Apple ][+ -- best computer ever because it was expandable and simple.

I bought the computer itself from a summer job I had, and dad bought the Disk ][ drive and the cheap B&W TV we used as a monitor. Later on I added an 80-column card and a RAM upgrade to take it to a bank-switched 64k.

There were hard drives for sale at the time - Corvus sold a 5mb unit for $4900. Way out of my price range, and how could you ever fill that much space up? :)

I remember drives were crazy expensive but that seems high. Supposedly you could get the 10 MB Sider for $700 in late '85:

http://apple2.org.za/gswv/USA2WUG/FOUNDING.MEMBERS/HOME.PAGE...

The Corvus was 10 Megabytes for $5,350 in 1979. $4,900 for 5MB seems plausible.

http://www.vintagecomputing.com/wp-content/images/retroscan/...

I learned to program (BASIC, of course) on an Apple IIe. I was in elementary school. One of my classmates' moms was a professional computer programmer, and came in to teach us all to program. I can't imagine how different my life might be now if she hadn't done that, and if the Apple hadn't been such an easy and fun platform to play with.

Google's cached version

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:XVk3yBR...

My first computer was an Apple IIe with the DuoDisk drive, supplemented soon afterward with a then-blazing-fast 1200 bps modem. The Apple-branded one that hung, kinda bizarrely, from the wall. Add an Apple mouse (I recall the hardware took up a whole slot), a Super Serial Card, an Apple 80 column memory expansion card, and it was a dream computer.

That is, at least until the Woz-edition Apple IIgs came along a few years later!

Like someone else in this discussion, I don't know how my life would have turned out if it weren't for the Apple IIe/IIgs. I likely wouldn't have learned how to program, wouldn't have been exposed to those early glimmerings of hacker culture, wouldn't have gone into technology journalism, and wouldn't have left technology journalism to found http://recent.io/. On the downside, unlearning the bad habits of Applesoft BASIC is a life's work! :)

Folklore.org has the story of the original Apple ][ mouse. It's a really great hack (in the traditional sense of the word)

http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Apple_II_Mouse_Ca...

The first computer I ever got to see and touch in person was an Apple IIe. My buddy in the Air Force got it, and let me play on it. Wonderful li'l machine. First time I stayed up all night playing a game, text of course.

I was so lucky. My dad used to work at Apple in the 80s so we pretty much got every model since the Apple ][+ at home.

Can't remember this too well but I think I started with a ][+ with 2 floppy drives, a Silentype (thermal!) printer and Monitor ///, paddles, joystick, Apple's Graphical Tablet.

And tons and tons of software. Everybody copied. There was no internet, so there was a lot of borrowing and copying of floppy disks.

Learned to program in Basic, 6502, Logo. A little bit with UCSD Pascal. I was a kid and more interested in Captain Goodnight, Karateka and all the wonderful text adventures that I could barely understand in English.

Good times. Maybe time to fire up an emulator and see how much I remember.

Good lord USCD Pascal I remember having to stay late at work in the UK to ring the Microsft helpline line in new mexico to try and diagnose a really persistent bug.

It was a nice machine, although I never saw one live.

In Portugal, the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64, followed by their successors ruled the home market.

I still have a 1987 Apple //c, with its original packaging and accessories: carrying bag, 9" green monitor, additional Disk II drive, mouse, MouseDesk software and manual, joystick, RGB TV adapter... And of course the original cardboard box, which was already very Apple-looking (white, with fancy, large text and nice, elegant pictures).

despite the file systems limitations of apple dos 3.3 it was a pretty nifty achievement

Big Bang theory quote -_-

Source: http://the-big-bang-theory.com/quotes/character/Sheldon/38/

>Sheldon Cooper: You're my 15th favorite technological visionary.

>Steve Wozniak: Only 15th?

>Sheldon Cooper: It's still 6 spots above Steve Jobs. I care neither for turtlenecks nor showmanship.

>Steve Wozniak: Yeah, I never got that turtleneck thing.

>Sheldon Cooper: One of my proudest possessions is a vintage 1977 Apple. Despite the file system limitations of Apple DOS 3.3, it was a pretty nifty little achievement.

>Steve Wozniak: Thanks. We were shooting for nifty. You know if you had it here I'd autograph it for you.

>Sheldon Cooper: Don't move for 15 to 30 minutes depending on how the buses are running.

>Steve Wozniak: (To his wife) Nerds!

:.:.:

Also His 1977 Apple ][ is running Apple Dos 3.3 (circa 1983)?

> Also His 1977 Apple ][ is running Apple Dos 3.3 (circa 1983)?

- 3.3 was originally released in 1980, it was in 1983 that 3.3 received its last bugfix release.

- Sure, why not! Apple DOS wasn't installed anywhere, it had to be loaded from a floppy at boot. Upgrading wasn't a big re-installation or migration. Running DOS 3.3 isn't any weirder than it playing Donkey Kong (1984).

Well it won't run ProDOS (except the early beta IIRC) as that requires the autostart monitor with AppleSoft and the original monitor rom is preferable as you get better features for assembly programming (step and trace).

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