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Hello all! Apple II user/coder here!


chainedlupine

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Hello!  I'm new and I wanted to share what I've been up to.

 

I've had some Apple II equipment sitting in my basement for many years.  I picked it all up from someone in the mid-90s.  It's two Apple //es, a regular version and the other an Enhanced Platinum.  I initially tried them out to make sure they worked, but then I put them in storage.  Long story short, I haven't had time/room to mess with them until recently.

 

Unfortunately, long-term storage had taken their toll.  I tried to preserve them but the basement had leaks, so one of the Apples had corrosion damage.

 

I've had to restore both.  The power supplies only survived 15 minutes upon power up, but I'm handy with electronics so I have restored them.  I was happy to find that there are schematics online for all the Apple II hardware!

 

The Platinum is in great shape.  Both computers were school computers;  The Platinum was probably the teacher's machine and the //e clearly had been used by the students.  The case is fairly dinged up (including crayon marks!), and it's missing two keys.   The Platinum had two Unidisk 5.25 drives (both in perfect condition) and the //e one original Disk ][ drive (which also seems to be fine, though the ribbon cable was beyond repair).  I have a lot of software on disks, and I am slowly archiving it.  It mostly seems to be software from a computer user group swap-meet in Michigan USA.

 

Why am I bringing these machines out?  Well, part of it is nostalgia and a love for old hardware -- I want to see these machines restored and put to use again.  The other is that I am a game developer, and I've always wanted to make an Apple II game.  I was a PC user from fairly early on (we had IBM PC Jrs in school), but I did get to play around with a few Apple IIs and I was intrigued by them.

 

Anyway, that's my story.  I'm going to include some pictures from my recent Apple //e restoration project.

 

Some very corroded mechanical spring contacts. :(

Mechanical keyboard spring/contact cleaning.  Thankfully, not all the keys needed such a detailed tear down.

 

photo_2019-06-15_02-12-41.thumb.jpg.68926121d28b15c58f0600ec53d769a1.jpg

So many keys!

 

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Re-assembled product.  Minus two keys.  I'm unsure why the spacebar is such a different color.  Was there a keyboard protector or something over this keyboard at one point?

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I also realized in that picture I had the spacebar re-installed backwards.  :)

 

Wizard of Wor, I think it would work pretty good on that machine!

 

My first (and current) project is an adventure game.  I originally created it for a 48-hour game jam, but I ended up running over into the 72-hour extension period and then I still wasn't able to complete it.  I vastly overestimated my 6502 assembly coding skills!

 

You can check it out here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/exuber

 

I'm still working on the game.  I've had to practically re-write parts of it to reduce the memory usage.  And this is after using (nearly) all 128K on the Enhanced //e!

 

Next time I would like to make a game that would run on a 64k //e and has fast-moving graphics, so it will probably be something more arcade-y.

 

Update:  Oh, and my avatar was a joke for a game jam.  I do own two VIC-20s that I need to restore and put back into service, and I do intend to make a game for that computer.  Currently do not own a C-64 or any of the Amigas.

 

My first PC was a Commodore Colt though, so I'm a weird Commodore/PC hybrid kid.

Edited by chainedlupine
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