Apple IIe adventures
====================
Last year I decided to buy a 8-bit computer. My second, actually. In
the dark past (in 1990 or 1991) I had a Czechoslovak MATO home
computer. A Sinclair clone, I think. I had no memory device during that
time so I had little use for it. After that I had no such thing. My
computers have been alt least 16-bit.
But I has decided to buy an Apple IIe after reading the book
"Sophistication and Simplicity". I has been curious how the computer
really is. So I got a "perfectly working, like new" Apple IIe Enhanced,
and Italian model. It was been almost working. The problem has been
with its keyboard which does not work. I tried several fixes, replaced
some chips but it still refuses to work.
Then I have got another one. An U.S. IIe Enhanced model. This one
works. Well, almost. When I insert one particular card (the SCSI card)
then it crashes. Other cards (even the modern ones) seem to work. I
have had several issues with this computer, anyway. The first was the
monitor. Finally I have got an adapter which works well with my
(already quite old) LCD TV. The image isn't superb but it works. Later
I have got a A2HDMI adapter (it converts Apple II video signal to the
HDMI). This works even better, however at the moment I don't have free
HDMI-enabled screen for the Apple. Another problem was 110->220V
converter. Then I have started to learn how to use the computer. One of
the issues was connection with the outside world. I don't have any
other computer with 5.25" floppy. So I have got a cheap floppy
emulator. In short - it seems to work read-only and lot of software
cannot start from it. I also have a ROM card with some basic PRODOS
system (there is the ADTpro and some copy utility available, and the
BASIC, too).
So I decided to buy a SCSI card. A new on, of course. As I mentioned
above it does not work with my IIe (it crashes the device all time, no
matter in which slot it is inserted). Concurrently, I have goth the
Uthernet2 [1] Ethernet card. This thing works much better. However, I
was not able to set up a working system for a very long time. There
was no enough time or there were other problems. I only have found the
time today.
So I cleaned necessary desk space for the IIe, connected all necessary
stuff (a floppy, a floppy emulator, the video converter), inserted the
Uthernet and started to play. The first news were taht I have TWO
working floppy drives (both are 5.25") but I can connect only one (The
Apple II can only connect 2 devices per card and my floppy controller
has 2 slots - one fer drive). I don't have second adapter for the card.
It makes no problem for the floppy emulator (it is compatible with a
small port on the card) but the actual floppies have larger connectors
which require adaptors. So I can connect one emulator card and one
actual floppy drive. Most probably it will be possible to remove the
floppy controller from the second Apple and use it here. I will see if
it will be feasible (there is already too much cards installed inside
my IIe).
The new information (for me) that the floppy emulator is read-only and
many pieces of software don't start from it. So it is often practical
to use it just for transferring of data to the Apple. Then I copy the
files to an actual floppy and run the software.
Fortunately, I got 20 new Verbatim media (new, still sealed packaged)
so I have had to format them. I already forgot how such formatting
sounds...
So I have tried to write a simple BASIC program (a terrible experience,
then Soviet BASIC environments seem to be much more user-friendly) and
save the file on a floppy. Then I decided to give the IP65 tools [2] a
look.
The Date65 tool worked right from the floppy emulator's disk image (is
set my date and time as expected). The other tools dit not. So I have
transferred them to my brand new Verbatim 5.25" floppy disk and then
have continued the testing. The Telnet65 works: I was able to connect
to my SGI O2 and to do most of things I expect to be able to do on a
remote UNIX machine. The Telnet can do only a black-white screen with
no bold fonts (so the Midnight Commander is not so easy to be used here
and syntax highlighting feature in editors is of no value) but other
things work well.
The HFS65 works well, too - its a small WWW server which serves Apple's
local files. A nice way to download stuff from the Apple IIe.
I was less successful with the Wget65. I probably need to read the
manual more carefully.
Well, that's all.
I must say that my UKNC with its damn RX-11 clone is much more user
friendly. The RT-11 is much more advanced OS that the PRODOS toy and it
also includes a proper (albeit strange by Unix standards) text editor
(the KED, for example). Even if the UKNC has a half of the RAM that
this particular IIe has. Anyway I will keep trying to use the Apple
IIe, too.
Written on the SGI Indigo with the Vim.
References:
[1]
http://a2retrosystems.com/
[2]
https://github.com/cc65/ip65
