potatohead

Excellent! Hopefully, doing that broke your "log jam" and you find your code flows freely.

I never had that experience on my Apple 2. My own machine was a //e. 128k out the gate. But, I did experience it on my Atari machine. I had a 16K Atari 400 and going to 64K was awesome! Could use the better graphics and double buffer! Sweet! And could run more games and such too. I had a similar, but much smaller experience. It was possible to make a little RAMDISK on the 800XL. Was a Kb or two. Anything I did with it was super fast. I used it to hold data for programs and test out data going to disk, etc... Now today that is all normal and ordinary, but back then it was amazing! Yes! The Apple having fixed characters made things like MouseText awesome upgrades! And on many machines that did have user definable characters, the idea of making them able to represent dialogs, other basics was compelling.

Sometimes a little success can be motivating. You could pick small projects and complete them. Each one will solidify some aspect of programming in your mind. Soon, you find yourself doing more.

You should make a video or something. Things we did when we were kids are often fun and interesting to look at.

A FastChip can run at 16Mhz. Copy Applesoft to the card RAM and run basic programs from there. Here's an example using a double low res library to draw rectangles. https://www.facebook.com/100002334961459/videos/3509462872474844/ A PC will be ultra fast, of course. But, this is the fastest way I have to run an Applesoft program on real hardware.

I have neither at present. My current plan was to go the Grappler + route. Right now, I believe I only need to burn a new ROM for one of those. Assuming that can work, the machine would have a FastChip, Super Serial, the modified Grappler card and a CFFA 3000.

Any News? Could you use help? No pressure. I can wait. Just wanting you to finish it one day.

I am interested as well. Platinum NTSC machine.

Go go go! Thanks for the update!

I am well late to the party, but am happy now. Been waiting on a chance to get one of these for a long time. Thomas! Dude. You are awesome, as are the other developers. I need to go read who. I was able to plug it into my 800XL, add wi-fi password and navigate my way to a game of Zork served right over the Internet in like 5 minutes! It's even more impressive in real time on my own Atari! For playing around, is there an emulation that runs on a Raspberry Pi that has FujiNET support built in? For the last few years I've been way into my Apple ][ machines. Looks like we are close to a solid Apple FujiNET device and I can't wait! But, I'm really happy about being in the mood to grab the Atari and give it some love. It's been lonely for a while. YES!! I used to have a full setup with disk drive and such. That all got lost on a forced move and today I just have the XL and a 400. The FujiNET is perfect because I can do all the stuff I want to on the Atari now, except read a floppy and I just don't need to do that. Just want to say one more time just how impressive this device is. I can't wait to write some BASIC and give that N: device a go. Amazing!!

Nice! Will be great when I know where to send money

No worries! Let's get that test done. I won't be concerned if there are problems. We can fix them and make people happy from there. Just saying. I am happy to buy hardware.

Yes, please do. I have NTSC machines.

Thanks Al! Logged in just fine. Took me a while to remember the email address I used.

I want one. Nice work!

Indeed! I suspected that, FWIW

Will this work with a hacked Grappler + card turned into a SmartPort card?

There are people replacing the ROM on a Grappler + card with one that turns it into a sort of Smart Port for use with FujiNET. I have a Grappler + card myself and have not gotten around to the project yet. Apparently, there are "LIRON" cards that are somewhat rare and they are Smart Port cards, and that's probably the ROM being used. On the Atari machines, for example, the POKEY and SIO system take the data serially and fast from what I can tell. Need to get a FujiNET for my 800XL to know more. On the Apple, it's gonna be easier to take the data in parallel, 8 bits at a time just like the little microcontroller in the FujiNET would want to send them. Going serial on the Apple might be as fast, depending on the serial solution, but won't have the advantages using POKEY does for an Atari. SIO, on the Atari, is a forward looking cool feature that is getting it's day in the sun too! I've long thought it quite advanced, and FujiNET shows why. The Internet ends up being device N: and once a driver is in place, most software, including BASIC and the GET and PUT commands, becomes Internet aware. DAMN SPIFFY! Pretty sure the Smart Port offers something similar and would bring a lot of software onto the Internet in a similar fashion. I am a mixed sort of Apple user. Mostly used DOS 3.3, a little PRODOS and I mostly haven't done too much with my GS, preferring the 8 bit system because it hits my retro sweet spot. 16 bit machines that take better advantage of being 16 bit end up just a little bit too big for me. That means I just don't know too much about SmartPorts, though I will learn enough about them to use a FujiNET.

When I use my Model 100, I do not involve a PC. It the same as when I was a kid with my pocket computer. Wanted a Model 100, but it was way too much. I write programs, graph data, use as terminal. It is it's own little ecosystem. Otherwise, yeah I use modern gear when working with retro and vintage machines. Emulation helps with development big time. A Raspi is not a PC to me. It has limits and is cheap. But, it does overlap an expanded definition makes sense! To me, it is more of an embedded type system. Can do PC stuff, but can also do lower level things via gpio pins like microcontrollers have. It can be a nice "out" for people not wanting a "PC" lol. As always, if we are having fun, no worries, right? Yeah, Keatah. I run mine on my vape battery and it can go a couple, maybe few hours. I also use it on the go, powered by USB on laptop and display on USB hdmi capture card. On that note, why laptops seem to never have video inputs is beyond me. It is awful nice to use one as a display in a pinch, but I digress. I bet the virtualization will be useful, but underpowered. I do not currently use one that way. I do use mine for embedded dev, retro emulation, general computing, general comms. If I can get away with it, I use Propeller chips for embedded projects. If more is needed, a Raspi is my goto. In these tasks a Pi 400 works great as dev, test machine. The 400 has heatsink to run CPU, GPU quicker than a model 4. Like a few hundred Mhz faster. Has two HDMI display outputs. And I love the cheap ass mouse I got with the starter kit. I keep a 64 bit, 32 bit clean OS on SD cards. Clone, boot to update, then customize for specific purpose. Retro pie on an SD card rocks. My Propeller dev OS is on a card too. I am building one up for 3D printing. Server, slicer not sure what to do for CAD yet, and some other tools will make a great workstation for super cheap. I ended up using SD cards like we all did floppies back in the day. Did not expect that to happen, but it did. Lol, who knew? If you want, the darn things output a 4K HDMI display. Crazy. Otherwise, they run sweet in 1280x something, or standard 1080p, depending on one's display hardware. You can use one on a TV. The 400 needs an adapter. They dropped composite video output on that model. Bummer, but minor annoyance.

Lief? Well maybe? If you meant, "might as well" then I agree. I have my 400 running in a fast SD card. It is such a great machine. And in emulation, it feels retro being a little keyboard computer.

Hardly. Now don't get me wrong. I actually quite like 386 and earlier PC gear and am probably going to build or buy a setup in the near future. But... one does not need a PC to enjoy vintage / retro gaming and computing. Heck, I do quite a bit with my Apple //e Platinum and an android phone and or Raspberry Pi. On that note, I love the Raspberry Pi 400 computer. It is just great for all the basics one would use a PC for, such as downloading disk images and getting them onto whatever disk emulation makes sense. Very highly recommended. And if a person wants to, both the Android phone and Raspi 400 can drive one of those USB floppy drive units still sold today. The RetroPi software is nice to have loaded and at the ready too. Built in keyboard is a nice bonus. For a while now I have been gaming with my granddaughter on a Raspberry Pi 4. We are doing arcade and snes, but that all can change. The 400 is a great upgrade. In any case, the PC can be excised. It does not even hurt.

Any news on this? I am interested in buying or building one of these. Right now, I use either: A VidHD, which works great on 1080p capable displays. And it offers some additional graphics modes found on the GS as well as unique modes. Or, a high quality composite display. Both of these are fine, but I have an RGB PVM display I think would be great to use with my //e.

Re: Apple artifact colors Personally, I always just turned the saturation down some. It's much better that way.

An ampersand routine will probably hook into BASIC the way you likely envision. See the Delores graphics library. It is an excellent example. http://www.golombeck.eu/index.php?id=48&L=1

Cool, I just scored a Grapper+ card. Should arrive in a couple weeks. I'll have to go explore this SoftSP system some. Do not know much about SmartPorts yet.