I love the Apple ][ (Apple II). I know that I will engender the ire of a few readers, but I consider the Apple II as the best product ever made by Apple! Still reading? OK, so here are my arguments: brilliant hardware, expandable by design, a huge software library, and an active hacker community! Last but not least, a pleasant look.
It is during my high-school years that I had hands-on access to an Apple //e via our computer club. I even had the chance to have a physics teacher who, after hours, introduced us to the Apple Pascal OS and the Pascal programming language (Pascal UCSD with its p-System). Whoa, what a blast when your world was limited to BASIC and machine language!
Launched in 1984, the Apple //e’s price tag was a hefty ~13,000 FF (~4,000 € today accounting for the inflation). Of course, no-one among our gang could afford such marvel. Later on, when I’ve picked my first personal computer – generously funded by my parents –, I’ve chosen the Belgian DAI by InData. It was a cheaper system, but had superior graphics & sounds, and performed better. However, it was not expandable, had no software, and arguably, was ugly. So, over the years, when I had the opportunity to grab an Apple II, I could rarely resist. Today, I am the happy owner of four Apple IIs.
A Modern Twist
Although the Apple II hardware is easy to find today, if you want to use one on a regular basis, it will require some extra time and resources. Indeed, in addition of the mandatory deep cleaning, de-yellowing (or even painting – Pantone #453), you may need to repair some key components (floppy drives for example), and source replacement or missing parts (i.e. the cable for the DuoDisk unit – you can buy one here https://goo.gl/WPWerH). And, you will need to rebuild floppies from images available on the Web (https://goo.gl/qkHTDK) and even start collecting original software packages!
Besides the full software approach (see below), the best option to enjoy retro computing is to replace as much as possible the vintage peripherals with modern hardware. For example, I recently ordered a CFFA 3000 from the fifth and possibly the last run of the product (https://goo.gl/yK965c). It should arrive this month. With such replacement, exit the failing floppy drives and welcome to megabytes of disk images stored on a USB key! Sure, you may miss the delightful drives’ music, but it’s a price I am ready to pay. The other main pain point is usually the display. Finding a working and quality display is not trivial. My personal preferred solution – after using an excellent monitor such as the SONY KX-14CP1 – is to leverage an upscale. But even the Micomsoft XRGB3 (https://goo.gl/qBtsGz) will require some cable swapping at some point. Luckily, for the Apple II, one can buy a VGA adapter that plugs into a standard expansion slot! A2heaven used to sell the Apple II VGA Scaler for a reasonable price (https://goo.gl/ZGiw9s). The AIIVGAS outputs with a resolution of 720 x 480 pixels, using one among the 20 available modes. Using such a system will only require a power socket and a VGA monitor (your LCD TV should also work well). That’s all! Cycling between the modes to get the right look-and-feel is done by a simple button press. I love the Apple II!
Last but not least, if you want to try before opening up your wallet going physical – or if you really don’t like vintage hardware – you can always use an emulator. I personally use the excellent *AppleWin*that I recommend (https://goo.gl/CwFCFN). Have a great WE!







Good to see you acknowledged Pascal
Good to see you acknowledged Pascal
For some reason several short URLs were disabled. Here they are if you are interested – in order:
https://plus.google.com/+JamelTayeb/posts/QXoz18HPL4A
https://plus.google.com/+JamelTayeb/posts/iLk6UJ8xsiR
https://plus.google.com/+JamelTayeb/posts/Y1Bhgq5bF3J
https://plus.google.com/+JamelTayeb/posts/UDz5qcnX22T
plus.google.com – Album – Google+
For some reason several short URLs were disabled. Here they are if you are interested – in order:
https://plus.google.com/+JamelTayeb/posts/QXoz18HPL4A
https://plus.google.com/+JamelTayeb/posts/iLk6UJ8xsiR
https://plus.google.com/+JamelTayeb/posts/Y1Bhgq5bF3J
https://plus.google.com/+JamelTayeb/posts/UDz5qcnX22T
plus.google.com – Album – Google+
Nice post
Nice post
Thanks for all of the benefit of your experience. Did you recap your power supply or do anything else before using it? I’d hate to destroy what I have. I’m also concerned most rubber drive belts in floppy drives will be shot. Do you know if any more modern devices have the capability to read Woz formatted floppies? I’d really like to get a first class emulator set up and then port stuff off my old floppies, but am not sure the actual hardware is going to work out so well. Are you aware of anything that could plug into an Apple //c to port floppy data off? I’d like to pack up floppies and get them into an emulator. Thank you for sharing your adventures and passions with us; I enjoy them quite a lot!
Thanks for all of the benefit of your experience. Did you recap your power supply or do anything else before using it? I’d hate to destroy what I have. I’m also concerned most rubber drive belts in floppy drives will be shot. Do you know if any more modern devices have the capability to read Woz formatted floppies? I’d really like to get a first class emulator set up and then port stuff off my old floppies, but am not sure the actual hardware is going to work out so well. Are you aware of anything that could plug into an Apple //c to port floppy data off? I’d like to pack up floppies and get them into an emulator. Thank you for sharing your adventures and passions with us; I enjoy them quite a lot!
r cs Thank you for your encouragements. It is always a pleasure to see that what you share is interesting to someone. Regarding the PSU, I didn’t re-caped any of them. My older A2 is from 79 and has a European voltage (in fact, 2 are US and 2 are EU rated). They worked as-is, even after spending years in storage. You can easily buy replacement parts if needed, specifically the caps. Or, following the idea of modernizing the computer, pick a replacement kit such as this one: https://wiki.reactivemicro.com/Universal_PSU_Kit, https://www.reactivemicro.com/shop/. I didn’t try this specific kit yet, but I considered it at some point to be able to enjoy my Euro+ model here in the US without a clunky voltage stepper. I will wait the death of a PSU before modernizing it, but I will definitively go that path. Please keep in mind that I like using my A2s, and I am not trying to preserve them original for a potential profit :). Unfortunately, I do not have an Apple //c and do not know much about CF card solution for this model. I would guess, because of the higher density vs. a desktop model, you may find “external” solutions easier than an integrated one. On the floppy drives, I would recommend to clean the RW head with a single-sided cleaning kit or isopropyl alcohol as shown here for a Disk II:
. If your focus is on the //c, you could also watch this video:
.
r cs Thank you for your encouragements. It is always a pleasure to see that what you share is interesting to someone. Regarding the PSU, I didn’t re-caped any of them. My older A2 is from 79 and has a European voltage (in fact, 2 are US and 2 are EU rated). They worked as-is, even after spending years in storage. You can easily buy replacement parts if needed, specifically the caps. Or, following the idea of modernizing the computer, pick a replacement kit such as this one: https://wiki.reactivemicro.com/Universal_PSU_Kit, https://www.reactivemicro.com/shop/. I didn’t try this specific kit yet, but I considered it at some point to be able to enjoy my Euro+ model here in the US without a clunky voltage stepper. I will wait the death of a PSU before modernizing it, but I will definitively go that path. Please keep in mind that I like using my A2s, and I am not trying to preserve them original for a potential profit :). Unfortunately, I do not have an Apple //c and do not know much about CF card solution for this model. I would guess, because of the higher density vs. a desktop model, you may find “external” solutions easier than an integrated one. On the floppy drives, I would recommend to clean the RW head with a single-sided cleaning kit or isopropyl alcohol as shown here for a Disk II:
. If your focus is on the //c, you could also watch this video:
.
r cs oops, I believe I misread your question. If I got you right – for the second time – you want to take your data off the Apple and use it with an emulator. There are software packages available such ADT (http://adtpro.com). Sure there are many other ones. Hope that I got it right this time 😉
r cs oops, I believe I misread your question. If I got you right – for the second time – you want to take your data off the Apple and use it with an emulator. There are software packages available such ADT (http://adtpro.com). Sure there are many other ones. Hope that I got it right this time 😉
A good read if you want to know a bit more about “expandable by design”, and what it meant to users: apple2history.org – 13-Peripherals
A good read if you want to know a bit more about “expandable by design”, and what it meant to users: apple2history.org – 13-Peripherals
youtube.com – Steve Wozniak Debunks One of Apple’s Biggest Myths
youtube.com – Steve Wozniak Debunks One of Apple’s Biggest Myths