Keatah

Indeed. Sometimes the question is to weed or grow. Either trim and cull a large collection of everything down till only your favorites remain. Or grow your collection, adding favorites as you encounter them or recall them. Having started in the pre-golden days of emulation there weren't large collections, so I tend to build up and add as time progresses.

Ha! Indeed. This worked for a long time. Some stored deployed countermeasures against it. They would open the game in the store for you.

Have you disabled interpolation?

Cool.. I used to prefer things that way from the early 1990's (had no choice then) to about 2010. After that I went heavy on the effects. And in 2016 I toned everything down to subtleties and 10-20 percent of maximum. And that's where I stand today, just a touch of vintage. Like as if we had an uber-quality futuristic pro monitor in the 70's or 80's.

I lost interest in the 5200 almost immediately. I had a lot of the games already on the 400/800 and didn't need them in a different format. I instead put more effort into Colecovision. Each game was different and had great arcade connections.

Pulled out my "Consumer's Guide to Personal Computing and Microcomputers (c) 1978. And the Apple II bare motherboard form is listed right along with single board hobby computers and microprocessor trainers. Described in the same way. Exhibiting the same features. Elsewhere in the guide, the traditional form of the Apple II as we're accustomed to is described as a computer in a cabinet. And nowhere does it mention "home computer". It's about a year too early for the term to have become widely accepted. In both descriptions emphasis seems placed on memory capacities, form factors, and especially I/O connectors for keyboard, cassette, and video. Video output was still rather new back then. They said the Apple II had a dedicated section on the motherboard which was useful for generating signals for a modulator/TV or monitor. These are the kinds of books I wished we had in school, and not stories about fake men performing equally fake herculean tasks. Greek mythology. No kid is interested in that crap.

Glad I wasn't in the market for it, woulda been a flunky on that day. And would have had to borrow into next month's allowance. Not that I hadn't overspent before, we all have. OTH as part of rounding out my Apple II stuff I purchased an official Apple published manual for a bit under $10. Just days ago the same book had sold for $60.

How long ago was that? Too lazy to look it up.

How is Star Raiders more challenging?

I got to reading "How to build a computer controlled robot." from Tod Loofbourrow when I was a kid. It was a modern-day battlebot-sized thing that looked like it could be the bottom, base, of a small 6-Million-Dollar-Man "Venus Probe". It used a car battery and KIM-1. Would have weighed a ton and cost millions. That's how I envisioned my version back then. But cost and gathering supplies at that young age was impossible without parental support. And therefore I never did anything, except read the book and learn the concepts.

Having done an "Apple manual spree" recently it's time to think about what's next.. Turn my attention to online scans and disk images, both adding to and uploading from my existing pile-o-shit? Thought about starting up with Apple ///, again? Had some hardware in the past, traded most of it because I felt it was 2nd rate. Still have a few bits and pieces and 2 consoles. It all fits a large Rubbermaid. The only reason I would get involved with the /// was because I enjoyed it vicariously through catalogs when I was a kid. No significant hands-on experience with the machine. So what'yall think?

I remember Apple II's being sold by semi-specialty shops. These shops, like Computerland, Data-Domain, Compu-Shop, or Northbrook Computers also sold things like the late-model S-100 systems and NorthStar desk systems. CP/M systems too. Probably had some Sols on display. TI was often marketed in those too. Not much different from the RadioShack computer centers, just smaller and more diverse. Specialty shop or not, there were many of them within driving distance. Surprised to see them live from the late-70's into the mid-80's as they weren't busy. Not like a Gamestop or other botique shop of today.

About the same here. That was the 3rd most offputting factor in owning and Amiga. They just didn't penetrate the general market. Not like the Apple II or PC did. There were 2 possibly 3 shops in driving distance that had Amiga & stuff. But for Apple II there were 3 places within BMX distance alone. Getting in the car gave me a choice of as much as 10 stores! And when PCs got underway in earnest there were so many I couldn't even keep track!

While I'm sure they had 16-bit educational software, the vast majority would be 8 bit. Especially that torrent of MECC stuff. The only way to classify the IIgs is 8/16 hybrid. Bastardized for sure. I think the president of MECC is currently (or has been recently) engaged in preserving all the software they did. Hundreds of titles are on Asimov, and there's a more coming.

Make sense. A computer is typically a one-on-one experience. And the multimedia capabilities of the first 8-bit machines paled in comparison to a vibrant teacher with colored chalk. BTW, anyone notice a lack of 16 bit machines in schools? Oh there may have been a MAC or two here and there. But the Amiga and Atari ST were mostly absent. To me it's always been TRS-80, C=, Apple, and then PC. Were the Atari ST and Amiga too delicate? Too much focused on games? Take up too much desk space?

Over the last several days picked up about 12 or so Apple II manuals published by Apple. The glossy cover ones with spiral bounding. Been eyeing filling out my documentation cache for some time, but just now came across copies in excellent condition for cheap. There's more to go. But I won't overpay, like $80, for them. Early on in the dot-com era I just might have. But not today. Back then this sort of stuff was destined for landfill, today it's enthusiast material. Not collector's material, but enthusiast material. Anyhow, when I look out over the vast swath of Apple II material I accumulated, I'm happy to be away from the high-pressure gotta-buy-it-NOW or forever miss out on it type mentality. No pressure spending hours and days searching for one item that may be in shoddy shape while being overpriced.

Nicely done.

I suppose it's pertinent to ask/determine the end goal of a preservation effort. Consider an arbitrary vintage 486 system being preserved for the way it was, the manufacturing techniques, the weight, the time it takes to start up, the noises the drives make, and so on. Well, then, you better be sure you're sticking with all original parts. There'll be no SSD/Flash boot devices, there will be the original fans, the original CPU. Can't ever replace the CPU with FPGA or emulation. It would immediately fail the construction/manufacturing aspect. A future technician studying the faux FPGA CPU replacement in it would learn absolutely nothing about a socketed 168 pin 486 chip. What its construction was like, how it had gold-plated pins, how much heat it generated.. An so on To take it further, if all the original cards and motherboard were removed and replaced with a NUC running PC-EM, it would fail even harder. Only a shell would remain, and the technician would learn even less. Now consider a museum goer looking to see the system in operation. The case would be buttoned up, there could be an original motherboard in it, or it could be that NUC with PC-EM. The visitor wouldn't know. Either configuration would give said visitor a great experience in seeing how most software of the day looked and operated. The visitor interaction would be the same, indistinguishable except maybe like for booting. This is good enough for the vast majority of patrons. Perhaps even preferable because it would be 10x more reliable and the visitor could recreate the experience at home. It's like that Space-a-Shuttle example. None of ships have operable engines, they were replaced with look-alike models. Many other under-the-skin modifications have been made - making the ships no longer flightworthy (not that that matters). Most of the SR-71s have their wings band-sawed right where the engine nacelles meet the wings. Definitely not flying again. To a museum patron it's unknown. To a someone looking to do a structural test or study that exact spot, instant fail. Not that that would happen either. Just say'n.

It really is. No small thanks in part because they don't remain state of the art for any appreciable length of time. Besides. I prefer one that hasn't been dropped (on the floor). Read that as 2nd hand. People complain less about expensive hardware because it is a physical thing they can actually purchase. A physical thing that takes resources to build - like Intel's processors. Costs them just under 1,000 gallons of water to make once chip. A graphics card will play many games. A software program is only one software program. And people automatically believe there are huge economies of scale and other amplifications in favor of the software developer. Just do your work once and publish it. The dough rolls in without further ado.

This hobby of classic gaming and electronics continues to amaze me. Not necessarily because of all the cool stuff. But because of the ideas I thought about as a kid and dismissed as being too radical & different - only to find years later that it is workable and perhaps exceeding what I originally imagined.

Should be able to do the same in blank RAM, with some short delay lines to prevent race conditions. Dual and quad ported would be even better, but less vintage.