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Are all the Apple II accessory vendors gone?

smp

smp

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 4, 2011
Messages
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Location
Bedford, NH, USA
Hello,

Yes, I know that I am frivolously using the word "all," but...

I have been looking around on various web sites of the folks who have offered more modern Apple II accessories in the past, like a2retrosystems, ReactiveMicro, A2Central, and UltimateAppleII. While A2Central seems to still be there, kind of, the others I noted all seem to be "on hiatus." the IIGS BarnDoor project (http://www.gsbarndoor.com/) seems to never have gotten off the ground at all.

Am I just too late? I was really hoping to eventually proceed to acquire some sort of solid-state storage disk drive replacement, and maybe a network connection. Given that everyone is on hiatus, have I missed the boat? Are there any other active sites that I can look into?

One that I found is dreher.net:
http://dreher.net/?s=projects/CFforAppleII&c=projects/CFforAppleII/main.php
They are offering the CFFA solid-state memory board. It looks exciting. But, is this the only game in town?

Thanks in advance for any feedback and/or advice that anyone may have to offer. I really hope that I have not come too late to the party!

smp
 
smp said:
One that I found is dreher.net:
http://dreher.net/?s=projects/CFforAppleII&c=projects/CFforAppleII/main.php
They are offering the CFFA solid-state memory board. It looks exciting. But, is this the only game in town?
smp
Click to expand...

They offer the best hard drive solution around so not a bad deal at all. I have also noticed many vendors on hiatus. Anyone remember McPriceBreakers, he had a pretty much endless supply of accelerator boards and SCSI cards and such and then just vanished about 1 year ago. His prices were insane, but still, he was one of the few places you could buy this stuff from 365 days a year.
 
smp said:
Hello,

Yes, I know that I am frivolously using the word "all," but...

I have been looking around on various web sites of the folks who have offered more modern Apple II accessories in the past, like a2retrosystems, ReactiveMicro, A2Central, and UltimateAppleII. While A2Central seems to still be there, kind of, the others I noted all seem to be "on hiatus." the IIGS BarnDoor project (http://www.gsbarndoor.com/) seems to never have gotten off the ground at all.

Am I just too late? I was really hoping to eventually proceed to acquire some sort of solid-state storage disk drive replacement, and maybe a network connection. Given that everyone is on hiatus, have I missed the boat? Are there any other active sites that I can look into?

One that I found is dreher.net:
http://dreher.net/?s=projects/CFforAppleII&c=projects/CFforAppleII/main.php
They are offering the CFFA solid-state memory board. It looks exciting. But, is this the only game in town?

Thanks in advance for any feedback and/or advice that anyone may have to offer. I really hope that I have not come too late to the party!

smp
Click to expand...

I worked for Reactive Micro, the market died off considerably.
 
gerrydoire said:
I worked for Reactive Micro, the market died off considerably.
Click to expand...

Did it die off over a long period of time or just recently? Rich has been selling his CFFA like crazy and the prices and demand for Apple II computers seems to have only risen according to ebay prices.
 
david__schmidt said:
Patience, grasshopper. Not everything is in stock 365 days a year. This is a 30-year-old computer, mind you. Sometimes hardware vendors make production runs, sometimes they don't. Some links for your consideration:

http://www.sepa-electronics.com/
http://www.applelogic.org/CarteBlanche.html
https://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.apple2/browse_frm/thread/14601d7d64ebe1d3
Click to expand...


Thanks very much, David. Those are all new links to me, and I greatly appreciate getting them!

smp
 
smp said:
One that I found is dreher.net:
http://dreher.net/?s=projects/CFforAppleII&c=projects/CFforAppleII/main.php
They are offering the CFFA solid-state memory board. It looks exciting. But, is this the only game in town?
smp
Click to expand...


Well, I have made my order with Dreher. Now we'll see what happens, and whether or not I am actually lucky enough to receive one of these solid-state disk drive boards. Right now, I am struggling just to get my system up and running (please refer to my other posts in this forum).

smp
 
why did it happen?

why did it happen?

Does anyone have a good solid idea why these vendors are gone? It's the changing marketplace for certain, but what about it?

Is it because the Apple II is becoming less desirable as a hobby/toy in light of modern systems?
Is it because all the people that needed do-dads and odds and ends got what they needed and there's no more customers?
How about ebay availability?
Changing demographics? Are we getting older, and thus more content to sit and look our collections instead of actually using them?
Is the younger crowd just not interested in this stuff? And the older crowd too old?
Price vs. Value?
Does emulation have anything to do with anything?
With a modern PC (emulation tools, ftp archive, and internet), is all that is required to experience the "Apple 2" era in full glory a basic console with a memory card and disk and controller? Thus doing away with the need for all sorts of peripherals.


All sorts of speculations, but perhaps people in the know can comment.
 
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Disclaimer: all responses are based on my personal observations.

Keatah said:
Is it because the Apple II is becoming less desirable as a hobby/toy in light of modern systems?
Click to expand...
No.
Is it because all the people that needed do-dads and odds and ends got what they needed and there's no more customers?
Click to expand...
Yes. Two supporting reasons: I made a fairly wide announcement of posting images of The Saltine's disks online and got about 100 downloads in a week. I published an Apple II book in June and I expect to sell the 200th copy before the end of the month. The book made its way around all Apple II sites that I know of, but probably would have sold many more copies had it made its way to mainstream tech sites such as Slashdot.
How about ebay availability?
Click to expand...
I don't know.
Changing demographics? Are we getting older, and thus more content to sit and look our collections instead of actually using them?
Click to expand...
I think that's part of it.
Is the younger crowd just not interested in this stuff?
Click to expand...
It does seem that way.

Does emulation have anything to do with anything?
Click to expand...
Yes. Based on responses that I've gotten, emulator use eclipses use of the real hardware for many people. Refer to the number of emulators in development.
With a modern PC (emulation tools, ftp archive, and internet), is all that is required to experience the "Apple 2" era in full glory a basic console with a memory card and disk and controller? Thus doing away with the need for all sorts of peripherals.
Click to expand...
That seems to be the case.
 
Most of the explanations I've received from vendors who are no longer in business revolve around them just not being interested in devoting that much time to the hobby, or they've got other businesses and families that have taken up their spare time.
 
How about the possibility that Apple's short upgrade cycle (a.k.a. planned obsolescence) makes it difficult and/or expensive to maintain vintage Apple, compared to other machines of similar period. Also that the typical Apple user has always accepted Apple's closed ecology that discourages getting under the hood. And that most Apple buyers are addicted to new and shiny. And that Apple has always been less than 15% of the market in personal computers...

I say this as a stubborn maintainer of several Apples from Mac 128 through to G5, including a Mac IIsi.

Rick
 
RickNel said:
How about the possibility that Apple's short upgrade cycle (a.k.a. planned obsolescence) makes it difficult and/or expensive to maintain vintage Apple, compared to other machines of similar period. Also that the typical Apple user has always accepted Apple's closed ecology that discourages getting under the hood. And that most Apple buyers are addicted to new and shiny. And that Apple has always been less than 15% of the market in personal computers...
Click to expand...


Hi Rick,

This is the Early Apple forum - you know, the Apple II models.
I was not aware that Apple was maintaining any upgrade cycle on the Apple II at all, never mind a short one.
My original question here was about why all the vendors who have made more modern accessory cards for the Apple II family seem to have disappeared over the last few years.

I apologize if I touched a raw nreve with you...

smp
 
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smp said:
Hi Rick,


My original question here was about why all the vendors who have made more modern accessory cards for the Apple II family seem to have disappeared over the last few years.

I apologize if I touched a raw nreve with you...

smp
Click to expand...

No raw nerve. Just some musings on why those vendors you were asking about might simply have found there was not enough market for their product to continue making it, and resellers are less likely to stock items with a tiny residual market. In case you think I was disrespecting Apple owners, note that I referred to "typical" Apple owners, not those few with the interest and fortitude to try to keep vintage machines going. The broad issues concerning maintenance, upgrade, and parts availability apply to the later Apple machines that I collect, so I don't think my remarks were too off-topic. ;)

Rick
 
Keatah said:
Does anyone have a good solid idea why these vendors are gone? It's the changing marketplace for certain, but what about it?

Is it because the Apple II is becoming less desirable as a hobby/toy in light of modern systems?
Click to expand...

I'll share my perspectives with you.

Although not mentioned in aforementioned review of the prior year, www.Apple2Online.com had over 30,000 hits in it's first two years, and now has more than 40,000 hits at just over it's 2.5 years existance. Not bad for a start-up website for a 30-year old computer line. No idea how other websites are doing since they seem to not have counters, but I think there is a good active community out there that extends beyond the google geeks.

Between my webstore (http://drkenb.blujay.com) and eBay & Bonanza sales, I sell quite a bit of refurbished Apple II computers & peripherals. I put a lot of time & effort into cleaning & testing the items before selling them, so my prices are higher than the guy who simply pulls out his dusty old Apple II, doesn't bother to even dust it off, and puts it up on eBay. But from my perspective there is a nice little niche market out there and I do quite a business. This is, of course, quite different from folks who develop new hardware to vend. But from where I sit, there is a decent demand for these vintage, history-making systems.

Although the majority of my sales are to folks trying to recapture the excitement of their youth, I'm quite pleasantly surprised that there are a number of customers out there who didn't grow up with the Apple II who are now finding it for the first time. Sure, there is a bunch of us burnt-out hippies but there are also a number of much younger folks - I believe one author we all know here is one such person - who have relatively recently discovered the Apple II family and have fallen in love with it.

Given all the free software & documentation as well as some of the great utilities such as ADTPro, CiderPress etc., there are a number of folks who are finding that an Apple IIe is near indestructable in the hands of a 5 or 6 year old and there is a plethora of educational software & games available - as good if not better than anything now available on today's computers. And lord knows that there is not a PC or Mac being built today that could withstand the beating that the vintage Apple II keyboards have endured over the past 30 years!

And with the availability of the CFFA3K card I can see a renewed interest in the Apple II. Yes, there was the Uthernet card (I purposefully use the past tense there) but it didn't go far at all given its software limitations. There are Focus drives and MicroDrives still out there even though they are not being made any more. You can still add SCSI hard drives and even SCSI CDROM drives to your IIGS. I believe that the EDD Plus clone might still be available, although I have not actually looked for it. Still, it does seem that the number of - I won't call them vendors since I am a vendor - developers has diminished substantially. Let's face it, how many young people are there out there with not only the skill set but the wherewithall of a Rich Dreher to see a new hardware project through to completion? How many people are out there who would be willing to take on a project like David Schmidt and see it through to completion? These are no minor endeavors, to say the least! How wonderful would it be to have the ability to have a flat panel color display on your Apple II and not have it look like crap? I have no doubt that the technology is out there, but who has the skill set to pull it all together? I wish I did!

I hope that everyone who has an interest in the Apple II vintage family finds the funds to purchase a copy of David's book and Rich's CFFA3K, because the greater their success the more likely it will be that others will undertake serious, significant development projects that we can all benefit from.
 
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