deepthaw
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Everything posted by deepthaw
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Didn't realize until I tried to hook it up that the WiModem232 uses a mini usb cable for power, not a micro usb. Also: Who else forgot mini usb was even a thing?
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When will eBay finally let us skip putting any text in when we leave feedback? I'm not even creative or non-sequitur with it anymore, I just paste "positive feedback" in there.
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Logged in last night - nice place ya got there. I'm actually somewhat active in the BBSing scene and CQ looks to be one of the few "active" boards out there.
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I just got my enhancement kit installed last night and can verify that ProTerm appears to use at least some of the characters from MouseText. If the pins on the ROMs I received weren't in such poor shape, I'd swap back the originals to see if it'll run with only a 65C02 upgrade.
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Another blog entry. Impressed with myself for how long I've kept my attention tinkering on the Apple II.
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After a month or so of waiting, the enhancement kit (consisting of four replacement roms and a 65C02 CPU) for my Apple IIe arrived. I decided to save a bit over ordering from Reactive Micro by buying it from a seller on Ebay, which was a mistake. It certainly appears to be vintage (which I honestly don't care about) but it took a month to arrive and was packed in such a way that the pins on half the ROMs were badly crushed. I'm shocked I was able to bend them all back into place without snapping any off. The enhancement kit made the IIe a bit more compatible with the IIc. It adds new characters (MouseText), a CPU upgrade (65C02 from 6502) and some other minor tweaks. The big deal for me was compatibility with ProTerm, a terminal software. I was ready to plug the WiModem232 in and flash back to my prime BBSing days when ... I realized I need a gender changer. Change of plans. I already have the IIe hooked up to my Raspberry Pi for ADTPro so I figured I'd get the Pi to act like a modem. This was much easier than I expected (so easy, that in retrospect I kind of wasted my money on the WiModem232) and basically consisted of using the serial <-> usb cables I already had hooked up, doing a quick compile from a git repo and running "tcpser -s 19200 -d /dev/ttyUSB0." And success! Spent a bit of time poking around the Captain's Quarters BBS, which I believe is running from an actual Apple II. I also tried visiting a few other BBS's I frequent (The Agency and The Black Flag) but none of them really work well from an Apple II. They're targeted towards the ANSI-heads of the mid 90's, and the poor Apple IIe just can't display or send the characters their menus expect. Tonight or tomorrow I'll telnet into the Pi and try using Alpine, Lynx and other tools to browse the Intarwebs. Next up on the TODO list: I have a BOOTI preordered, which will let me mount a USB drive as a hard drive (and then I can run stuff like the Total Replay game collection.) Then I need to get a Mockingboard or Phazor for sound. I'm still slowly playing my way through Wizardry too - don't want to jump to Ultima III before I have a Mockingboard.
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After raiding an old closet at work that was getting thrown out for recycling... I think I'm 75% of the way to piecing together a Pentium 4 w/Radeon All-in-Wonder. Wonder if that's too new for an MS-DOS machine.
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Then they’d think it an enhanced Apple II+. Can’t win.
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I tried a few minutes with it, and the anime feel immediately put me off. The dungeon graphics seem clunky and bad as well, in a distracting way. I'm no graphics snob, hell, I'm replaying Wizardry 1 on an actual Apple IIe presently. When I have more time I'll try to give it a fair shake. Cutesy elf-girls with annoying voices may be the cost of Japanese die-hards keeping Wizardry alive.
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Huh - I was thinking King's Bounty required a IIe enhanced or IIc. I'm going to have to give it a try tonight.
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You don't need a IIe enhanced to run 2.4.2. https://prodos8.com/ I have a IIe enhanced kit on order, but I suspect it'll be quite a while before it shows up. I'm going for it because there are a few games that require an enhanced, and ProTerm requires enhanced as well.
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Long time computer lab tech is retiring at my work, and IT is giving me first dibs on cleaning out his storage area before they recycle it all.
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Could Sega Save The Saturn?
deepthaw replied to Magmavision2000's topic in Classic Console Discussion
No. Saturn was a super-scalar system that they panicked and tried to turn into a 3D system way too late, never even released a Sonic game on it, cost too much... While Sony came out of the gate firing on all cylinders. Even Nintendo struggled against the PS1, what could Sega have hoped to do? -
I'm just impressed with all the timing that must have been involved in setting up the audio. A stock Apple II doesn't have enough memory to hold an entire floppy, so it has to have delays built-in to give it time to write chunks to disk - all without being able to talk back to the disk server and tell it to wait on sending more data.
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I'd been seeing some weird crashes and refusals to boot from ProDOS on my Apple IIe, so I decided to run some tests. The built in diagnostic said everything was fine. Using the Apple IIe Diagnostic Software, it said there was a main memory failure, and running MECC's (the people who made Oregon Trail) Computer Inspector told me there was a problem in the auxiliary memory but main memory was fine. Ugh. I ended up using RAM Test Utility and it gave much better information. It was able to tell me that the problem was a stuck bit in my auxiliary memory, and even which chip it was. I swapped the chip with another one on the board to test, and the error moved to that socket so I knew I'd found the problem. I really lucked out in that all the DRAM was both socketed and the sockets were numbered. Problem. This board uses 4264 DRAM, and that's scarce on eBay or otherwise. Google told me that 4264's are backwards compatible with the more common 4164, but not vice-versa. I decided to risk $20 and ordered a big ol' tube of 4164 chips in the hope that they used 4264's because they were cheaper or more available at the time. Swapped the chip out, and success! Fixed all the sporadic problems I'd been having. Next up: Have a IIe enhancement kit on order, and once it shows up I'll be able to run ProTerm with the WiModem232 that came in last week. I'm already active on a few BBS's, so I look forward to checking into them from the IIe rather than SyncTERM or DOSBox/Telemate. I ordered a 3D printed case for it, but I'd love to get an old 2400 baud modem and replace its guts with the WiModem. But those are actually more expensive than I'm willing to pay, so itty bitty 3-D printed for now it is.
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Keyboard controls on Apple II Ms. Pac-man. How does she go up/down?
deepthaw replied to Yoder's topic in Apple II Computers
If that's not working, make sure caps lock is on. I'm just learning how to use an Apple IIe myself, and a stupid number of older programs won't accept lower-case versions of single-character responses. -
Have you gotten ADTPro setup? There’s diagnostic software to test your cards. Both apples, control, reset. Should show KERNEL OK if it sees no errors.
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If you've ever soldered, the power mod for 4-ports isn't difficult. I'm terrible at soldering and pulled it off. Every time I want to play my 5200, I just get angry at the controllers. And I don't feel like spending the money to have Best fix them up. To be honest, my 5200 is more of an accent piece in my retro-cave than something I actually play at the present. (Okay, Missile Command actually plays really well with the stock controllers, to be honest. And I think I'm alone in enjoying Pole Position. And Pac-Man's good.)
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Think I have the Raspberry Pi setup to host ADTPro. We'll find out when my null modem and serial <-> USB cables show up tomorrow...
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Those are expensive... I saw a post where somebody said to user printer paper soaked in alcohol put inside a floppy sleeve. Is that for real?
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It's been a good week for retro pick-ups. Snagged a 27" Trinitron (KV27S42) off FB Marketplace for free. Several people have done RGB mods on this set, so there's plenty of diagrams out there to use. The retro-nook is coming together faster than expected. I prefer the older curved models over the WEGA, mainly for weight and aesthetic reasons. (I think the WEGA sets are frankly ugly.)
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Grabbed a 27" Trinitron for free off FB Marketplace. Been a good week for retro scores.
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This is going in my basement (my retro-nook is finally coming together) so I didn't want another WEGA (I had one, despite being the same screen size, it felt like it weighted twice as much) and 27" really is the perfect size. There's also a pretty good write-up on RGB modding it, so that'll be a future goal too.
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Saw an Apple IIe on Facebook Marketplace, and was mildly surprised. Vintage computers don't show up locally all that often, so I kept tabs on it. It started at $300, then rapidly went down to $70 over a few days. Christmas I decided to pick it up. It was advertised as non-tested but made noises like it worked. Figured even a broken Apple IIe for $70 wasn't a bad deal (especially since I wouldn't have to pay shipping) so I snagged it Christmas day. Turns out my haul was: Apple IIe 128K with 80 column card, super serial card. (works fine) DuoDisk (working fine) Apple Monitor II (monochrome green, working fine) Image Writer II (missing a piece on the back, haven't had a chance to test it.) I borrowed some Apple floppies from a friend to test the unit, and so far as I can tell it all works fine. Used the outstanding Apple Disk Server to create a ProDOS floppy with utilities via the cassette port, and even the disk drives are fine (CopyIIPlus says they should read 200ms, both are within 1ms of that.) The real score is that a friend's kids have been staying with us a few nights a week while they handle some issues at home. One of them is a typical preteen boy video gamer, and he showed some interest in "that old computer." Powered it on, showed him BASIC, and had him writing his own programs by the end of the night. Despite being brought up on Minecraft and Call of Duty, that monochrome green screen was still addicting as hell because *he* was writing the programs that ran on it. I've already ordered a sealed box of floppies, serial cable, and serial<->usb adapter. My next plan is setup A2CLOUD and/or ADTPro so I can get it online and start grabbing more software. There's some BBS's (yes, as in dial-up, except they all use telnet now) I visit, so it'd be nice to try and get onto those with the Apple IIe. Of course there's games to play (I'm a huge Wizardry nut, and have been fiending to play it on the original hardware.) Reproduction Mockingboards aren't unreasonably priced, so I'll have to get one of those before moving onto Ultima. Also want to get the IIe enhanced kit, and an "official" color monitor. I'm using a small Trinitron when I need color, but I honestly prefer how sharp things are on the monochrome green screen. I'll keep everbody posted.
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Snagged an Apple IIe with Duodisk, Monitor 2 and Imagewriter (all untested) for $70. Looks nice, so even if it needs some repairs I think it was worth it.
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