Jolt Country

Why I am an Apple fanboy.

Three machines, from roughly 5, 15, and 25 years ago.

All still running, and running well.

http://www.fsf.net/~adam/Apples.jpg

Bruce

That is seriously sweet. Excellent work.

We used to have black Apple IIs at school. I can't recall if they were the II C, but I think they were. I loved that keyboard. I wish I could get one these days that had the same feel.

Did you intentionally show all three showing just how far they can search, as in, the disk, the hard drive, and the web itself?!?! Well, either way, it is a nice touch.

* salutes the Apples on display *

Damn, I need to replace my power-surge-burned out Apple IIe. I really like the Virtual II emulator on OS X (worth paying for), but there's something special about running the real thing, and I have an unused computer desk it could sit on since I've moved from PC desktop to Mac laptop.

I have not been wise with my money this year, though, so it may have to wait awhile. The color monitor was spared in the power-surge, so at least I still have that.

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:That is seriously sweet. Excellent work.

We used to have black Apple IIs at school. I can't recall if they were the II C, but I think they were. I loved that keyboard. I wish I could get one these days that had the same feel.

Did you intentionally show all three showing just how far they can search, as in, the disk, the hard drive, and the web itself?!?! Well, either way, it is a nice touch.

No. In fact I didn't even really mean to take that picture.

I had the Powerbook over there because I was doing some network debugging trying to get the Mac LC II up and running on the network (it has a, get this, SCSI-to-Ethernet adapter in it!).

And I had the Apple //e spun up because it helps to have a working Apple ][ to compare the IIe card in the Mac with.

And then I realized that I had 20 years of Apple products right there on the desk, so I took a picture.

You can go back somewhat farther in my collection, too, as well as farther forward. I have an Intel MacBook Pro that I'm currently typing this on, and I have a couple of Apple II Plusses which are currently stored in the other room.

Adam

I couldn't help noticing the stacks of what appear to be 2600 carts on the left. That still work too? I'm thinking of that recent video where the geek buys the game from the old coot with the banjo with disastrous results. Those carts work in the old Apples, do they not? I remember they worked in the C64 cart slot. Can you put a flat screen monitor on them?


THE
BULKY
AARDVARK

Haha, the Angry Video Game Nerd's video about the 2600 game The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Lemme find it. One sec.

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/26199.html?type=flv

Everytime I go to Gametrailers, I just think.... "FAIL!"

They ask you for your birthday. Which is stupid and pointless and can be defeated by LYING. And they ask you for it every fucking time you watch an Angry Video Game Nerd movie. Fail. FAIL!!!! Motherfuckers, fucking FAIL. Game Trailers is a website run by failures.

AArdvark wrote:I couldn't help noticing the stacks of what appear to be 2600 carts on the left. That still work too? I'm thinking of that recent video where the geek buys the game from the old coot with the banjo with disastrous results. Those carts work in the old Apples, do they not? I remember they worked in the C64 cart slot. Can you put a flat screen monitor on them?


THE
BULKY
AARDVARK

Those are 2600 carts, they still work, and they are not compatible with either the Apple or the c64.

People have made VGA converters for the Apple. Basically, you can put a flatscreen monitor on them if you have some way to feed NTSC to your monitor. Of course, any flatscreen TV pretty much lets you do this.

Adam

AArdvark wrote:Those carts work in the old Apples, do they not? I remember they worked in the C64 cart slot.

The 2600 joysticks worked for the C64, the Sega Genesis (although not all the buttons were there, of course), the Atari 400/800 computers and.... I.... think? they al... no! They did not work for the Apple II, according to my memory.

Is that correct, bruce? The 2600 joysticks weren't compatible with the Apple?

I used to have a bunch of commie carts and they would work in either the 64 or the 2600. Or it could be the youthful drugs playing me false. Now I have to research...



THE
SLOT IT IN
FIRE IT UP
YEAH MAN
AARDVARK

False memories. I must have only had C64 carts.



THE
DRUG INDUCED
AARDVARK

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:

AArdvark wrote:Those carts work in the old Apples, do they not? I remember they worked in the C64 cart slot.

The 2600 joysticks worked for the C64, the Sega Genesis (although not all the buttons were there, of course), the Atari 400/800 computers and.... I.... think? they al... no! They did not work for the Apple II, according to my memory.

Is that correct, bruce? The 2600 joysticks weren't compatible with the Apple?

Correct, although both use a DB9 connector.

The Atari joystick is what we call "digital", these days: a leaf switch (well, in the fancy sticks like the Wico; the classic 2600 is, I think, basically plastic and tinfoil) at each cardinal direction (so you could close two at once) and a switch under the fire button.

The Apple II joystick is what we'd call "analog", although, really, it's just two potentiometers and an 8-bit A-D converter. So each axis would give a reading of 0-255. You could exploit this to use the joystick port for sampling, well, anything that would give you a TTL-range voltage: give it 0-5 volts, and you could read the voltage in increments of (5/255) volts. I used this once to build a sensor to determine how fast a coilgun projectile was going, with a photocell and a laser.

There were also two buttons on the Apple joystick. These were not present on the II+ keyboard, but they became Open-Apple and Solid (usually called "Closed")-Apple on the //e keyboard. Open-apple became the Command (propeller) key on Macs, although Closed-apple went the way of the Dodo.

Bruce