Learn from the Apple II [LWN.net]

Learn from the Apple II

Posted Jul 7, 2006 2:52 UTC (Fri) by nas (subscriber, #17)
Parent article: Interview: Jim Gettys (Part II)

I recently listened to an interview Steve Wozniak (very interesting, BTW). Afterwards, I found an online copy of the original Apple II manual, also known as the Red Book. As a child, I never had the pleasure of owning an Apple II. In retrospect, I wish I had. The manual is filled with all kinds of interesting details about the hardware. Also, the firmware of the machine looks like it would make low-level tinkering easy; for example, it has a built-in disassembler. The OLPC project would do well to study the Apple II.

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Learn from the Apple II

Posted Jul 9, 2006 7:22 UTC (Sun) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link]

Indeed. I did have an Apple II+ in high school. Does your book have the hardware logic schematic? It was included in one of the manuals.

To beep the speaker it was a "peek -16252" or some such. Yep. Built in disassembler. 278 x 192 resolution 8 color graphics. (Sort of.) I splurged and got the full 48k of RAM. Later, I could upgrade it to 64k with an add on card, but the last 2k had to be bank switched. Another add on card gave it an 80 column console screen. Never had a hard drive though. Just dual 5.25 single sided floppies. Originally they were good for 112.5k. But a later version of Apple DOS increased it to something a little higher.

5 years later I got an IBM XT compatible. I was stunned out how much DOS insulated me from the hardware. It was a completely different experience. I eventually sold the Apple to a friend, long after it had become obsolete. (386's were out by then.) I thought it had outlived its usefulness.

He got a second phone line, put in an rs232 card and external modem and ran a nice, thriving little BBS on it for years.

Now, I kinda wish I'd kept it.