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I finally got around to playing with my Apple IIs.

OK, thanks. Do you know what the time limit is?

I guess we'll just have to live with my SilentWriter. Maybe my last post will be enough in case someone searches for StyleWriter.
 
Most Apple //e and //c users used the AppleWorks application suite with word processor, spread sheet and database. This is what I used in high school back in 1987-1991.

Mouse Calc was a GUI spreadsheet for the //e and //c. There was Publish It! which was a WYSIWYG desktop publishing app, which I used to make the school newspaper.
 
Is AppleWorks still available? Or is there something similar that can be downloaded? I'm not sure how the Apple software universe works. I am familiar with DOS Shareware/Freeware and Linux OSS. I'm not sure Apple software falls into any Shareware/freeware/OSS categories?

I used Publish It! on my PC. I will look for that.

Thanks,
Seaken
 
seaken said:
Is AppleWorks still available? Or is there something similar that can be downloaded? I'm not sure how the Apple software universe works. I am familiar with DOS Shareware/Freeware and Linux OSS. I'm not sure Apple software falls into any Shareware/freeware/OSS categories?

I used Publish It! on my PC. I will look for that.

Thanks,
Seaken
Click to expand...

Yup.. multiple versions are available on archive.org, if I'm not mistaken.
 
@JSR and @Getafix , thank you for the leads. I took a look at the ftp.apple.asimov.net site. I can't tell what to downoad. I am used to seing some kind of README which gives some guidance on what the files are. Having no experience with AppleWorks I do not know what these files do. I guess I will do some more looking around and try to narrow down the file names to use for my Apple //e. Unless you can tell me what file I should be downloading. My Apple //e has 64K, 80 colums, and a Super Serial card and an Apple Mouse card. Will any version work?

Seaken
 
I think the Apple's come into themselves when coupled with a bit of modern tech. There are many things to look at, but I'll highlight 3:

1) Storage.
There are quite a modern few mass storage products for Apple's. Some worth looking at:
a) Floppy Emu. Has Smartport (so images up to 32 Meg, acts like a hard disk) and floppy support. Will work with ][, //e, //c and Mac.

Floppy Emu Disk Emulator for Apple II, Macintosh, and Lisa | Big Mess o' Wires

www.bigmessowires.com www.bigmessowires.com
b) wDrive. (I don't have one) I think quite similar to a FloppyEmu but does support .woz images*, I believe.
ct6502.org

Apple II wDrive Disk Drive Emulator - CT6502

The wDrive is a disk drive emulator for the Apple II (II+, IIe, IIc, IIGS) that boots disk images (WOZ, DSK, 2MG, HDV, etc) from an SD card.
ct6502.org ct6502.org
c) BOOTi. a Card in a slot that does smartport and disk support. Quite inexpensive and will be available again soon.
https://ct6502.org/product/apple-ii-booti/ (Currently says protected - not sure what's up with that).
d) CFFA 3000. (I don't have one). A favorite of many people.
www.reactivemicro.com

CFFA3000 v1.0 Rev C-RM for II, II+, ///, IIe, and IIgs

This is the CFFA3000 v1.0 Rev C-RM built by ReActiveMicro under license from R&D Automation.ReActiveMicro is an authorized dealer and partner with R&D Automation in an effort to help bring mor
www.reactivemicro.com www.reactivemicro.com
e) MD/T. (I don't have one). I believe the fastest of the lot, uses DMA.
www.reactivemicro.com

ReActiveMicro Drive/Turbo for II, II+, IIe, and IIgs

NOTE: If you use your own CF Card you must confirm it complies to the original CF standard. If not it may not be compatible. And most manufactures no longer state revision compliance. Testing may be t
www.reactivemicro.com www.reactivemicro.com

I have the BOOTi and a Floppy Emu and use and like them both very much!
* Woz files are flux level disk images, so copy protected disks work, and more and more images are now in .woz format (https://applesaucefdc.com/woz/).

2) VidHD. Slot card that has HDMI output. Works in Apple II's with slots (so not the //c). It's pretty amazing

Apple II in 1080p: The VidHD

In his latest video, Chris Torrence reviews the VidHD card from Blue Shift. The card lets you connect your Apple II, II+, IIe, or IIGS to a 1080p monitor or TV. Watch now! https://youtu.be/ehQpC2-NEBM
www.callapple.org www.callapple.org

3) Uthernet II. Ethernet slot card. Maybe less applications than the other 2 above, but very cool. Works with ADTPro and the cc65 IP65 stack (so things like emai//er or a2stream for Apple II can be built) or Marinetti for Apple IIgs can use it to connect to the internet.

The storage things are the biggest bang for the buck and these machines really become a lot of fun once you can have a ton of images on a card/stick and switch quickly and easily. 32 Meg partitions enable things like Total Replay (https://archive.org/details/TotalReplay)

-Stefan
 
Thanks Stefan, that is all great stuff! I have plenty of reading to do.

If I wanted to try and make some 5.25 disks that will load AppleWorks on the //c what files should I be downloading? What version?

Seaken
 
I think you can go with these disks: https://mirrors.apple2.org.za/ftp.a...y/integrated/appleworks/v5.0_beagle_brothers/
The 1st floppy isn't a bootable disk, I see online, so you should boot prodos, swap disks and run appleworks.system, then follow the instructions from there. -- I am not sure about running AppleWorks from Floppy. I have never done or attempted to do that - maybe someone else here has that know-how.

I am using V5.1 from that site, but it's a 32Meg file that I installed using one of my modern storage things.

There's a great version of prodos here https://prodos8.com/releases/prodos-242/ - it's the most modern and comes with bitsy.bye, which is a nice file chooser (same guy that made the VidHD maintains ProDOS now).

My primary Apple II now is an Apple IIgs ROM3. In this I use a High Speed Apple SCSI card with a SCSI2SD. I didn't mention that before but that's a great solution too if you can find an Apple High Speed SCSI card.

-Stefan
 
seaken said:
What I am interested in now is to find out what I can get running on these Apple IIs that would be similar to what I ran on my N* Advantage and my first PC. I ran business applications on those machines, word processors and databases. I had WordStar on the N* and PC File (a Dbase clone) and PFS First Choice on the Tandy PC.

I know the Apple II was one of the first to be used with a spreadsheet (VisiCalc). I'm assuming there were also word processors and database software available for the Apple II in the early to mid 1980s.

I have several old printers littered around my storage area. I knew I had an Apple printer and I pulled it out in hoopes that I could hook it up to the Apple //e or //c using a serial port. The printer is a SilentWriter. It does have a serial interface (ADB) but it was meant for the MACs, not the Apple II. I found out I could hook it up to the Apple II but it wouldn't be worth the effort since there was almost no software that supported it. Maybe some IIgs software would work but not the software ued on the Apple //e or //c.

So now I am looking at hooking up one of my old "Epson" compatible dot-matrix printers. It looks like I will have to purchase a parallel port card since none of my old dot-matrix printers have a serial port.

What I want to do is set up a word processor on the Apple //e and a printer that I can print letters and contracts to, just like I did with my N* Advanatge in CP/M.

I will keep looking around and reading. But if anyone has any suggestions for some business applications that I can download and write to 5.25" floppies for the Apple IIs I would appreciate the suggestions.

Seaken
Click to expand...
One of the best programs, IMO, is Appleworks. You can download any version of it from here: https://www.apple.asimov.net/images/productivity/ But get either 5 or 5.1, those were the last two versions that were put out. You can get the documentation here: https://www.apple.asimov.net/documentation/applications/appleworks/ If you download version 5 or 5.1 download the version 4 docs and then the version 5 Delta doc.

There are also several other programs you can get from different folders at Asimov, so pick and choose what you want or think you'll need.

magnus
 
I decided to start with AppleWorks version 1.3. I read on https://www.apple2history.org/history/ah19/#04 that after 1.3 the required RAM became 128K. For now I only have 64K on the //e so I wanted something that will work on that. I also noticed that several of the files were 800K disk images and I don't have any 3.5" drives or disks, only 5.25" and 140K.

I used ADTPro to write the Boot disk to one side and the Program disk to the reverse side.

I tested it out and it works fine. But I will want to set up a seperate Data disk. For now, I just saved a couple of files to the Boot disk side. I will need to get more disks or use the FloppyEmu mentioned earlier. For now, I am pleased with these results.

When I quit the program I was placed at a prompt. This may be ProDOS? I couldn't do anything since I don't know any of the commands. I wanted to see the files I created on the disk but I had to reboot into Basic and use the Catalog,D2 command since that is all I know how to get a list so far. After the filename there is a second line with a number. I assume that is the size of the file in bytes? Then it says Blocks-Free and Blocks used and Total Blocks. How do interpret "Blocks"? The disk is 140K and if my file is 425 bytes I can store 140,000/425 files of that size on the disk?

I need to find an owner's manual for ProDOS and one for AppleWorks. (Ahh, yes, I see @magnusfalkirk pointed me to the AW manuals. Thanks).

Seaken
 
A 140 KB disk has 280 blocks, so 512 bytes per block.

The Apple DOS 3.3 manual is here: https://archive.org/details/the-dos-manual
The ProDOS manual is here: http://www.applelogic.org/files/PRODOSUM.pdf
The ProDOS Technical Reference has some stuff that's good to know, here: https://prodos8.com/docs/techref/

I only use the ProDOS I liked earlier, that comes with Bitsy Bye (ProDOS 2.4.2). I am otherwise a DOS and ProDOS noob and can, unfortunately, not help you with the rest of the questions wrt older versions of Apple DOS:cry:

-Stefan
PS. Keep at it - there's so much fun to be had. Add a Mockingboard (https://www.reactivemicro.com/product/mockingboard-assembled-or-kit/) for AY Music or an accelerator (https://quick09.tistory.com/1500 or https://quick09.tistory.com/1516?category=805400) for go-faster. The depth of these Apple machines is quite amazing.
 
So, my 425 byte file takes one Block. My 783 byte file takes 2 Blocks. I'm assuming the file system is using the Block as the smallest disk unit.

Thanks for the links. I'll read up.

Seaken
 
seaken said:
It is cool to see the old style green on black. But as I get older my eyesight gets worse. I found this site extremely difficult to read. It would be nice if there was an alternate page design for us who are challenged with poor eyesight.

Seaken
Click to expand...
I had the same thought -- it's cute, but, murderously clumsy, visually.
 
Ok, so it turns out that I do have 128K of RAM in my //e. I did not know that my //e "Enhanced" came with 128K until I read about the 80 Column/64K card that is installed in the auxiliary port on these machines. It is possible to have a //e with 64K but my "Enhanced" version came from the factory with the 80 Column/64K upgrade pre-installed at the factory, along with the updated 65SC02 CPU to match up with the //c.

So, essentially, my //e is the same as my //c. The differences being that the //e has upgrade slots and the //c has a lot of what would be in a slot built-in and has ports on the back. The //c also has color built-in and the //e needs a card for color. Does that sound about right?

So, now I am going to go back to the ftp site and re-download the AppleWorks software that is supported in 128K. I still need the 140K disk images but I think I can upgrade to at least version 2.

Next will be to try to hook up a printer.

I also want to try out a game that comes in color on the //c.

Seaken
 
I have been confused on how to utilize ProDOS on the //e. It seems like I should be able to copy an entire disk to another disk, a disk to disk copy. But I can't figure it out.

I was using ADTPro which "uses" ProDOS and the ProDOS sign-on comes on screen when I boot from the ADTPro disk. When I "Q"uit I get a little menu. But all I can do is go back into ADTPro. There is no ProDOS Menu like I have read about. It appears I do not have the "Users" disk which has this menu.

I downloaded the ProDOS 2.4.2 version and made a boot disk with ADTPro. It boots to a menu with the right side of the screen saying "Bitsy Bye" and left side is a list of programs. One of these programs is ADTPro and it works fine, just like the version I have written to floppy and have been using. There is another program called "COPYIIPLUS". But I cannot get it to launch. I read about it and it does seem to be the type of program I am lookig for. I wonder if I can download another copy, as a stand-alone program, an get it to work so I can copy disks.

Apparently there is no "Built-in" command to copy files and disks in ProDOS? In MS-DOS I am used to using the command line to copy files and directories and entire disks. These commands are usually calling a program that is on a disk and not included in the command.com process. So I understand the need for launching a seperate program to do what I want. I'm just not sure what the program is named that I want to use. Is there some other program other than COPYIIPLUS that will work to copy disk-to-disk? And if so, is it "part" of ProDOS or is it a seperate program? Or is there a distinction? If it runs from a ProDOS disk does that make it "part of ProDOS"?

Seaken
 
seaken said:
So, essentially, my //e is the same as my //c. The differences being that the //e has upgrade slots and the //c has a lot of what would be in a slot built-in and has ports on the back. The //c also has color built-in and the //e needs a card for color. Does that sound about right?
Click to expand...
No, not quite. The Apple's don't have color or B&W. Simply explained Woz abused the output signals to get color. In hires, for example, an Apple will have 280 pixels horizontal resolution, but when connected to a color display, it will look like 140 pixels (2 bits per pixel, more or less) It's actually 7 pixels per 16 bit number. The most significant bit on each byte does a color shift so you can get 6 colors in hires instead of 4. The pixels are also displayed lsb to msb and the memory layout isn't contiguous. Hires on an Apple is totally bizarre but once you get the hang of it, like anything, it becomes easy to work with. On a color screen, you see the fringing and that's why - 7/8 Bit mono fonts will often straddle the 2 bits per pixel boundary and look weird. But yes, the //e could have 64k and the enhanced came with the card and 65c02 and 128k. You can upgrade a non-enhanced //e to enhanced - kits are sold by ReactiveMicro, I think.

Try this game - supports color and mono (B switches and all it does is render color bits all white). OP for left right and space to jump. You press O to start walking and O again to stop or P to turn around. It's a remake of a classic ZX Spectrum game, for the Apple. I made it :) It was my second Apple 2 game and the 1st I made in color. (m turns off the annoying music and s the "effects"). If you leave it long enough at the title, the help scrolls by.

-Stefan
 

Attachments

  • mminer.zip
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Stefan, does that mean all I have to do is attach a composite color monitor to the //e and it will display in color, if the program is meant to display in color?

So, the difference to the //c is that the //c supports an RGB monitor on the RGB port? And that RGB port is missing on the //e?

Thanks, I will try your game and report back.

Seaken
 
seaken said:
There is another program called "COPYIIPLUS". But I cannot get it to launch.
Click to expand...
That is disconcerting and I have never heard of that happening. I have attached a diagnostics disk image. Maybe just check the system? Maybe try another disk?
There isn't, as far as I know, a built-in ProDOS disk copy program. I have just been using COPYIIPLUS. I have never tried to "send" with ADTPro. Can that take an image and send it to the host so you can re-image it onto another floppy?

seaken said:
all I have to do is attach a composite color monitor to the //e and it will display in color
Click to expand...
Yes :)

seaken said:
So, the difference to the //c is that the //c supports an RGB monitor on the RGB port? And that RGB port is missing on the //e?
Click to expand...
I believe so, yes. I have never used the RGB on my //c (no cable) so if you do, please let me know how much the image quality improves. I have one of the small //c green monitors with my //c and I have always only used that.

I am going away for a few days - hopefully someone else in the community can help you for the next week or so, should you have more questions. Good luck!

-Stefan
 

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