12 ms·

My New Old Apple IIe Computer

188 points by whatrocks 6y ago

kens 6y ago
You mentioned that your "4" and "R" keys are missing. I have Apple IIe keycaps I don't need, so let me know and I can send them to you.
- whatrocks 6y ago
  Amazing! Just followed you on Twitter, and I'll DM you there :) Thank you!
StanislavPetrov 6y ago
You mention that you don't have any games for your Apple II. If you go the used game route and want to get the full experience be sure to check out Wizardry and Zork!
- whatrocks 6y ago
  Will do! Someone also just turned me onto this site: https://asciiexpress.net/diskserver/ https://asciiexpress.net/diskserver/ where you can connect your laptop or phone's headphone jack with a 3.5mm audio cable to the Apple II cassette-in port, and just play the audio files to transfer over games and other software. This is the magic I was hoping for.
  - mappu 6y ago
    I've done this recently - It really does work (playing audio from a cellphone); if you run into any problems I recommend the slower file versions and maybe retry a few times in case of interference/noise on the cable. EDIT: I also had a similar smoky experience with the original CRT (maybe a bit less safe to repair), luckily my modern TV could connect directly by composite.
  - toast0 6y ago
    This one is even more magic: https://www.adtpro.com/ https://www.adtpro.com/ Although with exactly zero disks, it's only somewhat useful. Bootstrapping it is fun though; it's got a ramdisk feature you might be able to use for some disks, though? If you're still looking for disks, be sure to get Double Sided Double Density. High density disks will not work well in an Apple II. If the disks are unlabeled, look for hubrings; if they've got hubrings, they're more likely double density.
  - isolli 6y ago
    I would recommend Lode Runner as well!
    - js2 6y ago
      I had hundreds of (mostly pirated) games for my II and Lode Runner was my favorite. Also, Karateka, Pinball Construction Set, and Zaxxon. May as well add Choplifter, the original Ultima, Wizardry, and Castle Wolfenstein.
user_0x 6y ago
I totally agree with you about the awesomeness of the software manuals from the time. The whole aesthetic is so much warmer then it is now.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
  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%20Grappler%20+%20Operators%20Manual.pdf https://apple2online.com/web_documents/Orange%20Micro%20Grap... If you were lucky, other authors may have published books of various quality and you MIGHT be able to but a copy at your book store if you even knew to ask about it. Or you might connect to knowledgeable people through a bbs or user group to learn some tricks. Magazines helped... a little. But there simply was a dearth of information as compared to the resources of today.
  - squnch 6y ago
    Ugh, I remember trying to get two-player Doom set up over a modem while my mom kept picking up the phone to make calls. Spent 2 weeks with a friend trying to get it work and achieved a total of 1 working session, in which I blew him to bits in the first 5 seconds, causing him to be furious with me since he thought we were going to play co-operatively. We tried many times after that and never got it working again.
  - StillBored 6y ago
    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 stepped up and wrote books to fill in obvious gaps. The whole "Beneath Apple DOS/PRODOS" series is an example of that. One only needs to spend about 10 mins on stack overflow to see that much of it is the blind leading the blind, where most of the answers are incomplete, biased, outdated, wrong, etc.
bitwize 6y ago
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.
- squnch 6y ago
  Don't even make eye contact with me in public unless you've scored 8000 points in Oregon Trail.
- whatrocks 6y ago
  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 https://www.charlieharrington.com/mindstorms
  - icedata 6y ago
    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.
  - kyuudou 6y ago
    Also, there's a goofy clone called "Organ Trail"[1] on Steam which adds a zombie apocalypse theme to the original. The look and feel is quite similar. [1]https://store.steampowered.com/app/233740/Organ_Trail_Directors_Cut/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/233740/Organ_Trail_Direct...
TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
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 can load software from the sd card onto the Apple just as if each file from Asimov were a real 5.25” diskette. Also pick up one of these: https://www.cbmstuff.com/proddetail.php?prod=WiModem232OLED https://www.cbmstuff.com/proddetail.php?prod=WiModem232OLED You can connect your Apple to WiFi and then essentially telnet to one off the many BBS servers that are still running. Actually you can telnet to anything on the Internet at that point. You just need to load terminal emulation software, like Ascii Express (often abbreviated as AE or AE Express), onto the Apple first.
- whatrocks 6y ago
  Wow, I'll definitely be picking up both of those cards. Thanks for the tips. I had a feeling the serial card would be my ticket to the Internet, rather than the impressive-looking, but clearly past-its-prime modem card.
- rbanffy 6y ago
  I also suggest the CFFA hard-disk emulator. I always wanted a hard disk for my Apple II.
  - StillBored 6y ago
    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/ 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).
    - TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
      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.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hossbeast 6y ago
Two game recommendations Odyssey (text based adventure game), and Archon (kind of like chess).
- andrewstuart 6y ago
  There was a really great 2 player game on Apple 2 called "Swashbuckler". Well, great for 1983 anyway. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyR3tou4tdM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyR3tou4tdM
  - hossbeast 6y ago
    I also remember Swashbuckler! Another recommendation for OP.
- lihaciudaniel 6y ago
  >Odyssey (text based adventure game) Wow that was awesome
- pge 6y ago
  Archon was fun. Also recommend Elite (and google the history- it was quite a programming feat at the time).
  - the_af 6y ago
    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.
- RockIslandLine 6y ago
  Wizardry and Bard's Tale. I spent a few thousand hours on each.
mjg59 6y ago
> Some wizards at work told me that I probably cannot just plug this into a modern phone line and expect it to work, though. Is this true? I can't think of any immediate reason it would fail, but finding something to actually dial into seems like a harder problem.
- toast0 6y ago
  Modern phone lines are usually VOIP somewhere, and if the codec sucks, it might not be good enough for a modem. OTOH, that's probably a pretty low bitrate modem, so it might work out ok. If running your own VOIP gateway, g.711 codec is probably the most likely to work for running a modem, but I haven't tried it.
  - skissane 6y ago
    As well as the codec issue, the other problem is that the inconsistent timing of VoIP often upsets modems, especially at higher bitrates.
- mattlondon 6y ago
  Pulse Vs tone? Is that a thing or did my brain just make it up? :/
  - mjg59 6y ago
    My experience is that exchanges will still accept pulse dialing, but it's a while since I've had a landline to check
  - StillBored 6y ago
    Probably doesn't matter (although that is a genuine Hayes so it probably supports both) because a lot of those old modems were capable of "operator dial". AKA you dial the phone manually then you tell the modem to start negiotiation. AKA ATDT is a tone dial, while ATDP is a pulse dial, or just plain ATD to start negotiation.
- StillBored 6y ago
greendave 6y ago
And for productivity, there's always AppleWorks[1]. Well, I suppose one doesn't get a 37-year old computer for productivity, but just in case... [1] https://apple2history.org/history/ah19/ https://apple2history.org/history/ah19/
hnaa 6y ago
Hey this is a former coworker of yours from GU back in the day. Nice post! Hope you're doing well and congrats on the IIe. I grew up coding on one of these as well. :)
- rbanffy 6y ago
  My first paid job was writing educational software for Apple II's. Those were pretty awesome machines for the time.
dmolony 6y ago
You might want to check this out - https://www.kansasfest.org/ https://www.kansasfest.org/
codecamper 6y ago
And the keyboard works! My MB Pro's keyboard? Not so much.
- rbanffy 6y ago
  Those Alps switches were great.
- sgt 6y ago
  Send it in. The butterfly ones can be fixed under warranty. It's not going to be perfect but will solve the sticking key issue. I just use a Magic keyboard with an external screen 90% of the time though.
PebblesHD 6y ago
Amazingly, this is exactly how I acquired my SE/30, sitting on the side of the road in a pile of other junk. Had the keyboard and trapezoid mouse! I was still at university at the time and took great joy in writing an essay about wiretapping on it, then spending nearly a week trying to get the floppy drive working to get said essay off the machine...
tyingq 6y ago
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 < $10) into an rs232 to wifi bridge. http://www.retroadventures.net/apple-iic-and-the-d-i-wimodem232/ http://www.retroadventures.net/apple-iic-and-the-d-i-wimodem... https://github.com/bozimmerman/Zimodem https://github.com/bozimmerman/Zimodem
- taborj 6y ago
  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 http://obsolete.site/?p=39
apple2ta 6y ago
Ha ha that SIN function on the screen reminded me of how slow operations like SIN and COS were on the old BBC Computers. You had to think before you did stuff like that. I remember figuring out that using pythag x^2+y^2 =1 therefore y=sqrt(1-x^2) was a much faster way to draw a circle than SIN/COS.
jonahbenton 6y ago
Great piece. Haven't seen Beagle Bros mentioned. Their awesome catalogs: https://stevenf.com/beagle/contents.html 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 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 resources around online, fondly remembered books on 6502 assembly and graphics programming (still have em): https://www.amazon.com/High-resolution-Graphics-Animation-Assembly-Language/dp/0810467585 https://www.amazon.com/High-resolution-Graphics-Animation-As... https://books.google.com/books/about/Hi_res_Graphics_for_the_Apple_II_IIe_IIc.html?id=AnSeAAAACAAJ https://books.google.com/books/about/Hi_res_Graphics_for_the... Super cool memories from my childhood.
- whatrocks 6y ago
  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 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!
  - jonahbenton 6y ago
    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. Getting that working as a kid- actually seeing butter smooth non-flicker animation in the simple games I was writing- big, big moment.
    - joezydeco 6y ago
      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 http://www.deater.net/weave/vmwprod/megademo/vapor_lock.html
pge 6y ago
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?
- kcolford 6y ago
  Try your local university cs department. They'd love a piece of history like that. Mine has a few of those pieces in a display case for everyone to come and see.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
  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.
- the_af 6y ago
  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.
Koshkin 6y ago
I still dabble with electronics, read paper books, drive a car (even have flown small airplanes) etc., but after having spent countless hours playing first-person computer games, using simulators, and reading text on the computer screen my perspective has gradually shifted and I now can't help seeing many artifacts (and not only) as poor incarnation of their ideal selves that live in a virtual world.
acomjean 6y ago
That was my exact kit growing up. My mom was a freelance translator for a time before working for data general, and she bought this for working. Like our school machines but more memory and less color.. When she wasn’t working my brothers and I could use it write papers / software and play games. A joystick would be a helpful addition. Apple joysticks are really analog (basically two game paddles together) which make them interesting. I still remember (I think) how to get the screen to cycle colors. 10 hgr 20 For I = 1 to 7 30 hcolor = i 40 hplot 0,0 50 call 62454 60 next I The Apple II time warp podcasts is not often updated and kinda fun too https://appletimewarp.libsyn.com/apple-time-warp-podcast-episode-2-editedm4a https://appletimewarp.libsyn.com/apple-time-warp-podcast-epi...
- dekhn 6y ago
  yes, this works. it fills in using the weird apple row addressing and everything.
raverbashing 6y ago
$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)
- whatrocks 6y ago
  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 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 to be the top suggestion).
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    Besides the soldering iron, what you'll want is those desoldering tools (just an example, but yes, both of them): https://www.amazon.com/Desoldering-Solder-Sucker-Length-Remover/dp/B07BB8DGMP/ https://www.amazon.com/Desoldering-Solder-Sucker-Length-Remo... (Also a cleaning sponge, and new solder but the above is very helpful for a good maintenance experience)
  - cferr 6y ago
    I recommend getting a brass wool tip cleaner and using it often while soldering. Also some good quality flux will really help. I recommend Amtech for the flux, and the tip cleaner I use is Hakko branded. You can find both on Amazon and elsewhere.
  - acomjean 6y ago
    https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-guide-excellent-soldering https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-guide-excellent-solderin... The video is good basic intro, though it has a slightly strange vibe.
  - bdowling 6y ago
    > (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.
II2II 6y ago
The Super Serial Card is a nice and you don't need any software to use it. Typing "PR#2" followed by "IN#2" (replace the "2" with the slot number the card is installed in) will give you access to a very simple serial communications terminal. Granted, it does take some configuration for both computers to understand each other. You can also search for scans of books and magazines online. People have been working on preserving these materials since the mid-1990's, so there are many excellent resources.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
the_af 6y ago
Lovely. I love this kind of computer archeology posts. I'm still sad my dad sold my C64, back in the day, in order to buy me a PC XT clone. I want to travel back in time and tell my dad to keep the C64, that future me would love it. Emulators just aren't the same :/
fuball63 6y ago
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 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/ https://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/
- acomjean 6y ago
  The applesoft basic manual is on archive.org This one is a pretty good primer: https://archive.org/details/ATouchOfApplesoftBASIC/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/ATouchOfApplesoftBASIC/mode/2up there are others (archive.org is a good resource for these things.) https://archive.org/details/applesoft-tutorial/page/n37/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/applesoft-tutorial/page/n37/mode...
mansilladev 6y ago
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.
- mattpharr 6y ago
  So -20480 works out to be 0xAFFF. My trusty copy of "What's Where in the Apple", which includes a catalog of where everything is in memory, says that the routine to write the VTOC from its in-memory buffer to disk starts at $AFF8. The VTOC is the volume table of contents (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AApple_DOS#Volume_Table_of_Contents_(VTOC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AApple_DOS#Volume_Table_...), so calling into the middle of that presumably ends up overwriting the VTOC with junk, which would indeed make the disk useless.
- StillBored 6y ago
  Without spending much time on it, you probably jumped to DOS's RWTS or similar and wrote a track out (or something similar). That appears to be 0xAFFF which doesn't ring any bells but is roughly where DOS might load depending on machine/etc. Try https://github.com/iKarith/beneath-apple-dos/blob/master/ch05.txt https://github.com/iKarith/beneath-apple-dos/blob/master/ch0... for more info.
mkchoi212 6y ago
So cool and very well written! Makes me want to buy a vintage computer and try it out. Maybe I'll try to get the BBC micro :O
jbgreer 6y ago
In 1983 I bought an Apple ][e with a monitor, dual floppy drives (but not the fancy duodisk verson), and an 80 column card. A friend and his father had bought several as a speculative investment, and when his parents left town he needed cash for a party. I took advantage of this situation and got a smoking deal. A very short time later I bought a Hayes Smartmodem 1200 from someone wanting to avoid advertising in the local paper. Again, a smoking deal. At one point I dialed 60 BBSes a week. A very short time later I bought a Z80 card so that I could also run CP/M. It was glorious. I regret selling it. I learned to type so that I could be more productive on that machine. That, and my handwriting was already atrocious. I programmed Apple Basic, Apple Pascal, 6502 assembly, and C on that machine. I used Apple Writer to transcribe and print a literary magazine for my school. I typeset calculus notes on the machine. I plotted star charts. So much fun, and, yes, such a wonderfully expandable machine.
incanus77 6y ago
Awesome find. I grew up on the Apple IIe at school. I'm trying to do something like the author's rediscovery with a cheaply-found "luggable" 386 over here: https://justinmiller.io/posts/2020/04/26/project-386-part-1/ https://justinmiller.io/posts/2020/04/26/project-386-part-1/ So far, it's proving much more difficult.
mtalantikite 6y ago
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 booted fine. I ended up giving the Plus and SE away to friends, but I still have the 512k in my office and play around with it from time to time. What a great machine!
- II2II 6y ago
  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.
acomjean 6y ago
IIE (//e)? Manuals are available on archive.org. you can browse with their page by page thing, but if you scroll down they're available a pdfs. and the owners manual, very pracitcal nuts and bolts, but informative (150 pgs). https://archive.org/details/apple-iie-owner-manual/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/apple-iie-owner-manual/mode/2up The reference manual is low level but helps in understanding the machine. https://archive.org/details/Apple_IIe_Reference_Manual_HiRes/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/Apple_IIe_Reference_Manual_HiRes...
chihuahua 6y ago
To me, the most surprising thing about this story is that Steve Jobs allowed a device to be made with lots of expansion slots!
azinman2 6y ago
I’d strongly advise against retrobrighting. It usually vastly speeds up the deterioration of the plastic such that it could start turning to powder in just a few months, from my understanding.
Yhippa 6y ago
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.
pippy 6y ago
It's crazy the value of vintage computers. My dad gave me an IBM XT 286 he got for nothing in the late 90's. It was for me to take apart and destroy so I could learn a bit about computers, which I did. Now just the keyboard is worth hundreds of dollars. I was frustrated to see LGR do a repair video of the exact model I had, and the same model can go for thousands of dollars.

188 points by whatrocks 6y ago

kens 6y ago

You mentioned that your "4" and "R" keys are missing. I have Apple IIe keycaps I don't need, so let me know and I can send them to you.

whatrocks 6y ago
Amazing! Just followed you on Twitter, and I'll DM you there :) Thank you!

StanislavPetrov 6y ago

You mention that you don't have any games for your Apple II. If you go the used game route and want to get the full experience be sure to check out Wizardry and Zork!

whatrocks 6y ago
Will do! Someone also just turned me onto this site: https://asciiexpress.net/diskserver/ https://asciiexpress.net/diskserver/ where you can connect your laptop or phone's headphone jack with a 3.5mm audio cable to the Apple II cassette-in port, and just play the audio files to transfer over games and other software. This is the magic I was hoping for.
- mappu 6y ago
  I've done this recently - It really does work (playing audio from a cellphone); if you run into any problems I recommend the slower file versions and maybe retry a few times in case of interference/noise on the cable. EDIT: I also had a similar smoky experience with the original CRT (maybe a bit less safe to repair), luckily my modern TV could connect directly by composite.
- toast0 6y ago
  This one is even more magic: https://www.adtpro.com/ https://www.adtpro.com/ Although with exactly zero disks, it's only somewhat useful. Bootstrapping it is fun though; it's got a ramdisk feature you might be able to use for some disks, though? If you're still looking for disks, be sure to get Double Sided Double Density. High density disks will not work well in an Apple II. If the disks are unlabeled, look for hubrings; if they've got hubrings, they're more likely double density.
- isolli 6y ago
  I would recommend Lode Runner as well!
  - js2 6y ago
    I had hundreds of (mostly pirated) games for my II and Lode Runner was my favorite. Also, Karateka, Pinball Construction Set, and Zaxxon. May as well add Choplifter, the original Ultima, Wizardry, and Castle Wolfenstein.

user_0x 6y ago

I totally agree with you about the awesomeness of the software manuals from the time. The whole aesthetic is so much warmer then it is now.

TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
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%20Grappler%20+%20Operators%20Manual.pdf https://apple2online.com/web_documents/Orange%20Micro%20Grap... If you were lucky, other authors may have published books of various quality and you MIGHT be able to but a copy at your book store if you even knew to ask about it. Or you might connect to knowledgeable people through a bbs or user group to learn some tricks. Magazines helped... a little. But there simply was a dearth of information as compared to the resources of today.
- squnch 6y ago
  Ugh, I remember trying to get two-player Doom set up over a modem while my mom kept picking up the phone to make calls. Spent 2 weeks with a friend trying to get it work and achieved a total of 1 working session, in which I blew him to bits in the first 5 seconds, causing him to be furious with me since he thought we were going to play co-operatively. We tried many times after that and never got it working again.
- StillBored 6y ago
  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 stepped up and wrote books to fill in obvious gaps. The whole "Beneath Apple DOS/PRODOS" series is an example of that. One only needs to spend about 10 mins on stack overflow to see that much of it is the blind leading the blind, where most of the answers are incomplete, biased, outdated, wrong, etc.

bitwize 6y ago

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.

squnch 6y ago
Don't even make eye contact with me in public unless you've scored 8000 points in Oregon Trail.
whatrocks 6y ago
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 https://www.charlieharrington.com/mindstorms
- icedata 6y ago
  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.
- kyuudou 6y ago
  Also, there's a goofy clone called "Organ Trail"[1] on Steam which adds a zombie apocalypse theme to the original. The look and feel is quite similar. [1]https://store.steampowered.com/app/233740/Organ_Trail_Directors_Cut/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/233740/Organ_Trail_Direct...

TedDoesntTalk 6y ago

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 can load software from the sd card onto the Apple just as if each file from Asimov were a real 5.25” diskette. Also pick up one of these: https://www.cbmstuff.com/proddetail.php?prod=WiModem232OLED https://www.cbmstuff.com/proddetail.php?prod=WiModem232OLED You can connect your Apple to WiFi and then essentially telnet to one off the many BBS servers that are still running. Actually you can telnet to anything on the Internet at that point. You just need to load terminal emulation software, like Ascii Express (often abbreviated as AE or AE Express), onto the Apple first.

whatrocks 6y ago
Wow, I'll definitely be picking up both of those cards. Thanks for the tips. I had a feeling the serial card would be my ticket to the Internet, rather than the impressive-looking, but clearly past-its-prime modem card.
rbanffy 6y ago
I also suggest the CFFA hard-disk emulator. I always wanted a hard disk for my Apple II.
- StillBored 6y ago
  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/ 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).
  - TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
    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.

deleted 6y ago

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hossbeast 6y ago

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

andrewstuart 6y ago
There was a really great 2 player game on Apple 2 called "Swashbuckler". Well, great for 1983 anyway. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyR3tou4tdM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyR3tou4tdM
- hossbeast 6y ago
  I also remember Swashbuckler! Another recommendation for OP.
lihaciudaniel 6y ago
>Odyssey (text based adventure game) Wow that was awesome
pge 6y ago
Archon was fun. Also recommend Elite (and google the history- it was quite a programming feat at the time).
- the_af 6y ago
  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.
RockIslandLine 6y ago
Wizardry and Bard's Tale. I spent a few thousand hours on each.

mjg59 6y ago

> Some wizards at work told me that I probably cannot just plug this into a modern phone line and expect it to work, though. Is this true? I can't think of any immediate reason it would fail, but finding something to actually dial into seems like a harder problem.

toast0 6y ago
Modern phone lines are usually VOIP somewhere, and if the codec sucks, it might not be good enough for a modem. OTOH, that's probably a pretty low bitrate modem, so it might work out ok. If running your own VOIP gateway, g.711 codec is probably the most likely to work for running a modem, but I haven't tried it.
- skissane 6y ago
  As well as the codec issue, the other problem is that the inconsistent timing of VoIP often upsets modems, especially at higher bitrates.
mattlondon 6y ago
Pulse Vs tone? Is that a thing or did my brain just make it up? :/
- mjg59 6y ago
  My experience is that exchanges will still accept pulse dialing, but it's a while since I've had a landline to check
- StillBored 6y ago
  Probably doesn't matter (although that is a genuine Hayes so it probably supports both) because a lot of those old modems were capable of "operator dial". AKA you dial the phone manually then you tell the modem to start negiotiation. AKA ATDT is a tone dial, while ATDP is a pulse dial, or just plain ATD to start negotiation.
StillBored 6y ago

greendave 6y ago

And for productivity, there's always AppleWorks[1]. Well, I suppose one doesn't get a 37-year old computer for productivity, but just in case... [1] https://apple2history.org/history/ah19/ https://apple2history.org/history/ah19/

hnaa 6y ago

Hey this is a former coworker of yours from GU back in the day. Nice post! Hope you're doing well and congrats on the IIe. I grew up coding on one of these as well. :)

rbanffy 6y ago
My first paid job was writing educational software for Apple II's. Those were pretty awesome machines for the time.

dmolony 6y ago

You might want to check this out - https://www.kansasfest.org/ https://www.kansasfest.org/

codecamper 6y ago

And the keyboard works! My MB Pro's keyboard? Not so much.

rbanffy 6y ago
Those Alps switches were great.
sgt 6y ago
Send it in. The butterfly ones can be fixed under warranty. It's not going to be perfect but will solve the sticking key issue. I just use a Magic keyboard with an external screen 90% of the time though.

PebblesHD 6y ago

Amazingly, this is exactly how I acquired my SE/30, sitting on the side of the road in a pile of other junk. Had the keyboard and trapezoid mouse! I was still at university at the time and took great joy in writing an essay about wiretapping on it, then spending nearly a week trying to get the floppy drive working to get said essay off the machine...

tyingq 6y ago

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 < $10) into an rs232 to wifi bridge. http://www.retroadventures.net/apple-iic-and-the-d-i-wimodem232/ http://www.retroadventures.net/apple-iic-and-the-d-i-wimodem... https://github.com/bozimmerman/Zimodem https://github.com/bozimmerman/Zimodem

taborj 6y ago
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 http://obsolete.site/?p=39

apple2ta 6y ago

Ha ha that SIN function on the screen reminded me of how slow operations like SIN and COS were on the old BBC Computers. You had to think before you did stuff like that. I remember figuring out that using pythag x^2+y^2 =1 therefore y=sqrt(1-x^2) was a much faster way to draw a circle than SIN/COS.

jonahbenton 6y ago

Great piece. Haven't seen Beagle Bros mentioned. Their awesome catalogs: https://stevenf.com/beagle/contents.html 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 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 resources around online, fondly remembered books on 6502 assembly and graphics programming (still have em): https://www.amazon.com/High-resolution-Graphics-Animation-Assembly-Language/dp/0810467585 https://www.amazon.com/High-resolution-Graphics-Animation-As... https://books.google.com/books/about/Hi_res_Graphics_for_the_Apple_II_IIe_IIc.html?id=AnSeAAAACAAJ https://books.google.com/books/about/Hi_res_Graphics_for_the... Super cool memories from my childhood.

whatrocks 6y ago
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 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!
- jonahbenton 6y ago
  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. Getting that working as a kid- actually seeing butter smooth non-flicker animation in the simple games I was writing- big, big moment.
  - joezydeco 6y ago
    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 http://www.deater.net/weave/vmwprod/megademo/vapor_lock.html

pge 6y ago

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?

kcolford 6y ago
Try your local university cs department. They'd love a piece of history like that. Mine has a few of those pieces in a display case for everyone to come and see.
TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
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.
the_af 6y ago
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.

Koshkin 6y ago

I still dabble with electronics, read paper books, drive a car (even have flown small airplanes) etc., but after having spent countless hours playing first-person computer games, using simulators, and reading text on the computer screen my perspective has gradually shifted and I now can't help seeing many artifacts (and not only) as poor incarnation of their ideal selves that live in a virtual world.

acomjean 6y ago

That was my exact kit growing up. My mom was a freelance translator for a time before working for data general, and she bought this for working. Like our school machines but more memory and less color.. When she wasn’t working my brothers and I could use it write papers / software and play games. A joystick would be a helpful addition. Apple joysticks are really analog (basically two game paddles together) which make them interesting. I still remember (I think) how to get the screen to cycle colors. 10 hgr 20 For I = 1 to 7 30 hcolor = i 40 hplot 0,0 50 call 62454 60 next I The Apple II time warp podcasts is not often updated and kinda fun too https://appletimewarp.libsyn.com/apple-time-warp-podcast-episode-2-editedm4a https://appletimewarp.libsyn.com/apple-time-warp-podcast-epi...

dekhn 6y ago
yes, this works. it fills in using the weird apple row addressing and everything.

raverbashing 6y ago

$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)

whatrocks 6y ago
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 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 to be the top suggestion).
- raverbashing 6y ago
  Besides the soldering iron, what you'll want is those desoldering tools (just an example, but yes, both of them): https://www.amazon.com/Desoldering-Solder-Sucker-Length-Remover/dp/B07BB8DGMP/ https://www.amazon.com/Desoldering-Solder-Sucker-Length-Remo... (Also a cleaning sponge, and new solder but the above is very helpful for a good maintenance experience)
- cferr 6y ago
  I recommend getting a brass wool tip cleaner and using it often while soldering. Also some good quality flux will really help. I recommend Amtech for the flux, and the tip cleaner I use is Hakko branded. You can find both on Amazon and elsewhere.
- acomjean 6y ago
  https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-guide-excellent-soldering https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-guide-excellent-solderin... The video is good basic intro, though it has a slightly strange vibe.
- bdowling 6y ago
  > (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.

II2II 6y ago

The Super Serial Card is a nice and you don't need any software to use it. Typing "PR#2" followed by "IN#2" (replace the "2" with the slot number the card is installed in) will give you access to a very simple serial communications terminal. Granted, it does take some configuration for both computers to understand each other. You can also search for scans of books and magazines online. People have been working on preserving these materials since the mid-1990's, so there are many excellent resources.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

the_af 6y ago

Lovely. I love this kind of computer archeology posts. I'm still sad my dad sold my C64, back in the day, in order to buy me a PC XT clone. I want to travel back in time and tell my dad to keep the C64, that future me would love it. Emulators just aren't the same :/

fuball63 6y ago

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 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/ https://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/

acomjean 6y ago
The applesoft basic manual is on archive.org This one is a pretty good primer: https://archive.org/details/ATouchOfApplesoftBASIC/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/ATouchOfApplesoftBASIC/mode/2up there are others (archive.org is a good resource for these things.) https://archive.org/details/applesoft-tutorial/page/n37/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/applesoft-tutorial/page/n37/mode...

mansilladev 6y ago

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.

mattpharr 6y ago
So -20480 works out to be 0xAFFF. My trusty copy of "What's Where in the Apple", which includes a catalog of where everything is in memory, says that the routine to write the VTOC from its in-memory buffer to disk starts at $AFF8. The VTOC is the volume table of contents (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AApple_DOS#Volume_Table_of_Contents_(VTOC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AApple_DOS#Volume_Table_...), so calling into the middle of that presumably ends up overwriting the VTOC with junk, which would indeed make the disk useless.
StillBored 6y ago
Without spending much time on it, you probably jumped to DOS's RWTS or similar and wrote a track out (or something similar). That appears to be 0xAFFF which doesn't ring any bells but is roughly where DOS might load depending on machine/etc. Try https://github.com/iKarith/beneath-apple-dos/blob/master/ch05.txt https://github.com/iKarith/beneath-apple-dos/blob/master/ch0... for more info.

mkchoi212 6y ago

So cool and very well written! Makes me want to buy a vintage computer and try it out. Maybe I'll try to get the BBC micro :O

jbgreer 6y ago

In 1983 I bought an Apple ][e with a monitor, dual floppy drives (but not the fancy duodisk verson), and an 80 column card. A friend and his father had bought several as a speculative investment, and when his parents left town he needed cash for a party. I took advantage of this situation and got a smoking deal. A very short time later I bought a Hayes Smartmodem 1200 from someone wanting to avoid advertising in the local paper. Again, a smoking deal. At one point I dialed 60 BBSes a week. A very short time later I bought a Z80 card so that I could also run CP/M. It was glorious. I regret selling it. I learned to type so that I could be more productive on that machine. That, and my handwriting was already atrocious. I programmed Apple Basic, Apple Pascal, 6502 assembly, and C on that machine. I used Apple Writer to transcribe and print a literary magazine for my school. I typeset calculus notes on the machine. I plotted star charts. So much fun, and, yes, such a wonderfully expandable machine.

incanus77 6y ago

Awesome find. I grew up on the Apple IIe at school. I'm trying to do something like the author's rediscovery with a cheaply-found "luggable" 386 over here: https://justinmiller.io/posts/2020/04/26/project-386-part-1/ https://justinmiller.io/posts/2020/04/26/project-386-part-1/ So far, it's proving much more difficult.

mtalantikite 6y ago

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 booted fine. I ended up giving the Plus and SE away to friends, but I still have the 512k in my office and play around with it from time to time. What a great machine!

II2II 6y ago
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.

acomjean 6y ago

IIE (//e)? Manuals are available on archive.org. you can browse with their page by page thing, but if you scroll down they're available a pdfs. and the owners manual, very pracitcal nuts and bolts, but informative (150 pgs). https://archive.org/details/apple-iie-owner-manual/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/apple-iie-owner-manual/mode/2up The reference manual is low level but helps in understanding the machine. https://archive.org/details/Apple_IIe_Reference_Manual_HiRes/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/Apple_IIe_Reference_Manual_HiRes...

chihuahua 6y ago

To me, the most surprising thing about this story is that Steve Jobs allowed a device to be made with lots of expansion slots!

azinman2 6y ago

I’d strongly advise against retrobrighting. It usually vastly speeds up the deterioration of the plastic such that it could start turning to powder in just a few months, from my understanding.

Yhippa 6y ago

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.

pippy 6y ago

It's crazy the value of vintage computers. My dad gave me an IBM XT 286 he got for nothing in the late 90's. It was for me to take apart and destroy so I could learn a bit about computers, which I did. Now just the keyboard is worth hundreds of dollars. I was frustrated to see LGR do a repair video of the exact model I had, and the same model can go for thousands of dollars.