Blasphemy! An Apple ][c on the desk

[Ed in SoDak]

Some several years ago, someone gave me their old IIc confuser. It had the stock Apple disks and a few other programs. No games or joysticks though.

 

Dragged it out on an impulse since the wife is out of town and won't notice the clutter. I didn't think it worked when I put it in the shed way back when, but I was able to boot it up and try all the programs.

 

It came with a mouse, but only a simple drawing program to use with it. Also an external drive and the cables to connect everything. The Apple Imagewriter still worked and I printed a few things.

 

Only problem is I can read disks and do some saving of files but can't seem to format a blank disk. That one has me stumped.

 

Too bad it seems Apple was just about as bad as any other computer company of that era. The ][c coulda been a much better machine if company politics hadn't got in the way. The Apple ][ line did enjoy a very long and successful run, regardless. Sales of it basically kept the company profitable while they stumbled around with the ill-fated Apple /// and the Lisa. Even the Mac didn't take off until several years after it's flag-waving, history-making launch in 1984.

 

This ][c system was built in 1986, so most of the apps seem a little long in the tooth nowadays. Appleworks is a good, full-featured program which moved to the Mac platform and I still make good use of that program on my Macs.

 

Other than that, most of the programs that were with this system didn't seem a whole lot different than what I've got for my TI. Actually, I prefer the TI versions for disk utilities and programming. Apple-formatted "Flippy" disks for system stuff seems just odd. Why didn't it support double-sided till way late in it's development? Internal corporate politics, since Apple didn't want their bread & butter ][ line always outshining their new platforms of the Apple /// and the Lisa/Mac. Silly, in retrospect, but there you have it.

 

If I could format disks properly, it might be worth keeping, but I'm not really in the market to expand it, either. It does pack a lot of hardware into that compact case, though. Shades of what the TI mighta been, if only... Maybe if I had some of the better Apple ][ games and a joystick I'd like it more. So far, though, it's kinda ho-hum and given the choice, I much prefer my ol' TI.

 

-Ed

Edited June 12, 2014 by Ed in SoDak

[RXB]

Applescript was very very cool. Could do more things then DOS and was much more easy to use.

[Charlie_]

IIc is a fun computer. Look up ADTPro you can build a serial cable to transfer disk images to floppy. The ADTPro software also formats disks too.

Edited June 12, 2014 by Official Ninja

[Tursi]

To format a disk, you'll first need at least one bootable disk.. if it boots to DOS3.3 (many game compilations do, as well as the initial system disks), then the format command is "INIT HELLO". I don't know what the format command for ProDOS is.

 

Like O.N. says, ADTPro is the best solution for getting software into the Apple, it has a number of options including serial (which I think the 2c had built in?)

[Ed in SoDak]

Thanks for the comments. Apple was always far more forthcoming with internal details than TI ever was. It was a hacker's wet dream, at just the right moment in time.

 

Appleworks has a menu to format a floppy, and I also have the system utilities program. I managed to get a random format or two to take, but it was not repeatable. I opened it up and did a close inspection, reseated all the socketed chips, checked the cables, etc. No joy. Seems to run disks just fine and I saved a few Appleworks tests that seemed to work alright.

 

I really don't have a use for it, I was mostly curious about what I had missed by going with TI back when this thing was new. I'm more likely to just move it on than spend money on getting it working better or downloading software for it.

-Ed

[Ed in SoDak]

I guess it can't hurt to look into ADTPro. I was hoping it could use an older Mac 3.5" floppy drive, to give me some transportability, but it would have to be the correct later type to work on either machine.

 

I did a lot of reading at http://apple2history.org lots of details there on what's needed and a good history of the ][-series.

 

Speaking of script languages, I see that Hypercard came in a version for the ][ or at least the ][gs. I still use that program for a few things.

 

I had a salesman demonstrate the ][gs for me once in the early 90's. I recall it as looking like a Mac wannabe, with its gui front-end ported to the gs. Actually, it grew to be a competent system later on when it finally got some decent hard drive capability. I don't think it ever outgrew its roots and memory constraints due to Apple keeping backwards compatibility with far older models. Noble gestures, but it throttled back many aspects of the system as computing needs grew beyond the limitations.

 

Overall, I was struck by many similarities to the TI, where poor company choices really hindered the further development of either system.

-Ed

[Tursi]

Having grown up with the Apple2 series, I would disagree in calling the design hindered by poor company decisions. The Apple2 was essentially developed by a single hardware hacker, and the company grew up around it (started via Apple 1 kits). The Apple 2 was one of the very first "affordable" home computers due to many of the decisions made, and one of the first to resemble what we came to call a home computer (versus, say, the Altair 8080). In 1977, it was brilliant.

 

The 2C was neat, to take all that hardware and make it portable. I've had one, but the 2C clone the Laser128 blew it away -- faster CPU, more default memory, near perfect compatibility (I say "near", but I am not familiar with any software that fails). I had one of those at one time too, and I liked it a lot.

 

By the time the 2GS came out, the company was already swinging towards Macintosh, and the 2 series, despite a few updates, was very long in the tooth. Although the GS was an amazing update to the line, it was a little too late, and they were not really dedicated to it. It didn't last very long. The backwards compatibility may have hindered it a little, but not from a hardware aspect. The entire Apple2 hardware compatibility was handled in a single custom chip. The problem was really one of timing, by the time the GS came out, everyone except the die-hards had moved on from the Apple2 line.

 

I have an enhanced 2E on my desk, actually.

[Ed in SoDak]

Thanks again for the comments!

 

I should rephrase my last comment a bit. The ][ did accomplish amazing things from shoestring beginnings. But, more than once later on, good programs or hardware upgrades were shot down after a lot of development work had already been done, since upper management had different priorities, namely the Apple /// and the Mac/Lisa.

 

There was a finished ][ upgrade machine ready for its rollout, sitting offstage, when it was cancelled at the literal last minute. That's the sort of bad decisions I was referring to with the words "poor company choices."

 

Like on the TI, the Apple ][ had some bottlenecks and constraints due to its older design and the excessive thriftiness of designer Woz. The TI has forever suffered from its use of VDP memory, also at least partly due to cost-cutting measures. Where both companies failed in providing upgrades, third parties stepped in and filled the gaps.

 

Both machines could have been much more than the actual item shipped. Seemingly more due to poor business calls than raw capability of either machine. On either platform, the existance of unreleased and/or shot-down upgrades and apps points to this. Despite all efforts of various factions within Apple to quash the ][ and promote the latest/greatest, sales of the ][ continued to climb, while the other machines bit the dust. What could the ][ have become, had it been more enthusistically supported within the upper ranks of Apple? Or Job's ego concerning his own pet project, the Mac? Even Woz himself basically walked away from his brainchild at some point. Can't say I blame him.

 

These Apple products were selling for well over a grand in 1986, which was around a third of the cost to produce. What if TI had seen the light and gone ahead with the 99/8 instead of entering the death-spiral of a price war with Commodore that TI couldn't possibly win? Or if they had gone open-source on the internals like Woz? It's all just so many chips under the bridge now, but interesting to think about. Coulda, woulda shoulda...

 

I got my Apple ][ info from the apple2history site I linked to in a previous post. It details the internal corprorate stuff the average user of the day never saw. I've also followed the story of Apple/Mac and its principal founders over the years. Best quote I read recently went like "People think Apple has a brain, and that's where they're mistaken." Kinda sums it up.

 

So yeah, I gotta agree the ][ is a cool machine. You're getting me more interested in it, and it's not where I need to be going right now. But I'm frustrated with the floppy formatting. Unless I solve that, it's futile to pursue it much further and besides, I still like my TI just fine in comparison.

-Ed

Edited June 12, 2014 by Ed in SoDak

[Charlie_]

Did you clean the drive head with some 90+% alcohol and qtip?

I had to clean my 1st Apple II c drive before it would work properly.

[Ed in SoDak]

I guess I'll try that before packing it up again. I did find another system disk with yet another format choice and still no joy. Funny that I did get one or another disk to take a format about three times total, but repeating those same steps then failed. I have two drives, same problem and also same problem with only the internal connected. All my disks are ProDOS 1.1.1 but I can choose that for the format type, or select DOS3.3 or Pascal formats, and no difference.

 

The head seek rattles on the stop a few times, then I/O error. Appleworks format option reports "disk not found."

 

I read about the write protect LED giving problems with these drives, so I'll visit that, too. With this fault, it ain't worth much to me or anyone else, so it's sort of a got nothing to lose proposition. In all my old Mac junk, I may have an external Unidisk 3.5 which would give a new avenue to try.

 

Meh.

 

Thanks to evryone for all the help trying to sort it out!

-Ed

[Nukey Shay]

What type of disks are being used? You'll have problems if you are trying to format high density disks intended for more-modern systems...and even if the init works in such a case, it won't be reliable to use.

[Ed in SoDak]

I'm using the factory internal drive and Apple's 5.25, got the Apple owner's manuals for the drive, software and the computer itself. It's a whopping 143K capacity, the blanks I'm trying are DSDD (360k on a PC) so they "should" work. Good tip, though!

The few I did get to work I used the Duplicate option so it used the same format as one of the disks that read.

 

All the disks that came with it are readable and work, and I can add files to the sample/tutorial disks and rename/delete these test files. Just no formatting. I've tried 4 different blank, unformatted disks from my TI stash, same results. So I think I've covered the "obvious" stuff, time to either tear into it or stow it away again. I've had the cases opened, just didn't feel like dissecting the drives far enough to get to the head and/or write protect switch.

-Ed

[Ed in SoDak]

Looks like Nukey Shay nailed it. The box of disks said DSDD, but some of the disks were actually DSHD. Prior to my discovering that bit of info that had been staring me in the face, I had opened the drives and cleaned the heads and write-protect sensors. When that still didn't work, is when I found my D-oh moment. So thanks a bunch to Nukey for pointing that out. Those same disks work fine on my TI, so I just grabbed 'em.

 

I'm certain I'd tried reformatting the back side of one of the disks that came with it; it was a flippy backup of the sytem utilities disk and side B wouldn't read. That had failed before, but worked without a hitch last night when I used it to make a new copy from the original Apple disk. Dunno, but anyway it all seems to be ok now, thanks again to AtariAge and the group!

 

Now, what to do with it?

-Ed

[Charlie_]

Create an ADTPro disk start making disk images!