I'm getting bored with my Apple II stuff

[Keatah]

That's funny! But hey man it works! Seems you used a floppy as disk cleaning disk.

[Keatah]

They made floppies that had a rough-textured (compressed fiber-like) surface that you'd put alcohol on and run it through. Head cleaners. They worked great as long as you didn't flip them and grind away the pressure pad. Which I did once! Damn near cost me $80 bux to get it(pp) replaced and tested. I wanted the full monty with report.

 

Of course nowadays this is something I would do myself. But back then disk drives new magical beasts and I was learning TTL engineering and didn't take any chances on something(disk drive) I knew little about.

[Keatah]

I suppose it was a good thing I hauled it into service, because, they said they did minor tweaks and a speed adjustment in addition to the pressure pad. It is common knowledge, today, that And over the years I pulled out the report and used it as notes in maintaining and adjusting a good number (20 or so) Disk II drives. It was that spot-on! And the disk drive I'm talking about was made in 1979-1980. Last year, though, I found the stepper motor wasn't whacking the head hard enough during the initial power-up reset/calibration. I was intending to use it to dump some old floppies for Asimov, but instead I put it aside and used another drive at hand, a more modern 1987 model. Which was a mistake. Another story for another time. But I was really sad since the drive had lasted so long and read thousands upon thousands of floppies and served in 1 job, and through school AND it ran my BBS. It was drive #1 in a typical 2 drive configuration. But to have it fail like that?? Just go slack like a limp dick? It was strange and wrong. Just wasn't right. Something was up.

 

Well, I opened it up and poked around and found a lot of noise where there shouldn't be. Thinking some caps mighta dried out I tested them up and they were ok. And the power coming in on the ribbon cable was good too. So this meant something on the drive. I took off the analog board in preparation to remove some parts and to get a look at the underside and seeing nothing unusual I plugged it back in on a whim, not having removed any parts yet. I was about to continue tracing the source of the noise. I powered the bastard up and low and behold!! It was slapping pretty hard now!! Ohh wow!! Well, the only thing I fucked with was the connector. I inspected it. Other than a dull color a little, it looked ok. Re-tensioned it slightly; you never really want to bend any connector though, you mess up strength and conductivity and plating. There's a whole branch of physics and science behind electrical connectors, but I doubt any of you will be interested in that so I shall forgo the lecture. Got out my electric eraser and buffed up the contacts. And now, NOW it was operational like magic - sounding like it did when I first opened the box. That was a funny time, opening the box, me and by buddy were arguing about something and potato chips got spilled all over it!

 

It was the only drive to have been failing like that out of my 6 original Disk II's.. And its immediate sister drive which was only a handful of counts away on the serial number hadn't experienced any failure. So it wasn't a design defect or factory or production issue. I checked the repair report and found that the analog card wasn't removed in the process of getting the pressure pad changed. Good. I recall the old fat bald man at Compu-Shop had done the work. And fat bald men, not having girlfriends, tend to bury themselves in electronics if that's their hobby. So this modern-day fail wasn't the result of mistake done during the service call or a factory problem. I doubt it. No connector was messed with. So..

 

I buttoned it up and ran a few tests with the Exerciser Card and some service disks. I pulled out my 'scope and checked shit more. Everything online - looking good! I felt like Lt. Gorman checking out the marines. I let it go through some paces and tested it again, good.

 

I thought about it and came to realization that this specific drive was one I carried around in my RadioFlyer Warez|Wagon. Something I'd drag around the whole fucking neighborhood bringing the games and good times to YOU! And later it was thrown around in the trunk of my old Chevy what with the neutral drops and smoke shows 'et all. And I checked my old photo album, it had also accompanied me and my //e on trips to the polar ice stations. To be sure! I was using the system, at the time, to journal and write, and had thus bought it with me as a real bona-fide tool. I was going to use my PC-2 but the LCD would have been less than ideal there. And the //e was all I had aside from the god-forsaken Amiga crap. Besides I wanted to add some coolness (no pun intended) to the varied history of some of my Apple 2 series hardware.

 

Well, I'm not sure precisely what had loosened the connector, but that's all it was, a dirty & loose connector! I'm not sure what caused it to become that way, but I suspect it was from being duct-taped to the Warez|Wagon and suffering though amounts of vibration it should never had experienced. And then a few snaps of -50 temps or lower. I swear I felt like Hudson running a bypass when I hooked the system up for the 1st time at camp. Having done it a hundred times before - I could do it blindfolded and one hand tied behind my back, after a bottle of Vodka.

 

Well no worries. Today. The drive is spit polished and seems no worse for the adventures. In fact once I took off all the tape residue it's practically brand new. The tape seems to have acted like a shrinkwrap protecting the drive from cosmetic scratches and scuffs. A little proper contact cleaning and 3 pressure pads on a heavily used and abused floppy drive speaks volumes about the design reliability of this mechanism - which by the way is a Shugart drive in reality, as were all the early Disk II units.

 

Currently at the moment Drive #1 is sitting in its travel case. I was going to pull it out and do some ADT stuff, but I had another pair of drives more at the ready and decided to use those for the moment. I'm sure my original Disk II drives will see use again soon enough. For what I don't know. Around here you never know..

[magnusfalkirk]

Still have not gotten any of my Apple II games in the mail. So tonight I said WTH, they dont work anyway. I have the top off my IIc and the drive cover off. I put the disk in upside down and used a qtip with alcohol on the disk surface as it was spinning. The surface was covered with a brown film! Maybe in a smokers room for years?

Anyway after cleaning the surface, I used an air can to dry it as it was spinning.

 

Flipped the disk over and BAM! The game boots up.

So my IIc is working, I just need my ADT cable and I should be set!

 

Glad to hear you were able to get Dondra working on the //c. It sounds like it might have been in a smokers house. What other games hae you got coming in the mail?

[magnusfalkirk]

Thanks for the resources!

 

Given the popularity of classic Apple computing, resources online are limited. Why isn't there a community like Atariage for Apple II enthusiasts?

 

And for the life of me, why are there no comprehensive software atlases for Apple II? Not necessarily downloads but sortable lists.

 

Do you have any suggestions for networking with an Apple II? I'd want to use Telnet to check out some BBSes,, maybe Twitter. What else can an Apple II network adapter be used for?

 

Funny, I got a CFFA and for some reason I got the impression from the documentation that it would need to be formatted in Prodos and that I wouldn't be able to use it to move images from my PC or boot images from the CFFA. And then I figured that multi-disk games and disk writes would be hard for it. So I've barely used it. And now it's in storage.

 

The CFFA3000 wil handle multi-disk games. Did you order the switch cable with the card? If I remember right it was another $20 or so but with it you could load multiple disk images to the virtual 5.25 drives and then just use the switch to change disks in the drive. As far as disk writes go I beleive it will do that but as Keatah said the documentation completely to find out for sure.

[The Usotsuki]

3- The Apple crowd is a more sophisticated and serious bunch. We don't need a message forum. We build our own networks beginning with bookmarks and lists and personal contacts. We don't go for the frivolities and buzzing bizzy-ness associated with twitch gaming and obsessive behavior. We have more clearly defined priorities and know what we want.

 

Well, we got usenet (still)...

 

7- An Apple 2 series is more difficult to get going. It requires actual critical thinking and some reading, as opposed to the fast plug and play nature of a VCS or any cartridge-based system. My lady can get a VCS going with some help. An Apple 2 would be out of the question. Most newcomers tend to be resistant to absorbing the ideas and concepts necessary for maximizing their experience on the Apple 2. An Apple 2 is about as close to bare metal discrete logic you can get and still have a capable home computer with any sort of staying power. I believe they ran the 2 series for 13 or 14 years from day one. Not too bad!

 

There's always the //c.

 

9- Apple 2 series users are snobbish and often times not a friendly bunch. They tend to be strict and less tolerant of bullshit, have a cynical outlook and believe they are always right and that their shit doesn't stink. Sometimes they're mature, too mature, to their own detriment. And yet at the same time some are the most capable of all the classic computing bunch save perhaps some VCS programmers.

That sounds more like the C64 community than the Apple community, from my experience.

[Keatah]

The C-64 community, never really had many issues with that bunch. But the A2 community? Pfagghh.. Makes me not want to even be a part of it, let alone trade and share and sell.

[Charlie_]

Glad to hear you were able to get Dondra working on the //c. It sounds like it might have been in a smokers house. What other games hae you got coming in the mail?

 

Thank you. I have five boxed and sealed Atarisoft games coming from an ebay seller.

The thing I really need is that ADT cable. I didn't realize the item location was Bulgaria in the ebay auction.

Not sweating it though, have plenty of other toys to keep me busy while I wait.

[Keatah]

What are your titles you have on order? If you got pole position coming you're in for a treat! Too bad they didn't do mocking board support. Though I don't believe any Atarisoft branded game did.

[The Usotsuki]

I thought an Apple ][ port of Pole Position was just a thing of legend?

[Charlie_]

What are your titles you have on order? If you got pole position coming you're in for a treat! Too bad they didn't do mocking board support. Though I don't believe any Atarisoft branded game did.

 

No, not Pole Position. When I get my ADT cable , I'll make it one of the first disks I make. That and Gremlins.

 

Here is the auction for the games I'm getting. He must have a lot because it says more than 10 available and the auction is for 5 games.

I think I made an offer of $7 and it was accepted.

eBay Auction -- Item Number: 251167968216

[Tanrunomad]

The C-64 community, never really had many issues with that bunch. But the A2 community? Pfagghh.. Makes me not want to even be a part of it, let alone trade and share and sell.

What Apple II community? Do you realize there's probably less than 30-40 people active in that community. I'm not even exaggerating. Some are snobbish, but most I've met are very generous and intelligent. The main difference with the active Apple II community is that they don't use their machines for gaming really, but more for hardware hacking and developing new programs. Most of the c64 community just plays games. Nothing wrong with that, but that's a big difference I've noticed. The Apple II was designed to be expanded and modded with an open architecture. One of the big reasons it was so successful in business and the c64 wasn't was its expandability and networking capabilities, even though the c64 out-shined graphically and soundwise.

Edited October 20, 2012 by Tanrunomad

[magnusfalkirk]

What Apple II community? Do you realize there's probably less than 30-40 people active in that community. I'm not even exaggerating. Some are snobbish, but most I've met are very generous and intelligent. The main difference with the active Apple II community is that they don't use their machines for gaming really, but more for hardware hacking and developing new programs. Most of the c64 community just plays games. Nothing wrong with that, but that's a big difference I've noticed. The Apple II was designed to be expanded and modded with an open architecture. One of the big reasons it was so successful in business and the c64 wasn't was its expandability and networking capabilities, even though the c64 out-shined graphically and soundwise.

 

 

I guess I must be an exception to that rule, as I mainly play games on my GS or //e or //c+. In fact the addition of a CFFA3000 card to my GS has made it really easy to play just about any Apple II game I want. With David Schmidt adding the ability to mount a Virtual Drive to ADTPro that will make it easier to do thing with the //c+ as well. And the discussion about a stand alone Virtual Drive that are going on on CSA2 right now make it even better.

 

I do have copies of Appleworks and Publish It! that I might do something with some where down the road but for now I'm enjoying playing games on my Apple II's.

[Tanrunomad]

I guess I must be an exception to that rule, as I mainly play games on my GS or //e or //c+. In fact the addition of a CFFA3000 card to my GS has made it really easy to play just about any Apple II game I want. With David Schmidt adding the ability to mount a Virtual Drive to ADTPro that will make it easier to do thing with the //c+ as well. And the discussion about a stand alone Virtual Drive that are going on on CSA2 right now make it even better.

 

I do have copies of Appleworks and Publish It! that I might do something with some where down the road but for now I'm enjoying playing games on my Apple II's.

And I fit into your group as well, mainly just using it for gaming (and occasionally programming and music composition). I guess it depends on how one defines a community. I think of a community (as it relates to computers) as a group of people who actively use their computer and share their experiences, ideas, solutions to issues, and trade/sell with other users who share in that common interest. The only dedicated forum for the Apple II I know of is the comp.sys.apple2 group and maybe the Apple II section of VCF.

[The Usotsuki]

I always saw the Apple ][ as mostly a game machine growing up. And I've very often taken a C64-like approach to the system, which has led to the more common use of compressed ("crunched" in C64 parlance) game files in place of merely reordered ("packed") ones which were common in the early days, and of audio-loading games rather than using a disk or flashcard, compared to before I was introduced (by a C64 cracker) to Exomizer.

 

(My use of BASIC stubs, necessary on the C64 and less so on the Apple, also comes from C64 people.)

[ianoid]

I dunno, I don't fully buy your explanations as to why the Apple // community sucks.

 

Atari people are just as old or young.

 

Apple ][ games were massively popular, just as games for all personal computers were. Almost nobody DIDN'T play games on their computers back then. And the Apple ][ was a capable games machine with 80 column card and extra RAM. ATari and C64 had sprites and dedicated sound chips, true, but we ended up with Mockingboards anyway.

 

Apple computers were super popular, as popular or more popular that Atari 8-bit computers. Suspect way more popular considering business and education.

 

I have not found the C64 community to be unfriendly. Main experience is general and at Lemon64.com, which is a great site.

 

The Apple ][ was the easiest to upgrade. Apple ][ users were most likely to have opened up and upgraded their computers. Opening it up was encouraged by design. It was not technical or difficult at all.

 

I doubt the Apple ][ folks are that off grid and computer incapable. Anyone who was progressive enough to love tech in the late 70s probably is not afraid of the internet.

 

I think we need a unifying community site. Apple][Age is what we need! I'd consider starting it, but it sounds like a lot of work. Too busy already. Or an Applemania section on Atarimania! Or maybe just an Apple ][ subsection here. Apple ][ lovers just need a place on the 'net to meet up that will be around for a while.

[Charlie_]

Well, I grew up a TRS-80 Color Computer user. I was never into hardware. Just installed the latest upgrades and had nice systems over the years. For my birthdays I'd ask for coco hardware.... Mostly, I played games. Because the coco was a niche computer I'd wait for local COCO Fests to come around. Beg my Dad to bring me and buy me the latest 3rd party games.Every thing for the coco that wasn't sold in Radio Shack was mail order, from ads in Rainbow magazine. Hard for a kid with no money but a few dollars a week delivering papers..

 

Anyway, now that I'm all grown up (a view my wife does not share) I'm disappointed overall at what I find to be the "coco community".

Seems like a bunch of "older" folks stuck in ancient mailing lists, more worried about sounding smarter than the next guy than having any feeling of community.

So I don't really participate, because if your not a total hardware guru your just an asshole to be looked down upon. A kid who wants to play games.

Don't get me wrong there are some great helpful people too., but overall I can't be bothered. I'm certainly not worried about what they think of my opinion of the community overall.

When I need any help I know who the nice people are a go directly to them via email.

 

I guess the point is, I can see what it is like to be disappointed in a classic computer community. Sounds funny but it is true.

Edited October 21, 2012 by Official Ninja

[magnusfalkirk]

And I fit into your group as well, mainly just using it for gaming (and occasionally programming and music composition). I guess it depends on how one defines a community. I think of a community (as it relates to computers) as a group of people who actively use their computer and share their experiences, ideas, solutions to issues, and trade/sell with other users who share in that common interest. The only dedicated forum for the Apple II I know of is the comp.sys.apple2 group and maybe the Apple II section of VCF.

 

Another good site for Apple II discussion is the Apple II section at Applefritter: http://www.applefritter.com/forum/84 of course there is much more to the site than that, there is also a for sale and trade section and a wanted to buy. You might want to look the whole of Applefritter over, there is a lot there. Then there is also the forums at http://apple2online.com/ , along with all the software and magazine that are posted for download.

Edited October 21, 2012 by magnusfalkirk

[Keatah]

A common plea over the past 6 years has been to ask for a dedicated forum. I don't know if that will ever happen, I don't think so. But with the resources in this thread we're pretty much covered. Anything you want to know is right here!

 

Perhaps having scattered pockets of forums and different avenues of communication is good. You know we could always go back to 300 baud BBS and mail lists!

 

I've always said a dedicated Apple 2 series form would be a nice thing here on AA. So many of my after school and shit-weather-evening gaming sessions revolved around the VCS *AND* the Apple 2.

Edited October 21, 2012 by Keatah

[Keatah]

I've always viewed the Apple 2 as a bad games machine, despite having amassed hundreds upon hundreds of game disks at the time. When I wanted anything colorful and full of sound it was always back to the VCS and similar gaming consoles like the Intellivision and C64 an 400/800. It was mostly lack of custom chips that created this "atmosphere".

 

But, yet, the conflicting image of gaming on a computer held a ton of promise. I always kept waiting for someone to develop magic software or discover some new methods that would give the 2 series graphics like the VCS and Intellivision, alas I was disappointed till even today.

 

On another note, I'm seeing the //c gain more and popularity, probably because you don't need to fuck with drives and cables and interface cards. This does defeat the expandability which was the hallmark of the 2 series. Oh well, whatever works.

[magnusfalkirk]

I've always viewed the Apple 2 as a bad games machine, despite having amassed hundreds upon hundreds of game disks at the time. When I wanted anything colorful and full of sound it was always back to the VCS and similar gaming consoles like the Intellivision and C64 an 400/800. It was mostly lack of custom chips that created this "atmosphere".

 

And I was completely the opposite. I had a Sear Video Arcade (the Sear version of the Atari 2600) that I bought in 1979 while in Fl, courtesy of the Air Force. In 1980 after PCSing from Fl to S. Cal. I got a Trash 80 model I level II with 16k of memory. In 1981 a friend convinced me to buy an Apple II+, which had 48k of memory. In late 82 I gave the VCS clone and all the games I had to my future in-laws as I thought the games on the Apple II were superior to the games on the VCS clone (even if they didn't have the same quality of sound), and they cost about the same price. I also ended up giving the Trash 80 to my oldest brother.

[+wood_jl]

Most of the c64 community just plays games. Nothing wrong with that, but that's a big difference I've noticed.

 

Agreed, nothing wrong with it. But why shouldn't they? The C64 is such a better game machine!

[+wood_jl]

Apple computers were super popular, as popular or more popular that Atari 8-bit computers. Suspect way more popular considering business and education.

 

Indeed, they were considerably more popular. I don't know how so many people were able and willing to cough $3K for an Apple II setup in the **EARLY** 1980s, but I knew more kids with Apple IIs. I felt extremely fortunate to locate even one other kid with an Atari computer. The C64 was 10x more popular than either, by the mid-80s.

[Keatah]

Yep. When I say bad games machine, I should emphasize it's hardware isn't suited to games. It's got bit-mapped graphics, sure. But every single pixel has to flow through the 6502 so to speak. There is nothing to blit anything! And it isn't a simple x-y matrix, there's lots of gaps, so those had to be considered. Many games ON it though were pioneering and good though. The goodness coming from the complexity afforded by the large memory of typically 48K bytes.

 

And if you think about it, the whole design of the Apple 2 series, especially the II and II+ was very very simplistic. Yeh sure they had over a hundred chips going. But these were discrete gates, perhaps 4 or 6 circuits per chip, and maybe 10 or so transistors per circuit! And, 24 of them were RAM chips, 8 or so for the ROM, and the single 6502. Timers and flip-flops and AND NAND OR NOR, inverters, and basic bus buffers. Shit like that. Everything was off the shelf generic stuff. Aside from the ROMS, everything could be purchased at an electronics shop IIRC.

 

Woz wasn't seemingly concerned with chip count, but gate count. And some chips shared their gates between unrelated circuits. Half of a LS04 would click the speaker, and the other half would strobe the keyboard. That's an example, and may not be correct. That's how he worked. And he used unconventional and novel (at the time) logic tables. It's been said that if designed by other engineers; the 2 series chip count would have exceeded 180 or more chips, pushing the price above $2200 for the basic console.

 

IIRC his best achievement was the Disk II controller. The whole shebang uses 8 small chips. A far cry from the lesser performing CBM 1541 drive or the Atari 810. In fact, the Disk II controller had tiny 256byte firmware, an even smaller state-machine microprocessor (really a sophisticted sequencer), and bus buffers. When you look at the small size and generic logic on these 8 chips you'll wonder how the whole thing works! For one, the controller card (and most all other Apple 2 series interface cards), contains a program in ROM, sometimes these were tiny, but typically were the size of VCS games, 2k, 4k, 8k, and thereabouts. And this program would run both in the logic gates on the interface card AND in combo with the 6502 of the main console itself. Thus further carrying the multi-purpose'ness of parts in the system. And same deal with the power supply, the computer's power supply also ran the Disk II drives. AND, once the data left the disk/head it went into a latch, and forever after, was presented to the computer as a parallel data stream, unlike the 1541 and 810. Stellar! And all this shit was done several years ahead of those two other drives.

 

Yep. The main 6502 would run your user program, and then interrupt out and run the peripheral card rom, and oft-times go back and forth like mad. Like for telecom through a 300baud micromodem.

 

Well enough of that, I invite you to read Understanding the Apple II by Jim Sathers. There's one for the II and II+, and another one for the //e. This takes you through the design philospohy and explains not only how the system works but why it was made the way it was made. It's also concisely divided up into major subsystems, i.e. memory, disk, graphics, and so on and so forth. Much of the work is based on direct interviews with the Woz. When you're done with it you will have gained a wonderful insight into the 2 series. This is an invaluable book for anyone wanting to see inside this fantastic classic computer! -- ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.com/pub/apple_II/documentation/hardware/machines/

Edited October 22, 2012 by Keatah

[+wood_jl]

I don't want to sound like I don't like the Apple II games, though. They have a certain "charm" to them, and I'm actually a little nostalgic about the "dithered" looking graphics. First analog joystick I ever used, first computer I ever used, although I didn't have one. I don't think there's an elementary-school kid from the 1970s that didn't want one, bad.

 

Went with Atari, turned my nose up at C64, but now I love 'em all. The Apple is the only one I don't have yet (although I nabbed CFFA3000 while they're still available), because now (in modern times), it's really hard to find an Apple IIe that isn't a piece of shit, but IS available at a reasonable price. I have several mint/un-yellowed Atari and Commodore machines, but you'll play hell trying to get a mint/un-yellowed Apple IIe. As heavy as those HUGE BASTARDS are, I'm not paying shipping for a piece of crap.

 

I don't have time to fool with any of my retrocomputers now, so I'm not in a huge hurry. But I'll be really pleased when (if??) I run across a mint IIe -enhanced.

 

Other than the CFFA3000, I picked up a couple mint-in-box joysticks, so I'll be ready to get my Apple II game-on when I eventually get a machine!