78 replies to this topic

[Arkhan]

I found an apple IIc in my closet in a box.  I got it for free.

I need games for it either by Buy/Sell/Trading........ or by using some kinda disk image nonsense.

I am willing to trade Intellivision games for some.

I like RPGs the most, am looking for Crypt of Medea..

and also like arcade games, like falcons.



I have an external disk drive too.  I am hoping I can use that program I found (ADT or ADP or something), to shoot disk images over to it.

I was never big on Apple, since we had a C64 and an Amiga500, but I am willing to give it a shot.

[Ransom]

ADTPro is the right program thing to use.

Go to the Asimov disk image archive and get some .DSK files, then transfer them over to some shiny new 5.25" disks using ADTPro and the appropriate cable (most likely serial).

Have fun!

[Arkhan]

Yeah, I will look for a cable.  I still haven't set the thing up.  It is neat looking so far.

It would blow if it didn't work.

I'm curious though, the IIc, as far as sound, is pretty crappy, isn't it

[save2600]

Arkhan, on Mon Feb 20, 2012 8:21 PM, said:

I'm curious though, the IIc, as far as sound, is pretty crappy, isn't it

Why yes. Yes it is.  

All part of the "charm" of owning an Apple ][ product. Now all you need is an amber or green screen and you'll be all set to show off the awesome power of 8-bit Apple's!  

[Arkhan]

save2600, on Mon Feb 20, 2012 9:28 PM, said:

Arkhan, on Mon Feb 20, 2012 8:21 PM, said:

I'm curious though, the IIc, as far as sound, is pretty crappy, isn't it

Why yes. Yes it is.  

All part of the "charm" of owning an Apple ][ product. Now all you need is an amber or green screen and you'll be all set to show off the awesome power of 8-bit Apple's!  

I have the color composite monitor. \o/


I do like the really chripy speaker noises, like you hear in Ultima.

no other sounds though, eh?

[The Usotsuki]

Not on a C.

If you had an E, you could plug in a Mockingboard (well, there *is* one for the //c but I think it's incompatible because it plugs through a serial port instead of a 6522).

[Ransom]

Yeah, the Apple ][ sounds are...um...interesting.  Some games have nice sounds...some have really irritating sound.  A few of the Atarisoft games are some of the worst, IMO.

At least with a //c, you can turn it down.    I need to add a volume control to my //e.

BTW, last time I bought an Apple cable, I bought it through MC Pricebreakers (still in business after all these years..sorta).  I'm sure you can get the right cable anywhere, but I just wanted to mention them.  I bought stuff from them way, way back, and was glad to see they're still out there in some form.

[Arkhan]

What sort of cable is it?   I have a dickload of C64 related cables sitting in a box.


I'm ok with obnoxious crunchy sound.   I mostly just want to finally try Apple II games besides Oregon Trail, Falcons, and Ultima V.

[Ransom]

Oh, right, I'd forgotten that the //c has a DIN5 connector for the serial port.  So it's DIN5 to DB9, wired for null modem usage.  Available from RetroFloppy here.

[Arkhan]

It does? Cool.

I honestly haven't looked at the back.  lol.  I did look at the back of the monitor and see that it only has one connector that looks like an RF one.  That was kinda disappointing since the monitor is nice looking.

So this is basically the same kinda cable I used to transfer crap to an Amiga a few years ago.

[Ransom]

Interesting that it's the same as the Amiga cable.  All those weird standards...

[Arkhan]

Well it's not 100% the same, but it's basically the same.  Null-modem serial nonsense.

The Amiga didn't have a 5 pin DIN on the end of it though.  I can't even remember what it had.  I'm pretty sure it was a DB9 and DB25.

I got out of the Amiga world awhile ago because those machines were a pain in my ass and didn't offer anything my DOS machine, or Sega Genesis/PC Engine couldn't do.

Oh, I also see this RetroFloppy place sells the ADT disk.  It might be a good idea to get that and remove any possible problems with my experience.  Would be kind of lame to sit and wonder why nothings working only to find out I wrote the software to a janky disk that I had laying around...

[Ransom]

You could buy the floppy.

But then you wouldn't get the pleasure of booting from raw hardware and building up to a fully functioning system.

(It's probably just me though.  I get excited about the silliest things...)

[Arkhan]

The disk is only a small piece of the puzzle, isn't it?  

speaking of, I'm not 100% sure how this ADT thing works.  You boot the ADT disk up and it acts as a server to accept disk images sent over from the computer running the host program?  Is that correct?

[Ransom]

The server piece is on your modern computer.  To boot from bare metal, you can hook your modern computer to your Apple // via null modem cable, put the ADTPro server software into serial mode and tell it to use the bootstrapping process to send ProDOS over, and then boot your Apple // and tell it to read from the serial port and execute the program it receives from there.  That results in ProDOS being loaded on your Apple //.  Then you can use that to write a copy to floppy disk, and go from there to get a copy of the ADTPro client software transferred over and saved.  All documented here.

[Arkhan]

Ah ok.  Yeah, I thought backwards.  You'd think I wouldn't though, considering I have something almost identical for an MSX computer, lol.

need more caffeine, I think.

[Keatah]

The skills learned in setting up a functioning system with ADT and bare metal will serve you well. It's like a rite of passage. If you can't do it then you shouldn't be messing with classic computing. It's really quite simple. One step at a time.

[potatohead]

Agreed.  And it's not that hard.  I enjoyed it, and use my Apple regularly.  Ciderpress is a recommended second skill set.  With that you can deal with disk images, building new ones, doing file management, and getting stuff to and from your PC.

[Arkhan]

Keatah, on Wed Feb 22, 2012 12:50 AM, said:

The skills learned in setting up a functioning system with ADT and bare metal will serve you well. It's like a rite of passage. If you can't do it then you shouldn't be messing with classic computing. It's really quite simple. One step at a time.

*rolls eyes*  gimme a break, lol.

Considering I've already done this with an Amiga, MSX, and C64's, I'm not really that worried about getting it to work.  I've fixed enough 1541s, transferred .d64's around, and modified enough C64s that I think my "rite of passage" already happened.  Ever sit and tweak 1541s that are dismantled, while they're running?  It's boring.

Aside from me mixing up the term server/client a few posts back (probably due to not being awake), this ADT operates like the NoWind interface.  The only difference being, this Apple II is untested and may not even work right.  My MSX's are known to work because I have games and carts for them...

This IIc came from someones basement where it sat for the better half of two decades.  I think they said the basement flooded.  They're heavy smokers.  There are alot of variables here that indicate I may have a hosed setup.

I don't feel like screwing around only to find out this dingy Apple II is broken or that my disks I haven't touched in 5+ years are all gimped.  Getting the disk in known working condition would take the guess work and time wasting out of the equation.  What if the disk drive I have is broken?  It would be alot easier to trouble shoot with known-working Apple II disks.  I have none of those either.  I could type in some BASIC program and save it to disk... but if I'm already ordering a cable, why not get the disk while I am at it ?   It saves me time.   Or, do you suggest I also make the cable myself, because buying that would ruin my rite of passage too?

After looking at the how-to, you're all right, it is pretty simple.  Easier than the stupid crap you have to do with the C64...so I am looking forward to that. But, this is assuming your floppy drives work fine and you've got disks you trust.

The C64 and Amiga are alot of the reason I don't have a strong urge to spend alot of time tinkering.  I'm reluctant to waste time on it anymore.  I'm hoping this rekindles my tinkering nature, but right now, I've got better things to do, like program the classic computers and consoles that I apparently shouldn't be messing with.  In my world, programming takes precedence over dicking off with cables and hardware that may be dodgy.  Playing games is more important too.  This is why I am willing to give the Apple II a shot, but I want to get the ball rolling with as little annoying effort as possible..  The C64 sucked to tinker with.

Edited by Arkhan, Wed Feb 22, 2012 12:07 PM.

[potatohead]

Oh, I think you should order both.  Totally makes sense.  Apples are pretty robust in my experience.  And the cable is super easy.  What I did on mine as a dry run was just cut the two ends, twist the wires together and run ADT through to see the boot strap happen.  I had some old floppy disks and just wrote the boot disk out.  Didn't take long.

I've also got one game from those days, and I booted it, after finding out the disk drive wasn't going to trash it, then I copied all the disks.  Had a lot of fun playing some Ultima V.  

Once I knew the ADT was going to work, I just got a USB serial device and the right cable.  In my case, being a //e, it's a simple modem type cable purchased for a coupla bucks at the local computer store.  For you, that odd serial port means just a bit more, but not much more.  You could just poke the wires in there for a quickie too, if it's all about just finding out if stuff works.  The bootstrap takes all of 30 minutes.

But yeah, do get a disk and see if it boots.  Why not?  I would, if I were not inclined to boot strap right off.

Funny too, I've got some old floppy disks laying around that I used with various systems.  (no, there wasn't anything rare on them, I checked), and they all worked just fine on the Apple, despite being in a box for a lot of years.  The local surplus store had piles of floppies for .50 each too, brand new.  $10 later, and I'm kind of set.

Edited by potatohead, Wed Feb 22, 2012 1:09 PM.

[Arkhan]

Yeah.  My experience comes from the land of C=, where most of the hardware is finnicky, so I want to have some guaranteed working bits.  I expect the worst, and don't want to sit scratching my head and fumbling around all over again.

The IIc itself feels 100x more solid than a breadbin at least.  If this crap ends up working, I will give it a bleach treatment so it isn't the color of death.

I kept alot of disks, but most of them are all second hand that I got from hauling stuff from peoples garages.  When I was born and alert to computers, 5.25" disks were already obsolete.  Alot of my disks I'd try using with the C64 would goon up.. either due to the disk being bad, or the 1541 being a picky bastard.

The cable experience you mention sounds like when I built an MSX RGB cable.  I just sat and poked bare wires into the DB9 until i got a picture, then I assembled it.  I wasn't at a place where I could get the pinout off pinouts.ru or anything.  (Friends house).   It was a fun time, and I learned to love those solder-less DB9 connector kits.  They're great.

I will probably order the cable and disk.  In the meantime I'll probably write some kind of BASIC program and hope the disk drives arent shot.


Next on the agenda once games are working is to find some boxed games...

and that goony stand thing for the monitor so it looks like the picture.   Any idea where I can get that at?

[potatohead]

None here.  I just want a Monitor III to go with my //e  Loved that particular green screen, and it's bandwidth is off the charts good.  Have a few related projects that could use a high resolution, monochrome composite monitor.  They are surprisingly hard to find now.  

Yeah, I've done that too.  I wouldn't with the serial though.  Good news is the pinouts are dead simple.  My favorite was to twist the wire, then lay a bit of solder on it so that it fits nicely in the holes.

Wouldn't mind a few boxed myself.  Looks good next to the machine.  The one I've got is killer though.  Lots of play time, and I've forgotten many elements of this game, so it's a really new retro experience to me now.  Fun stuff.

[potatohead]

I don't think you can write a program and save without a DOS, just FYI.

[Arkhan]

potatohead, on Wed Feb 22, 2012 1:30 PM, said:

I don't think you can write a program and save without a DOS, just FYI.

Damn.  Doesn't work like the C= where I can just save from the basic prompt? lol

I've *never* used an Apple II outside of booting games when I was younger at school, and even then they were obsolete.

What makes me want to try the thing out is the CPU itself is the same as the PC Engine (where I do most of my programming), AND Crypt of Medea looks fun.

[potatohead]

The Apple game experience is an interesting one.  Early games were innovative, but often kind of crappy graphic and sound wise.  Later ones were fairly good to excellent, as people really got their heads around the limits.

So much software was made for those computers, and that's fun too.  Because they could be expanded, there is also a considerable amount of useful, productivity software that is kind of surprising really, given the machine attributes.

Many game titles are superior on the Atari computers, but some aren't.  There is a guy on You Tube who captured a ton of Apple software.  You might go and look those over while you are waiting for hardware.