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My New Old Apple IIe Computer

charlieharrington.com

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Re: My New Old Apple IIe Computer

#91

Post by bdowling »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #8

The easiest and fastest way to get software onto your new beloved: Search the internet for the FTP Apple Asimov server (there are http mirrors if you don’t want you use ftp). This is an archive of many thousands of Apple diskette images and software. Download stuff from the archive onto an SD card. Then purchase an SD to Apple disk emulator card (plugs into one of those 7 slots and emulates an Apple disk drive). You…

A cheaper way for him to get started is to use his Super Serial Card with ADTPro (https://adtpro.com). ADTPro can be bootstrapped onto the Apple using just a null modem cable ($5-10) connected to his PC and a couple of console commands. ADTPro can then transfer disk images from the PC and write them to floppy disks. Even if he also has to buy a USB serial adapter ($10) and floppy disks, it will be cheaper than buying a SD floppy emulator like the BMOW FloppyEMU ($109+).

Re: My New Old Apple IIe Computer

#92

Post by bdowling »

whatrocks wrote: post #51
raverbashing wrote: post #50

$95 for a new power supply? Should have shelled out for a soldering iron or station, pliers, new caps, which might have ended up cheaper in the long run (or not)

Yeah, I acknowledged my shame with this decision in the post. I did buy this $15 radio kit to "practice" soldering: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004YHZE0G , but I've already somehow oxidized my solder iron's tip to the point that it won't heat the solder anymore. I would love a dummy's guide to soldering (YouTube or books) recommendation if you have one! (Although, I'm sure practice, practice, practice is going…

> (Although, I'm sure practice, practice, practice is going to be the top suggestion)

Start with traditional 60/40 tin/lead flux-core solder because it's much easier to work with. Once you have a feel for how soldering is supposed to work, you can then start experimenting with the often finicky and hard-to-use lead-free solders and fluxes.

Re: My New Old Apple IIe Computer

#94

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

armadsen wrote: post #81
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other options besides the CFFA. There’s a South Korean guy named Ian Kim who makes the awesome SD Disk ][ emulator. Sell it on ebay. It has the best firmware I’ve used on these types of devices. It has an LCD screen and onboard controls and menus with which you can scroll through all images & select the one you want to load.

The FloopyEMU also has an LCD with menus and onboard controls to select images, change modes, etc.

They are out of stock. Do you know how often he produces them?

Re: My New Old Apple IIe Computer

#95

Post by II2II »

mtalantikite wrote: post #76

I once was walking in my neighborhood in Brooklyn when a couple doors down from my apartment I saw some beige boxes in the trash in front of a brownstone. Just laying there in the trash was a Macintosh SE, a Macintosh Plus, and a Macintosh (512k). No keyboards, but I still couldn't believe it. I totally forgot about what I was going to do and immediately grabbed them and brought them up to my apartment. They all boot…

Some of the software for early Macs is astonishing by modern standards. Clarisworks is an office suite that provides a word processor, spreadsheet, database, paint, illustration, and program that should run on an 8 MHz 68000 based Macintosh Plus. A full installation was about 4 MB, but it could be trimmed down to 600 kB and retain its core functionality.

That office suite was based upon Appleworks for the Apple II. While the latter was much more limited (e.g. no graphics), it had to deal with much tighter constraints.

The accomplishments of those early programmers was astounding, particularly when you consider that many of those early programs had many of the features that we take for granted today. For example, both Appleworks and Clarisworks allowed you to share data between modules. I almost lust for the days when we could do so much with so little. Granted, that's not going to happen when a modern display requires pushing and storing three to four orders of magnitudes more bits to represent a square inch of graphics.

Re: My New Old Apple IIe Computer

#96

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #8

The easiest and fastest way to get software onto your new beloved: Search the internet for the FTP Apple Asimov server (there are http mirrors if you don’t want you use ftp). This is an archive of many thousands of Apple diskette images and software. Download stuff from the archive onto an SD card. Then purchase an SD to Apple disk emulator card (plugs into one of those 7 slots and emulates an Apple disk drive). You…

For completeness, here is Ian Kim's ebay store where he sells the SD Disk ][ emulator:

https://www.ebay.com/usr/ksd09?_trksid=p2047675.l2559

He doesn't have any left but is making another batch as I type this.

Re: My New Old Apple IIe Computer

#97

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

bdowling wrote: post #91
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #8

The easiest and fastest way to get software onto your new beloved: Search the internet for the FTP Apple Asimov server (there are http mirrors if you don’t want you use ftp). This is an archive of many thousands of Apple diskette images and software. Download stuff from the archive onto an SD card. Then purchase an SD to Apple disk emulator card (plugs into one of those 7 slots and emulates an Apple disk drive). You…

A cheaper way for him to get started is to use his Super Serial Card with ADTPro ( https://adtpro.com ). ADTPro can be bootstrapped onto the Apple using just a null modem cable ($5-10) connected to his PC and a couple of console commands. ADTPro can then transfer disk images from the PC and write them to floppy disks. Even if he also has to buy a USB serial adapter ($10) and floppy disks, it will be cheaper than buyi…

I agree that is cheaper, but it is also more painful and slower. If you want to try out 100 different disk images, imagine writing those to 100 floppies (even if you overwrite and only purchase 10 floppies -- still a lot of time)

Re: My New Old Apple IIe Computer

#98

Post by icedata »

whatrocks wrote: post #11
bitwize wrote: post #7

It's not an Apple IIe without MECC software! Including that most famous of MECC titles, The Oregon Trail , which is about as synonymous with the Apple IIe in xennials' minds as Super Mario Bros. is with the NES. I also recommend Terrapin Logo for more programming fun.

Definitely need to get a copy of The Oregon Trail. And, yes, I've been reading up on LOGO! I just read a great book called Mindstorms written by Seymour Papert (inventor of LOGO and the Turtle robot) about his educational theories behind LOGO and using computers to help children learn how to learn. I highly recommend checking it out - here are my book notes: https://www.charlieharrington.com/mindstorms

Used to work at Logo Computer Systems in Montreal, Papert was chairman, he visited from MIT from time to time. Spent the first few years of my career remotely diagnosing problems with Logo on //e, PC, Atari, C64 (arggh), Japanese machines (MSX), and Mac (hardly any Mac copies were sold, but we tried), and even DEC pc (I don't think that they sold any copies of that one). The big hits were the //e, C64 and PC versions.

Re: My New Old Apple IIe Computer

#99

Post by joezydeco »

jonahbenton wrote: post #54
whatrocks wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These all look great (esp. Pinball Construction Set!). Regarding 6502 programming, I've been planning to follow along with Ben Eater's new course and kit on "Building a 6502 Computer": https://eater.net/6502 (once I finish up his previous kit for building an 8 bit computer with breadboards). Amazing that you still have those books in your library!

Those look very cool! Though FWIW I wonder if there are differences between the breadboard memory space and IO and busses and the Apple II. I recall the graphics screen was fed from RAM at 2000-3fff, with an offscreen buffer in 4000-5fff. And there was a vertical blanking interrupt handler to hook into, so you could organize writes to screen memory when it was not being read by the video machinery, and avoid flicker.…

The Apple ][ hardware did not have a direct way to track vertical blanking. There were hacks that used artifacts in the dynamic memory refresh to sniff out when the VBI was happening.

http://www.deater.net/weave/vmwprod/megademo/vapor_lock.html

Re: My New Old Apple IIe Computer

#100

Post by Yhippa »

Thanks for the writeup. This is a great trip down memory lane for me. The very first computer I put my paws on was one of these in kindergarten and ended up learning BASIC on it through 10th grade. I loved these machines so much and they hold a dear spot in my heart--it's what got me into the career I'm in today.
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