Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My New Old Apple IIe Computer

charlieharrington.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 107 posts

Re: My New Old Apple IIe Computer

#61

Post by EvanAnderson »

StillBored wrote: post #34
rbanffy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also suggest the CFFA hard-disk emulator. I always wanted a hard disk for my Apple II.

I have one of the old ones, its good, but the new ones look even better because you can copy images from the internet directly to it. OTOH, I also have the https://www.bigmessowires.com/floppy-emu/ for that. The CFFA is better as a HD, while the floppy emu is good for just plugging into random disk ports (IIGS/IIC/laser 128).

Floppy Emu is great. I haven't used the CFFA so I can't make a comparison. I never had a hard disk drive in my Apple II days and the Floppy Emu gives a reasonable approximation of using the Apple II w/ floppies.

Re: My New Old Apple IIe Computer

#62

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

pge wrote: post #43

I have an Apple ][+ that stopped working a few years ago, and I don’t have the time to fix it up. I don’t want to throw it out, as it seems a piece of history (and it’s the computer I grew up using so there’s some nostalgia...). I have all the original manuals and some floppies with it. Anyone know of good places to find it a home? Any groups of vintage Apple users to post it to, or something like that?

I would gladly take it and make use of it with my son. I can pay you shipping and even an extra fee for the trouble. gushickens1234 at gmail dot com.

Re: My New Old Apple IIe Computer

#63

Post by the_af »

pge wrote: post #43

I have an Apple ][+ that stopped working a few years ago, and I don’t have the time to fix it up. I don’t want to throw it out, as it seems a piece of history (and it’s the computer I grew up using so there’s some nostalgia...). I have all the original manuals and some floppies with it. Anyone know of good places to find it a home? Any groups of vintage Apple users to post it to, or something like that?

Don't throw it away. You'll regret it, trust me. Donate it to someone who'll love it, get it fixed, anything but throwing it away.

Re: My New Old Apple IIe Computer

#64

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

StillBored wrote: post #31
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there were no websites, blogs, podcasts, or other sources of information about these devices, the manuals had to be thorough. You should see how amazing the manual for my Amdek monitor is, or the Grappler + graphics card for the Apple // (allows you to print graphics from your Apple // to a dot matrix printer): https://apple2online.com/web_documents/Orange%20Micro%20Grap... If you were lucky, other authors ma…

I'm not sure dearth is the right word here. Sure the total volume of information was less, but the quality was massively higher. Sure, you might get incorrect information from BBS's or friends, but the manuals were detailed, technically accurate, and usually complete. AKA, you didn't get through reading one and go "but what about..." only to discover a dark hole. There was a bit of that, but usually 3rd parties stepp…

That was our point... manuals were better. Dearth is correct only if you compare those manuals to today’s resources... YouTube videos? Can you imagine Ben Eaters videos in 1983? We both would have killed for something like that!

Re: My New Old Apple IIe Computer

#65

Post by the_af »

pge wrote: post #41
hossbeast wrote: post #14

Two game recommendations Odyssey (text based adventure game), and Archon (kind of like chess).

Archon was fun. Also recommend Elite (and google the history- it was quite a programming feat at the time).

Elite was impressive. The whole "universe as a random seed number" thing. Some years later I was impressed by Frontier, the sequel, where you had seamless takeoff from planets into space, no transitions or loading screens... this was very impressive back then, in a way gamers today possibly cannot understand.

Re: My New Old Apple IIe Computer

#66

Post by zwieback »

jonahbenton wrote: post #42

Great piece. Haven't seen Beagle Bros mentioned. Their awesome catalogs: https://stevenf.com/beagle/contents.html Also haven't seen mentioned Pinball Construction Set- an absolutely amazing piece of engineering, by Bill Budge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinball_Construction_Set Last I checked, Budge was still working- for Google- on the V8 runtime. Think he is on twitter. And while there are a lot of 6502 assembly…

The catalog looks like Trader Joe's fearless flyer!

Re: My New Old Apple IIe Computer

#67

Post by fuball63 »

Regarding the games you can type out in BASIC, there's a book called "BASIC Computer Games" I got at the library once, and there's an online page that has a decent collection of them:

http://www.moorecad.com/classicbasic/index.html

They are in MS Basic, but it might be a fun exercise to try to port them.

I recently rescued a IBM PS/1 and a Macintosh Plus from my grandpa's basement, got a similar response from family/friends... "Well what do you DO with it?". I think my wife thought I was crazy when I was trying to explain how powerful and primal a BASIC prompt is.

EDIT: there's a link on the above link that has the original book contents: https://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/

Re: My New Old Apple IIe Computer

#68

Post by mansilladev »

So.. back in the day, I used to do random PEEKs, POKEs, and CALLs, and there was one particular call that I stumbled upon that could quickly render a disc unbootable. Two questions:

1. Can you give it a try? It's CALL -20480

2. Anyone know what in the hell that one actually does?

It takes about a millisecond to render the disc useless.

Re: My New Old Apple IIe Computer

#70

Post by taborj »

tyingq wrote: post #38

If you've got time and want to save a little money, there are several guides on how to turn an esp32 or esp8266 (either http://www.retroadventures.net/apple-iic-and-the-d-i-wimodem... https://github.com/bozimmerman/Zimodem

Even simpler (though not necessarily a great interface, but it's sort of a Hayes AT command set) is the TCP232-T2, which can be had for about $10 off of eBay. I wrote up my experiences with it on my VIC-20[0]

[0] http://obsolete.site/?p=39

Post reply on HN