Apple II/II+, what use?

Many people collect the oldest models of the Apple II/II+. I suspect many more would like to own one or more. I know people buy Apple IIs to repair and restore them.

But what do you do with that working, restored Apple II? Do you put it on a shelf, or in a plastic or glass display case? Do you show it off on occasion and get amused when someone types in something on the Basic prompt and gets a SYNTAX ERROR? Keep a sharp eye on the completed eBay ads to judge when to sell yours?

Or do you actually use it? Program on it, play games, chat on IRC, run WordStar, VisiCalc, AppleWorks or The Print Shop, connect to your favorite BBS? Test your prototype hardware on it? Learn all about digital logic and system design? Backup or crack your floppy disk collection? These machines are limited compared with the Apple IIe, IIc and especially the IIgs, but do those who own them actually use them?

Playing games, looking back at old programming projects from high school, transferring some old documents from Appleworks to Microsoft Office using Crossworks (I have the full package for the IIgs, including cable, software and manuals).

I'm still amazed at how well some of my mid-to-late 80's floppy disks have held up, data still readable. Even the DOS 3.3 disk from an Apple ][ plus back in 1983 (fifth grade)... my first exposure to the Apple ][.

I'm also playing around with hardware that I couldn't afford back in the day, seeing what I can do with these systems... and collecting a set of Apple ][ computers. Other than minor variants, I'm only missing a black Apple ][ plus now (the one I purchased never arrived, so I got a refund. In some ways this is a minor variant, as I do have a ][ plus.) All but two are currently set up and usable (the platinum IIe is in box, with the complete set of documents and disks as shipped, the ][plus is in pieces waiting for a new keyboard encoder.)

I have a three channel Vernier Photogate kit that I can run on my IIe. You can also use it for anyhting else that can supply a high/low signal. The results can be plotted on charts and printed.

I use my Apple II to play classic games and to preserve old floppies by converting them to disk images.

I acquired one to teach my Grandson about the Old Apples, which I am learning about myself.

I use my Apple II Plus to model the decay of the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal.

I wrote about half of the programs in my book on an Apple II Plus (the other half in emulators). The Tic Tac Toe game, the Prime numbers sieve, and the shape encoder program were all written and tested on the II Plus, saved on 5.25" disk, and transferred to my Mac by manual transcription.

"bragging rights."

Your original question seems to be a common one I hear from "video game" guys, no slight intended, but they tend to understand the wanting to play 16bit games but for them nothing existed till the C64 and Atari 800 came out. I get this a ton when I'm showing my ASCII graphics version of Lunar Lander for the Apple-1. "It's so primitive!!!"

Anyway. What do I use my Apple II for, well I play really vintage games and want to have the vintage feeling which is why I don't play them on an emulator. I also use mine with a Willegal.net Superproto board to test 1101 and 2102 ram chips (I test a lot of 2102 chips for my Altair and Sol-20).

I just got a CPM card so maybe I'll do some stuff on CPM since my Altair is totally circa 1975 and my Sol is circa early 1977, so no floppy drives (They did exist back then but they were expensive so I don't have them since most people wouldn't have floppies). You need floppies to run CPM, I really like playing the original Zork not the split one they made for general Apple, C64 and TRS80 operating systems.

Oh and my kids like printshop. Amazing that no one has made a modern version of this program. Even my 6 year old can use it.

I think that about covers it... I'm sure I'd had other uses if I didn't have my other machines.

Oh I did forget something.... I have an Apple II because its cool...

The IIe is already starting to become too modern for me. It has a lot of custom chips and can run a graphical OS desktop "sort of". If something goes wrong, you have to typically find a donor machine to fix it. If something breaks on a II or a plus, the TTL chips are mostly common or at least they can be found from mouser or unicorn for less than a buck.

Cheers,
Corey

I wrote a biorhythm program that was compatible with year 2000 dates (and as far as you want to go in either direction of time) entirely on an original Apple II 16K. Absolutely no emulators or modern equipment. The screen output assumes you're using a color TV with an RF adapter to get the color effect Woz discovered back in 76-77. Took about 30 hours. I wanted to experience what it would have been like to write a semi-pro software package on the system it was designed for.

I often wonder why people try to make their IBM 5150's into machines that can access the Internet.

I don't use my ][ plus all that much, just about every keyswitch is bad, and its not the same with an external keyboard on it. I would probably find more uses for it if its keyboard worked right.

I didn't get into Apple II's until I got my //c, so many my games and programs are later 128k titles, so most often I am using my Enhanced //e or my IIgs as my real workhorses.

My ][+, //c, IIc+ all sit up on the shelf in my computer room, mostly just to preserve them, and say I own them. I don't let them sit collect dust though, I do play with them from time to time, and calibrate/clean their drives every so often and make sure there's no leaking caps inside, so they are more than just show pieces. Kind of my own working mini museum ;-)

Isn't there a technical reason to have a regular ][ or ][+ instead of a //e? Besides the BASIC ROMs, of course. I thought I had read about incompatibilities with the 6502 and 65C02 for certain programs when I was looking up the difference between an unenhanced and enhanced //e.

Plus, you can't rule out the nostalgia factor. Lots of people owned regular ][, and it sure is fun playing with one. You don't want the //e or //c, or some other model. You want the one you had!

I use mine as someone would a living art work. Just to fire it up occasionally to appreciate the design, form and function, or to show/explain it to others. This is true for all my vintage computers.

Tez

olePigeon said:

Isn't there a technical reason to have a regular ][ or ][+ instead of a //e? Besides the BASIC ROMs, of course. I thought I had read about incompatibilities with the 6502 and 65C02 for certain programs when I was looking up the difference between an unenhanced and enhanced //e.

Plus, you can't rule out the nostalgia factor. Lots of people owned regular ][, and it sure is fun playing with one. You don't want the //e or //c, or some other model. You want the one you had!

Click to expand...

You are right, there were some minimal compatibility issues with 6502 vs 65c02, but I would say there's probably just as much software that WONT run on the ][ or unenhanced //e that requires a 65c02. I am pretty sure its minimal either way though.

Nostalgia is a big part of it, my first computer was a //c, same //c that I still have today, have a special place in my heart for it, but I always envied the expandability of the //e and advanced features of the IIgs so I tend to use them as my every day machines.

Apart from a certain amount of sentimentality on my part, which has led to me having a nearly complete Apple II collection, I anticipate teaching my daughter (Currently 2yo) to program on one.

It's where I started and it was a great machine (and language) for that purpose. You don't worry too much about "bugs" and "incompatibilities" and other implementation details. 80's 8-bit BASIC boxes, and in particular the Apple II, are so easy. You turn it on and you start writing.