5 ms·

Apple II Documentation Project

130 points by gscott 4y ago

pjmlp 4y ago
Lots of interesting stuff, specially the books for computer archeologists.
richdougherty 4y ago
Excited to see one of my first programming books there: A Touch of Applesoft BASIC [1]. The book is very limited but it's what I had. I would have been so excited to have all these other books available. What an amazing time we live in. [1] http://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20Project/Software/Languages/Applesoft%20BASIC/Manuals/Apple%20II%20A%20touch%20of%20Applesoft%20BASIC.pdf http://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20Pr...
crb 4y ago
In case anyone is interested http://www.zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cbm/index.html http://www.zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cbm/index.html is effectively a less-organized Commodore equivalent
- mrspeaker 4y ago
  Woah. I've spent the last year-or-so messing with coding the C64 and hoovering up any information I could find... and I never found this site/ftp. So much good stuff - there goes my evening!
rswail 4y ago
I have an original copy of the Apple II manual somewhere, with the ROM listing and handwritten changes. Will have to dig it out.
- acomjean 4y ago
  consider adding it the internet archive list of manuals. Its not complete, but they have some good ones. I wonder if sometimes stuff gets lost because of apple 2 labeling ][+ vs //e vs //c.... Manuals had a lot more info back then. What were the handwritten changes? internet archive: https://archive.org/search.php?query=apple+2+manuals&page=1 https://archive.org/search.php?query=apple+2+manuals&page=1
  - phoronixrly 4y ago
    Yeah I plan on doing exactly this with my tiny collection of Pravetz literature. Already added the 8M ROM dump, including the character generator ROM that is missing from the original link: https://archive.org/details/pravetz8m-eproms/ https://archive.org/details/pravetz8m-eproms/
    - jhbadger 4y ago
      I love that prompt "ПРЕСС АНЬ КЕЬ" -- literally just English "PRESS ANY KEY" but in Cyrillic.
      - phoronixrly 4y ago
        Yes, one of the character tables in the character ROM consists of upper and lower case Bulgarian letters, which as you can see is not very useful with Basic :)
  - js2 4y ago
    Here's a 1978 Apple ][ Manual. I'd never seen this one before. It contains some hand-written material: https://archive.org/details/apple2_manual_a2rb/mode/thumb https://archive.org/details/apple2_manual_a2rb/mode/thumb Here's a 19879 manual. This is closer to the manual that came with my Apple ][ https://archive.org/details/apple2_manual_a2rm/mode/thumb https://archive.org/details/apple2_manual_a2rm/mode/thumb I vaguely recall mine having some hand-written corrections to the assembly listings but I don't see any. The Apple ][ Documentation project has the same manual but w/o an altered title page: http://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20Project/Computers/Apple%20II/Apple%20II/Manuals/Apple%20II%20Reference%20Manual%201981.pdf http://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20Pr...
lordgrenville 4y ago
Not so common to see the .za TLD on here, except for posts from Marc Brooker. Is this a South African project?
- armadsen 4y ago
  apple2.org.za has hosted a ton of useful Apple II content for a long time. I believe the owner of the site is in Joburg. (He is providing hosting for this project, but isn't one of the main contributors, AFAIK.) I've always thought it was interesting that one of the most valuable Apple II sites is in ZA, because I'm not aware of South Africa being a hotbed for Apple II users in general.
  - sgt 4y ago
    There were quite a few Apple 2's in SA. I'm part of a Vintage Computing club and a lot of the members have them, including everything else like Commodore 64's, Amiga, PC, Macintosh, etc.
    - ddingus 4y ago
      Nice to know! I don't seem to hear much from the SA scene. Any sites to check out?
      - sgt 4y ago
        I don't know of many sites - I'm hardly involved at all, more like an observer. I collect mostly Unix stuff. I can think of one site though: http://retro.co.za http://retro.co.za (look at the incredibly small top bar)
        ddingus 4y ago
        Well, I see 6809 on that toolbar, which makes me happy. Thanks for the link I'll check it out.
- gary_0 4y ago
Syzygies 4y ago
In 1980 as a math grad student, I took out my bank's first student loan for a computer, $3000 ($9000 now) for an Apple II. My annual stipend was not much more. My branch of math at that time was a foot race with no rule against bicycles (they hardly knew what one was) and I saw computerizing my field as an alternative to dropping out. The Apple II didn't really help here; later we managed to bit-squeeze a viable computer algebra system [1] onto the first 128K Macintosh, leading to colleague adoption. Other friends got their start in computing, learning how to program the Apple II in my apartment. One could learn the Apple II inside-out. I've never had that experience again. My first week I took a soldering iron to it to provide lower case support; I've been the surgeon for friends' computers ever since. There was a book (it must be somewhere on this archive) that explained the purpose of every byte in low memory. For perspective, I was avidly learning Go as I started grad school, till I read on the back cover of one of James Davies' books that he had dropped out of math grad school to pursue Go. Ouch! The Apple II was a completely different, more approachable scale. I could master it and stay in grad school. [1] https://www.math.columbia.edu/~bayer/Macaulay/ https://www.math.columbia.edu/~bayer/Macaulay/
- derekja 4y ago
  what’s where in the apple. https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=67D333F6D1B0AA52E261459FEBA4C751 https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=67D333F6D1B0AA52E261459... I also had that experience and credit the deep understanding of an early system with intuition in rapidly understanding modern systems.
  - Syzygies 4y ago
    Yes! That was the book.
- js2 4y ago
  > My first week I took a soldering iron to it to provide lower case support I had (still have actually...) an Apple ][ thus modified but I don't recall soldering anything inside the computer being necessary. It required running a jumper from the shift key to the paddle input. https://archive.org/details/II_II-Shift-Key_Modification https://archive.org/details/II_II-Shift-Key_Modification This didn't actually display lowercase though, just allowed you to input it. To display it required replacing the character set generator chip which I think was on the keyboard PBC, but I'm not sure about as mine had an entirely swapped out keyboard PCB with one that had macro support.
empressplay 4y ago
The Kansasfest Apple II convention is coming up later this month, both on-line and in-person, if you like the Apple II this is the place for you! https://kansasfest.org https://kansasfest.org
doublepg23 4y ago
I am young (zoomer) retro computing hobbyist and it’s great to have these saved for future generations. A lot of stuff I read on the internet assumes prior knowledge of terminology at the time. Decoding what they meant by different types of signals, cables and connectors can be challenging at times if your first computer had PCIe :)

130 points by gscott 4y ago

Lots of interesting stuff, specially the books for computer archeologists.

Excited to see one of my first programming books there: A Touch of Applesoft BASIC [1]. The book is very limited but it's what I had. I would have been so excited to have all these other books available. What an amazing time we live in. [1] http://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20Project/Software/Languages/Applesoft%20BASIC/Manuals/Apple%20II%20A%20touch%20of%20Applesoft%20BASIC.pdf http://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20Pr...

crb 4y ago

In case anyone is interested http://www.zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cbm/index.html http://www.zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cbm/index.html is effectively a less-organized Commodore equivalent

mrspeaker 4y ago
Woah. I've spent the last year-or-so messing with coding the C64 and hoovering up any information I could find... and I never found this site/ftp. So much good stuff - there goes my evening!

rswail 4y ago

I have an original copy of the Apple II manual somewhere, with the ROM listing and handwritten changes. Will have to dig it out.

acomjean 4y ago
consider adding it the internet archive list of manuals. Its not complete, but they have some good ones. I wonder if sometimes stuff gets lost because of apple 2 labeling ][+ vs //e vs //c.... Manuals had a lot more info back then. What were the handwritten changes? internet archive: https://archive.org/search.php?query=apple+2+manuals&page=1 https://archive.org/search.php?query=apple+2+manuals&page=1
- phoronixrly 4y ago
  Yeah I plan on doing exactly this with my tiny collection of Pravetz literature. Already added the 8M ROM dump, including the character generator ROM that is missing from the original link: https://archive.org/details/pravetz8m-eproms/ https://archive.org/details/pravetz8m-eproms/
  - jhbadger 4y ago
    I love that prompt "ПРЕСС АНЬ КЕЬ" -- literally just English "PRESS ANY KEY" but in Cyrillic.
    - phoronixrly 4y ago
      Yes, one of the character tables in the character ROM consists of upper and lower case Bulgarian letters, which as you can see is not very useful with Basic :)
- js2 4y ago
  Here's a 1978 Apple ][ Manual. I'd never seen this one before. It contains some hand-written material: https://archive.org/details/apple2_manual_a2rb/mode/thumb https://archive.org/details/apple2_manual_a2rb/mode/thumb Here's a 19879 manual. This is closer to the manual that came with my Apple ][ https://archive.org/details/apple2_manual_a2rm/mode/thumb https://archive.org/details/apple2_manual_a2rm/mode/thumb I vaguely recall mine having some hand-written corrections to the assembly listings but I don't see any. The Apple ][ Documentation project has the same manual but w/o an altered title page: http://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20Project/Computers/Apple%20II/Apple%20II/Manuals/Apple%20II%20Reference%20Manual%201981.pdf http://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20Pr...

lordgrenville 4y ago

Not so common to see the .za TLD on here, except for posts from Marc Brooker. Is this a South African project?

armadsen 4y ago
apple2.org.za has hosted a ton of useful Apple II content for a long time. I believe the owner of the site is in Joburg. (He is providing hosting for this project, but isn't one of the main contributors, AFAIK.) I've always thought it was interesting that one of the most valuable Apple II sites is in ZA, because I'm not aware of South Africa being a hotbed for Apple II users in general.
- sgt 4y ago
  There were quite a few Apple 2's in SA. I'm part of a Vintage Computing club and a lot of the members have them, including everything else like Commodore 64's, Amiga, PC, Macintosh, etc.
  - ddingus 4y ago
    Nice to know! I don't seem to hear much from the SA scene. Any sites to check out?
    - sgt 4y ago
      I don't know of many sites - I'm hardly involved at all, more like an observer. I collect mostly Unix stuff. I can think of one site though: http://retro.co.za http://retro.co.za (look at the incredibly small top bar)
      - ddingus 4y ago
        Well, I see 6809 on that toolbar, which makes me happy. Thanks for the link I'll check it out.
gary_0 4y ago

Syzygies 4y ago

In 1980 as a math grad student, I took out my bank's first student loan for a computer, $3000 ($9000 now) for an Apple II. My annual stipend was not much more. My branch of math at that time was a foot race with no rule against bicycles (they hardly knew what one was) and I saw computerizing my field as an alternative to dropping out. The Apple II didn't really help here; later we managed to bit-squeeze a viable computer algebra system [1] onto the first 128K Macintosh, leading to colleague adoption. Other friends got their start in computing, learning how to program the Apple II in my apartment. One could learn the Apple II inside-out. I've never had that experience again. My first week I took a soldering iron to it to provide lower case support; I've been the surgeon for friends' computers ever since. There was a book (it must be somewhere on this archive) that explained the purpose of every byte in low memory. For perspective, I was avidly learning Go as I started grad school, till I read on the back cover of one of James Davies' books that he had dropped out of math grad school to pursue Go. Ouch! The Apple II was a completely different, more approachable scale. I could master it and stay in grad school. [1] https://www.math.columbia.edu/~bayer/Macaulay/ https://www.math.columbia.edu/~bayer/Macaulay/

derekja 4y ago
what’s where in the apple. https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=67D333F6D1B0AA52E261459FEBA4C751 https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=67D333F6D1B0AA52E261459... I also had that experience and credit the deep understanding of an early system with intuition in rapidly understanding modern systems.
- Syzygies 4y ago
  Yes! That was the book.
js2 4y ago
> My first week I took a soldering iron to it to provide lower case support I had (still have actually...) an Apple ][ thus modified but I don't recall soldering anything inside the computer being necessary. It required running a jumper from the shift key to the paddle input. https://archive.org/details/II_II-Shift-Key_Modification https://archive.org/details/II_II-Shift-Key_Modification This didn't actually display lowercase though, just allowed you to input it. To display it required replacing the character set generator chip which I think was on the keyboard PBC, but I'm not sure about as mine had an entirely swapped out keyboard PCB with one that had macro support.

empressplay 4y ago

The Kansasfest Apple II convention is coming up later this month, both on-line and in-person, if you like the Apple II this is the place for you! https://kansasfest.org https://kansasfest.org

doublepg23 4y ago

I am young (zoomer) retro computing hobbyist and it’s great to have these saved for future generations. A lot of stuff I read on the internet assumes prior knowledge of terminology at the time. Decoding what they meant by different types of signals, cables and connectors can be challenging at times if your first computer had PCIe :)