Don't forget the Laser 128 -- it is an almost 100% compatible Apple IIc clone, and it was popular enough that most later Apple II software specifically supported it.
This was exactly my first *real* computer... thought my family was the shizznit with the duodisk setup... ('cept we had a green monochrome... no color)
I feel the most important thing is to get the power supply upgrade from Reactive Micro. Not a plug. But if you want to use a II, II+, IIe, IIgs, Platinum, on a daily basis you are going to want this. The original power supply will smoke at some point, and you don't want to run the risk of damaging the rest of the machine.
Excellent video! I have had a IIGS for a few years (found it at Goodwill!) and I absolutely love it, but I wanted one of the original-case-design Apple IIs, so I got a IIe enhanced. I wanted a IIe enhanced over a Platinum because I prefer the older style cosmetics. I also made sure it had the RAM expansion, disk controller and super serial card before I purchased it.
I still have my Apple II+, IIe, and a pair of IIc's. Unfortunately, the II+'s power supply is dead, and I only have one power brick for the IIc's, but other than that they work. Had to do a bit of repair work to the IIe a few years ago (a RAM chip went bad at some point) and I have no idea what happened to the 80 column/64k memory expansion card. I've also got a highly modified IIe (or is it a II+? I forget which...) that was built to the Tempest anti-emissions standards. Came with a lot of extra goodies, including a Corvus hard drive, custom keyboard with built in joystick, printer, color monitor, and a VCR for backing up the hard drive onto VHS tapes (Weird, huh?). All packed in custom heavily shielded cases and using a weird 3-point variant of the BNC connector. Sadly, it's in sad shape and we never really got it running. Maybe one of these days I'll get around to cleaning it up and getting it going, though I doubt I'll be able to save the hard drive.
Good thing I happened across this video and discovered a new CFFA3000 run was in progress. I bought my last CFFA3000 back in 2012 and it's great in my IIe, but I also have a IIgs that needs one. Of course, the Floppy Emu is a fine bit of hardware. It's the only way my IIc can boot to anything other than its internal floppy drive, and it does work on the LASER 128, albeit only in floppy mode. Your advice about getting a IIgs is on the mark. Although I have the IIgs, two IIes, a IIc and a LASER 128EX, I can always depend on the IIgs to run everything in the Apple II series, from DOS 3.1 all the way to the latest GS/OS 6.0.4 stuff. And I can do so with real hardware or in emulation (GSport). Too bad I lack the RGB monitor for the IIgs; using GS/OS over composite in real hardware looks as nasty as it sounds.
As an Apple II collector, A small warning on the standard A2 power supplies: There's a foil capacitor in them that has a tendency to catch fire after all these years. The machine still works but it will not be pleasant.
A friend fired to show me Demos he wrote in the late 80's, While demoing this cap Melted down, Absolutely stank however it didn't become unstable or do any damage
This was the first video I watched when I decided I wanted to own an Apple II again to relive my childhood. It was a tough choice but this video helped ... I now own 9 different Apple II's! XD
Excellent video! Apple IIc was also my first computer and took me all the way through college. I love what you did with the title screens in the video. You captured the font AND the correct shade of red in the Apple manuals. I spent many a day reading the AppleWorks literature learning how to use the database so I could categorize my baseball card collection. Because of these experiences I feel our generation is unique in that we have seen and lived the widest spectrum of technological advancement. Great job!
I’m young so I wasn’t around when the apple 2 came out or when any of the older style computers came out for that matter so could you tell me what computers were used for before the internet came out because it’s hard to imagine a computer being used for anything else really
Amazingly computers now do what computers back then laid the groundwork for. Just to name a few things: 1. Gaming! 2. Word processing/Desktop Publishing - Being able to type out a letter in its entirety and THEN print it out was a BIG deal. We literally had to spell check manually using a dictionary (no really an actual book sitting next to us to look up words) But, we learned spelling, grammar, sentence and paragraph structure and how to avoid run-on sentences ; ) You could add graphics, clipart etc. and now schools, churches, organizations had a way of creating, printing, and distributing their newsletters. Information sharing took off. 3. Spreadsheets/Databases - Accounting was able to transition from manually written ledgers to early spreadsheets for easier calculation and accuracy. Business merchandise inventory was able to be kept in a database for easy query. 4. Graphics - My Apple IIc had MousePaint where you could draw out and print your own designs, logos, plans, etc. and then I got Blazzing Paddles which printed in color! 5. Programming - BASIC (just to name one programing language) was taught in schools and magazines and allowed you to write programs (apps). Anything from a simple conversion tool (Miles/Fahrenheit -> Kilometers/Celsius) to more complex programs tailored to your needs was possible. 6. Connectivity - Although this was before the internet, these computers were not completely isolated. If you were lucky enough to afford a modem, you could connect to a BBS (Bulletin Board System) Schools and Libraries had computers that you could dial and connect to for a virtual bulletin board of announcements, news, etc. This was early information exchange and was a game changer. These are just a few examples and I am sure others could chime in. Anything done on a computer today started in these early days of computing. Although it may seem rudimentary to most now in comparison, for this generation it was light years of advancements when compared to doing things manually. I hope this helps.
I considered upgrading from a C64 to an Apple IIGS back in the '80s... Then I came to my senses and bought an Amiga. Really dodged a bullet there... The IIGS could have (should have) knocked the Mac in the dirt, but they ham-stung the machine because they were afraid it would cannibalize Mac sales.
In 2007, I won an auction on eBay for an Apple IIgs with monitor, keyboard, mouse, 5.25 and 3.5 drives for $36. Shipping was $46. I still have my confirmation email from eBay since it’s so unbelievable today. It didn’t have any cards or ram expansion- but I wasn’t quibbling at that price. Still works good.
I second you on the monochrome monitors. You can always switch to a color screen if you need it. Another trick I discovered on accident was when I used a //e with a LCD broadcast monitor. The broadcast monitor was able to detect the difference in the Apple video signal and automatically turned on the chroma killer (I think the color burst may be present in Text mode I never checked on a scope) giving you a monochrome monitor until you switched to color graphics. Also, never use 80 column mode on any machine on a color monitor in color mode. These vintage composite monochrome computer monitors (especially Green and Amber) are something that should be valued, even if you always otherwise bin CRTs. This monochrome trick for 80 column composite is still valid today, but with modern computers with composite outputs such as the Raspberry Pi, you can actually disable the chroma signal (you add a line in config.txt).
Apple computers were always very expensive. I remember back in the early eighties going to flee markets and seeing people selling Apple 2 clones. I never had access to an Apple computer, we had Commodore PET's in high school and the Atari 800 or Commodore 64 at home.
You have brought back many memories for me. I built a Heath Kit Computer before buying an Apple //e. I went to buy and Apple ][, but the //e had just been released and was actually cheaper and I used the difference in price to add a memory card bringing the memory up to a massive 128K. I had a serial and parallel part card and amber monitor, later replaced with an Apple Color Monitor. I became something of an Apple ][ guru, programming in machine language as well as the built in basic and later Apple Pascal and Beagle Brothers Basic. I upgraded to a llGS and yes I did get the later ROM upgrade. I also had an Apple SCSI card with a 30 megabyte RODIME hard drive that I got on sale for $800. I also had 4 megs of ram upgrade. as well as both the 5 1/4" and 3.5" floppy drives with the mod that allowed me to use the 1.2 meg double sided disks. Unfortunately, I lost them all when we flooded with Salt water during Hurricane Isaac in 2013. Your videos almost convince me to spend the money and replace my old system, but the immense cost of replacing all I had is a severe impediment. I had all the books, including the very expensive Apple Development Series. I knew the Peeks and Pokes of both the older Apple //e models as well as the newer llGS Rom. One more upgrade I did was the WDC 65816S processor which if memory serves ran at a whopping 12 or 14 mhz, which would not slow down less than 4 mhz and made a lot of older //e games unplayable.
A few comments. The IIc can boot off of Floppy emulators. There's two ways to do this. The easiest is to just hook it up internally to the internal floppy connector. (Floppy Emu supports this). The other way is to Install the newly released Rom 4x, that restores booting off of external drives. It's available on github at github.com/mgcaret/rom4x and make a couple minor modifications to the motherboard so it'll accept 32K ROMS. Option 2 is a bit harder, since you'll have to burn your own ROM. I don't _think_ anyone currently sells this. When first looking into Apple 8-bits, I wanted to buy a IIgs for largely the reasons you spelled out. After looking into it a bit, there were three things that killed it for me. 1. Price The IIgs looks inexpensive... until you realize that most don't come with a keyboard. A keyboard that's itself is at least $100, maybe $140. The IIGs itself is at least $100, so you're now at $240 just to get started. That doesn't include any disk at all, since the disk is internal. So add on another $100, for $300-$340, all just to get something that will boot an OS. So ultimately I decided it wasn't worth it to pay so much for an old retro-machine. I bought a IIc for $150 that had an external floppy and power supply. Assuming the floppy works, I can sell it on ebay for maybe $30--$40. $100 vs $300 just to get in the door is a big difference. 2. Experience As you said, the added experience of the IIgs just looked like running a Mac, which doesn't appeal to me at all. I decided any extra time, effort any money on re-capturing the 16 bit era should go into the Atari ST, which I've long heard about, but never actually ran. I _think_ there might be more games for the ST than for the IIgs in full gs mode. 3. Size I much prefer the size of the IIc. For most people this isn't something they're going to use a whole lot, so it winds up taking valuable space The IIc you can tuck away somewhere and pull it out when needed. That's quite a bit harder with the IIgs with the larger box, + keyboard. So "better" is often a matter of perspective. The IIgs is more attractive because it can run more software, which is what originally drew me to it. But the other advantages of the IIc made me ultimately decide to buy a IIc.
To piggyback off of this, BMOW now also has a drive switcher for their Floppy Emu, that allows you to select which drive you want to be bootable. Useful if you have a mix of old disks and emulated images you want to run, as you won't have to crack open the case every time you want to switch which drive is drive 1. Because it's physically switching the address for each drive, it doesn't matter which ROM your Apple IIc is running (as long as you're emulating the 5.25" floppy drive).
If, like me, you are from PAL land (UK, Europe) then you will get black and white video, unless you get a colour PAL card, or get a NTSC motherboard. I have a NTSC motherboard and get colour on a CRT TV that supports PAL and NTSC. I have one of the newer floppy drives, not the disk II, and I use the website Apple Disk Server - to send Apple Disk images via a Laptop and a 3.5mm audio jack from the headphone socket to the Apple IIe's cassette IN port. The Apple formats a 5.25" disk, then writes the disk image in blocks. Amazing to see it work, especially since this thing is late 70s tech. Such a fun machine to use in the flesh, better than using the Apple2win emulator. I could have got a IIGS, but it felt too much like a Amiga 500 and not a Apple IIe - despite being able to run IIe software. Mine's been restored, the PSU has new caps, the case and keys retrobrite done, fully cleaned, disk drive cleaned and aligned. Everything looks as good as it did in the 80s.
I'm a zoomer but I spent hours upon hours playing games and programming in BASIC on my dad's old Apple II//c. I think all of those games were pirated off of suburban BBSes. I was devastated when I woke up one morning to find it thrown away. Someday I definitely want to own my own, and maybe even the dot matrix printer again too. It was so much fun.
Another tip is that if you leave white space at the end of a document, it will print out as blank space. Another tip is that if you have trouble saving multiple files to a save disc, you will need to use ctrl+n to restore functionality.
You are so right about the IIgs. I grew up on a IIc and lusted for a IIgs. The IIgs was the dogz balls to a 1987 suburban kid...but if your ‘rents just shelled out for IIc in 1984...and are still paying it off on the AppleCard...they don’t want to hear your BS whining. Damn those graphics were so good and that sound was...unreal! Yeah, so as an adult...I just bought 2...one as a backup. You get the classic 8-bit Apple II experience if you want it, but in GSOS you have the first full color, mouse-driven GUI on a PC...EVER! (Earlier GUIs were either monochrome or left out the Mouse). The Mac was overpriced and ran a sharty black and white version of....well...GSOS. And that software designed just for the IIgs? WOW. It still impresses, especially the sound chip. It was a full bore MIDI experience in 1986...a decade ahead of its time. No shit. It is a piece of computing history and is a better PC than any early era Mac... It was so good they had to stop marketing for it and limit CPU upgrades because businesses started buying them for their graphics and sound work...and they were supposed to be buying Macs. It was the best Apple II of the 1980s...unquestionably.
In the early 80s we could turn on our tv switch the jerrold converter to one of the channels on the bottom and watch video games, we could also call in ( the line was always busy ) and get to chose what video game you wanted to play using a touch-tone phone ( modem ) thanks the the Apple II. Two games I remember was a defender-type game and star trek.
I’d try to get the Laser 128, if it were me. Better than the IIc, despite being cheaper than it back in the day. And it’s a pretty legendary computer to those of us who read 8-bit computer magazines, due to it being largely sold mail-order! I had a Commodore 64, but I wish I’d supplemented that with a Laser 128! If only I’d known how good it was! It would have been a great Apple II machine for GEOS.
I should add, later variants even optionally ram at 3.6 MHz. I’d love a IIGS, don’t get me wrong, but I retroactively appreciate how much the Laser 128 added for such a reasonable price!
I mean, I don't care about apple ][s, or Apple IIs, or apple2s, really (though I did use them quite a bit in elemetary and high-school), but that 4-note stab that introduces your videos is cinematic gold. And yeah, your vids are generally good stuff: even junk I don't care that much about is watchable and interesting. But, man that musical stab is great!
I’ve always wanted a IIgs! Hopefully some day. I had a II+ back in the day (which I’ve recently reacquired). My dad had the IIe. But yeah, IIgs, I covet... my precious.
I had a //c and got it the same year you got yours. Mine had an AppleColor Composite monitor (ooh la la!) AND an Apple ImageWriter II (ooh la la-er!). As for the monitor, I experienced the "color bleed' spoken of here regularly. My friend had one with your monochrome monitor and it was much easier to look at for most things. My main addiction was Print Shop and games (the order of obsession change regularly. Ah, the days when we had to get productivity software that matched both the computer AND the printer.
Interesting review. I was a PC person back in the 80's and I recently got a couple of old clones, monitors and some boot disks and games on diskette. Until my wife told me to "get rid of that junk". Now I have to be content with DOSBox on my laptop and downloading games from Abandonia, which is ok :-)
I got a 2c and i LOVE it. I would say a later 2c ROM rev 3 and a second 5.25 with a couple packs of disks and adtpro is your best shot. Ill also say i do like to push my computers and limitations of old systems are a soft spot for me personally. I adore for instance the sinclar 1000 i got for free lol.
I had the Apple ][+ (still do) man, that computer was fantastic. It was so much fun back in the day. I wrote my own adventure programs in basic and created graphics using Graphics Magician by Penguin Software. 🐧 In addition I had countless “kracked” games including Castle Wolfenstein. (I was playing CW in 1980 when I heard by TV announcer Howard Cosell that John Lennon had been shot on December 08 1980-never will forget that shocking moment)…Back to the positive, the ][+ was pure bliss.
hey, the FloppyEmu guy (Big Mess o’ Wires) seems to have solved the problems with the IIc. give it a check, i will certainly now buy the FloppyEmu device for my IIc.
i literally bought a 1978 Chevette 2 days before watching this video...and as such was thinking...you dont have to have ONE Apple II system either. Hell, i have 3 IIgs', two Apple IIes, a IIc, a Franklin 1000....If you like em enough, just buy them all! Still want a IIc plus pretty badly. And i don't want a Corvette either, but i will agree that the IIgs experience is more about the games you play on it versus the physical hardware, it feels like a late 80s 16-bit machine when you play GS-specific software, and feels like a IIe if you play something like Airball on it. Also, if you have a II, II+, or IIe with no software, cassette player, disk drive, or floppyemu, you can boot software off your smartphone with a normal 1/8" audio cable, if you're desperate, although software options are very limited. Additionally, adapters exist for using PC-style joysticks on Apple II joystick ports. I prefer using a Gravis Gamepad on my IIc, and it works great with this adapter. Nice video!
You definitely don't have to have only one Apple II - I have three as you see here, and would love to have more (but don't have the space). I assume, though, that most people buying a machine for the first time would want one that could reasonably be expected to do pretty much everything, and then if they really get into it, they can move on to the more niche models just to have something different. I didn't actually know that about the smartphone option, although I've heard of that done with other machines... it just feels alien to me to even think about Apple II's using tape drives because I never saw it when I was that age and using one for real, but it makes sense that it'd work!
Excellent..! I've an Apple IIe, Apple IIc, & IIc Plus. All works well. But I think the best solution using Apple II software is the virtual emulator not real machine with disk image storage.
I really need to get one of those floppy EMUs. Collecting for the apple II and mac lines are fun, but it gets frustrating when you are trying to track down little pieces here and there. I found a good condition iie color monitor, but it is missing the cover for the adjustments in front. Also I just need to find a cable from the duo to the controller card and I will have fully replicated my childhood computer. Great video, glad i found your channel recently.
The Floppy Emu is one of the best purchases I have made for my Apple II. One of the big problems today is that floppy disks have become horrendously unreliable, so I've even been backing up the ones I made when I was a kid for when they finally fail. Every time I look at my old disks, including storebought games, something new doesn't work anymore since the last time. About half those boxed games I show in this video are no longer working, but I can play them from the Floppy Emu.
I'm glad I jumped on the waiting list for the CFFA3000 earlier this year. I was anxious to receive it and have been thrilled with it so far. I was sad to hear Rich may not do another batch. It's a great card. I should have bought two. :/
My dad built an Apple ][ kit into a printer casing. It had a disk drive, a joystick, and a green phosphor Zenith monitor. I miss playing with that. Never had any problem with yellowing, since the casing was already yellow and was metal besides.
In 2005, I bought a complete IIe system (platinum) with two disk drives, printer, display, mouse, software, and all, for $26. I guess I should consider myself lucky. I think I'm going to go home and fire it up this weekend to see if it still works. I have no idea where the software is, so I guess I'll need to look into getting one of those disk drive emulators!
I just got an Apple iiE since it's the computer I first played games on as a kid. I purchased the enhanced upgrade kit and the system came with a Taxan 80 column card. Now I just need to figure out if I need to hook the monitor to the expansion card or if I can just use the composite out. I have a Sony PVM from that Era as well so I can get a great retro experience. Cheers!
Hi Modern Classic!! So I got an Apple II plus two years ago for my birthday and just wanted to know how it ranked on your apple II list and how to fix the screen being green. I don't know if all apple II pluses were made to where The screen is green and the text is greener but if that is a common problem or if I can fix it please let me know!! great video!!
Although I recently picked up an Apple IIc with a monitor as I've wanted once since that first one showed up in the library of my high school back in 1985 my preferred Apple II is actually the Apple II card I have in a Mac LC. It allows the use of a more modern VGA monitor and I can dump software to the ProDisk partition on the SCSI drive. Oddly enough I recently gave my full ( 2 drives and apple green monitor ) IIe Platinum to my brother-in-law who is also a fan of the Apple II line thanks to it prolonged use in the schools of NY State.
I have been seriously thinking about (and off and on looking for) a pizza box Mac and Apple IIe card just to play around with. It's a little more money than I want to pay for something like that right now, but if I can build the channel up a bit more, I might get a little more serious about buying.
You'll never convince me that the best one is not the IIe platinum. Mine still runs, never replaced the ram. I'm been through 2 IIc's and I'm about done with them. The IWM seems to go out almost as often as ram.
@@Nas_Atlas Not on the IIe Platinum it's not. It's only 2 chips and it's the most reliable RAM on the whole lineup-ever. IWM=Integrated Woz Machine IC -When it goes bad, it starts overwriting disks. Fortunately you can cannibalize old Mac motherboards that were more common than IIc
It is interesting that in this chart only Apple has survived as a company (Atari exists as a brand), not only survived but is the highest valued tech company in the world. In the mid 90s Apple was for sale, but no deals were ever finalized, then comes the iconic return of Steve Jobs in late 90s to reboot Apple into the company it has become today.
Our ROM 255 (original ROM - from the IIc's launch date until the release of the UniDisk 3.5 drive in 1985) Apple IIc also tried to start from the built-in 5.25" floppy drive each time. The original IIc ROM will not search for a disk in the external disk drive on startup, and the only type of floppy disk supported was the 5.25" as an external drive with ROM 255. ROM 255 was hard-wired to check the built-in floppy drive (slot 6, drive 1...err, "virtual" slot 6) upon power on. You had to control-reset to the Applesoft prompt and type PR#7 (the code in virtual slot 7 was to activate the external floppy drive - slot 7 was later used for more substantial built-in firmware on later Apple IIcs) to boot from the external drive, and that only worked with ProDOS-based programs because they weren't tied to having the floppy drive controller in slot 6. I also thought that any Apple IIc ROM version later than 255 supported the SmartPort protocol like the IIGS, which means that a disk drive of up to 32 MB under ProDOS is supported, so technically the FloppyEmu can be used with a later ROM IIc, just not the original 255 ROM (1984-1985). The only 3.5" drive the original IIc could not support over the SmartPort protocol was the Apple 3.5" drive that was usable on the Apple IIc Plus, Apple IIGS and the Macintosh (with an appropriate disk controller card for the Apple IIe, like the SuperDrive card), the one with the eject button, because the Apple 3.5 was a "dumb" drive and the 1 MHz 6502 in the Apple IIc was too slow to control disk access to the Apple 3.5. I thought the later Apple IIc ROMs were actually more intelligent - if the computer didn't find a disk in the built-in drive, it would then go to any daisy-chained disk drive, be them 3.5" UniDisk or Apple 5.25/UnDisk 5.25/Disk IIc until the computer found a bootable disk. If not, I'm sure the computer would give up and put the "Check Disk Drive" message on the screen, and then a control-reset drops you into Applesoft BASIC. Any Apple II gurus, please correct me if I am wrong, but this is what I remember.
It's confusing and it's very possible that I messed up a little bit in that section of the video. I've read contradictory things from different people in various forum posts, and also experiences from people in other forum posts that contradict stuff in various wikis. One problem seems to be that a lot of people are going based on memory, and some of those people seem to have even owned IIc Pluses, not IIc's! I have a later IIc ROM (later than 255, anyway), but I don't remember which one at the moment. There's no way I've found to use the Floppy Emu with it. No, it won't boot from it. It'll only boot from drive 1. But I have not tried this trick: www.applefritter.com/?q=node/24307#comment-59171 Of course, booting only into ProDOS, and then from drive 2 when most software expects drive 1, is not really all that helpful.
I only know about the 255, and that it didn't like the UniDisk 3.5" attached to the floppy drive port. It kept the drive motor running until the power to the computer was turned off! In Applesoft, you can type "PRINT PEEK(64447)" to find the ROM version if you want to know. That's odd that the Floppy Emu won't work in SmartPort mode with your non-ROM 255 Apple IIc. I thought there was an Apple II mode for the Floppy Emu that supported SmartPort and that all SmartPort-enabled IIs would therefore inherently support the FE. It's nice to know that there are still other ardent Apple II users after 41 years!
There's not really an "Apple II mode" per se; the problems with the Floppy Emu are strictly related to the smartport's daisy chaining rules and the way the IIc implements them. Here's Steve's (the guy who makes the Floppy Emu) blog post on the subject: www.bigmessowires.com/2017/04/02/bootstrapping-apple-c-with-floppy-emu/ The trick he mentions in there is similar to the one I linked to earlier; it will force any IIc to boot to ProDOS from drive 2, but like I said that's not particularly useful for games (which Steve notes at the bottom of the post). The only really good way to use the Floppy Emu is if you can configure it as drive 1, which you can't do on a IIc without either removing the real drive 1, or installing a switch.
You can use a hard disk file, but I'm not sure how that helps with booting floppy disks. Most Apple II software doesn't like running from a hard disk, even IIGS stuff.
Question... What if instead of buying one, I wanted to pull a unicomp and make a fully compatible computer from scratch, without bios knowledge. Do you know some good rescources for that?
It should be noted that if you get an Apple II GS, and want to use an accelerator card for IIGS software and the OS, then make sure you upgrade the power supply which can be a bit hard to find these days. That's why I've held off on getting one at the moment, till I can find a unit with an upgraded PSU, and a decent accelerator card at a price I can afford.
Accelerator cards are basically going to be out of reach for average people unless somebody decides to make a new one (as has been done with memory cards). I don't think they're really needed anyway; most people don't have them for other Apple II's and the IIgs runs 8 bit software as fast or faster than them as it is. For IIgs-specific stuff, GS/OS would definitely benefit from an accelerator but most of other software probably wouldn't. I feel like accelerators are probably fun to play around with, and useful if you're using certain specific applications, but most of the time I keep my IIgs locked at 1mhz as it is.
Am I the only one who prefers and loves the older yellowing colour? Apart from pure aesthetics, is there any reason whitening em back up is better? i.e does it make the plastic "feel" nicer like on the keyboard for example?
No mention of soundcards? My ||c gets most of my retro Apple use, but I head to the //e with its Mockingboard to hear the great music in games like the !ater Ultima games.
Yeah Mockingboard is one of the few Apple II expansion cards that seems real compelling to me. (As a IIc owner that's a little difficult - though there *is* a mockingboard available for the IIc!)
I love the asthetic of the apple //c, and think that it's the right size for being a little computer to play around with in my free time, and feel like I could pretty easily keep it on my desk without it taking up to much space, but I feel like I should get the //GS just to have a more powerful machine that I could also expand. Any suggestions?
A bit late but here's my take: I felt much the same way about the space concerns when it comes to the IIc. I have a lot of fond memories of the Apple II (and, frankly, the IIc in particular) and I want to play around with the machine, learn about it, etc. - but I don't have loads of space so I like that the IIc is a compact solution. I was also lucky enough to get a good deal on one, complete with the little 9" monochome CRT monitor and a carrying bag for the computer. (Personally I am one of those folks who feels the Apple II is best in monochrome... It just seems sort of a shame that most game software is designed for color.) Personally I don't put much stock in the IIgs as a "more powerful" machine. It's not that much more powerful, it's sad to see the thing choke on a relatively simple game like "Lemmings". It's also not got a whole lot of native software, and personally I find a IIgs running in backward compatibility mode (Ensoniq sound chip idling while the CPU bit-bangs bleeps over the speaker, that nice RGB monitor displaying a very crisp rendition of 140x192 6-color graphics, etc...) to be mostly a pretty sad statement on how the machine failed. But that said the IIgs is a very attractive machine, and having a machine that outputs RGB is great. Since I've got a IIc the world of expansion cards is mostly inaccessible to me. I had thought I'd be OK with that limitation but I have learned of some expansion cards I'd actually be interested in. The ones I'm most interested in would be a sound card like the Mockingboard (the most-widely supported add-on sound card for the Apple II - a couple dozen games support it), a RAM expansion, network card, and mass storage. Some of those are available for the IIc (notably, RAM expansion and Mockingboard) but due to limited space you're pretty much limited to just one of those. Also, while all these add-ons are fun the cost of them does add up - between $70-$130 for each of these modern add-on devices. I think it's worth thinking about whether it's really worth dropping that kind of money for Apple II add-ons. To me, it's not just important to consider what these machines can do, but what they represent. The IIc mostly represents the Apple II as I experienced it as a kid. I had always thought of the older Apple II's as relics because of their big boxy cases and the older-style DiskII drives they were usually paired with, but looking at it now I feel like they may represent the Apple II at its peak - hailing from a time before the platform felt badly outdated, and also a time when the platform was meant to be open to tinkering. Looking at it that way, the IIe represents the tail end of a period of the Apple II that I mostly didn't experience, when the platform was a little less a finished product and a little more of an adventure. If anything could convince me to get a IIe, it would probably be that. But for now I'm very happy with my IIc.
Hello! Could you help me with the standoff for the 128K expansion board for the IIc? I need to know the height of the standoff. I have the expansion bard and the IIc but not the standoffs. Thanks! Around 5:00 - There's a device produced in Japan by Nishida Radio that is amazing! It fits inside the IIc and goes between the internal drive and the controller; one wire goes out so we can select if the emulator is boot or second drive. The guy who does it has some health issues so availability is complicated. The device is, however, a masterful example of Japanese ingenuity. He also did a DVI output for the IIgs - it has a clever non intrusive installation that has some problems: it clamps on top of the Woz Video Chip and keeps both video outputs working however it keeps popping out so some sort of creativity is necessary to make it work properly. Hope you have some videos on how to repair the CRT monitors.
One of the interesting things to me is that early on, the nature of home computing was a bit different, too. There wasn't nearly as much ready-made software, so computers were more of a DIY kind of thing. Early on you had computers like the Apple I sold as kits, but later with the Apple II I think there was still an expectation that people would experiment not only with the software but the hardware, too... Into the mid-1980s I think this was much less the case.
Ok... my first computer was a IIci (I really wish I still had it, for purely nostalgic reasons). Yes, all 5 megs of it’s Ram and 20 megs of it’s hard drive space. But where is that on the list? Doesn’t it have more in common with other models than the ones listed here?
good afternoon, I want to sell or place in a auction a new cpu and monitor in its original sealed box never opened apple iie model, do you now a place or forum to get an idea of the price?
I just picked up an Apple iic+. I’m just going to use ADT Pro to use it as a disk writer. I’ll just keep my software on disk. Also, since the iic+ uses the same floppy drive as the early Macs, I can use the iic+ to write Mac software on to disk.
I still need a monitor for it. I’m thinking of getting a 9inch monochrome monitor that came with the iic. Anything should I know when looking online for one?
Ok, thanks. Just got one on ebay yesterday for $100. Its not too yellowed; at least not cheddar cheese yellow lol. I also got a mouse for it and plan on running mouse desk 2.0 for apple ii on it. Have you ever heard of mouse desk 2.0? It appears to be a version of the GUI on the apple iigs, but for 8bit apple ii's that have at least 128k of ram.
I remember buying my Apple IIe back in the 90's for $20 at a yard sale. Thing still works like a champ.
Don't forget the Laser 128 -- it is an almost 100% compatible Apple IIc clone, and it was popular enough that most later Apple II software specifically supported it.
Thanks for the info.
And the IWM and ram is rarer to die than the stupid IIc. (I own a stupid IIc and with these problems so I'm allowed to say that). ;)
Personally, I love the aesthetic of the //e + DuoDisk + Color Monitor. They stack beautifully.
I love it too only I think the platinum iie looks better with the DuoDisk and color monitor
This was exactly my first *real* computer... thought my family was the shizznit with the duodisk setup... ('cept we had a green monochrome... no color)
I work for a school district, and one of the schools still has an Apple IIe lab with working corvus.
That is very hard to believe
@@TheRealTrimBrady VERY hard to believe. What would be the point in would have been 2018?
I believe it. I work for the government. We still use windows 95 for one of our machines.
Lol
thumbs up!!
I feel the most important thing is to get the power supply upgrade from Reactive Micro. Not a plug. But if you want to use a II, II+, IIe, IIgs, Platinum, on a daily basis you are going to want this. The original power supply will smoke at some point, and you don't want to run the risk of damaging the rest of the machine.
The original supply is easy to fix, and the RIFA emi filter cap is the main failure point.
You're very relaxing to listen to.
Excellent video! I have had a IIGS for a few years (found it at Goodwill!) and I absolutely love it, but I wanted one of the original-case-design Apple IIs, so I got a IIe enhanced. I wanted a IIe enhanced over a Platinum because I prefer the older style cosmetics. I also made sure it had the RAM expansion, disk controller and super serial card before I purchased it.
Awesome video, thank you. I’ve been thinking about getting into the II recently and I’m glad I found this vid!
Lot of useful info here! I got my first Apple II + a few months ago. Loving it!
I still have my Apple II+, IIe, and a pair of IIc's. Unfortunately, the II+'s power supply is dead, and I only have one power brick for the IIc's, but other than that they work. Had to do a bit of repair work to the IIe a few years ago (a RAM chip went bad at some point) and I have no idea what happened to the 80 column/64k memory expansion card.
I've also got a highly modified IIe (or is it a II+? I forget which...) that was built to the Tempest anti-emissions standards. Came with a lot of extra goodies, including a Corvus hard drive, custom keyboard with built in joystick, printer, color monitor, and a VCR for backing up the hard drive onto VHS tapes (Weird, huh?). All packed in custom heavily shielded cases and using a weird 3-point variant of the BNC connector. Sadly, it's in sad shape and we never really got it running. Maybe one of these days I'll get around to cleaning it up and getting it going, though I doubt I'll be able to save the hard drive.
Good thing I happened across this video and discovered a new CFFA3000 run was in progress. I bought my last CFFA3000 back in 2012 and it's great in my IIe, but I also have a IIgs that needs one. Of course, the Floppy Emu is a fine bit of hardware. It's the only way my IIc can boot to anything other than its internal floppy drive, and it does work on the LASER 128, albeit only in floppy mode.
Your advice about getting a IIgs is on the mark. Although I have the IIgs, two IIes, a IIc and a LASER 128EX, I can always depend on the IIgs to run everything in the Apple II series, from DOS 3.1 all the way to the latest GS/OS 6.0.4 stuff. And I can do so with real hardware or in emulation (GSport). Too bad I lack the RGB monitor for the IIgs; using GS/OS over composite in real hardware looks as nasty as it sounds.
As an Apple II collector, A small warning on the standard A2 power supplies: There's a foil capacitor in them that has a tendency to catch fire after all these years. The machine still works but it will not be pleasant.
A friend fired to show me Demos he wrote in the late 80's, While demoing this cap Melted down, Absolutely stank however it didn't become unstable or do any damage
Yea, it's a horrible smell. Mine straight up caught fire and I discarded the power supply, didn't wanna risk damage. Have yet to find a replacement.
keptil There's one being sold on eBay at the moment.
Is that in all apple 2 power supplies or is it not in the 2gs
@@lorumipsum1129 If you're paranoid my suggestion would be to replace any of the capacitors across the line (mains) with the appropriate X-Rated Cap.
This was the first video I watched when I decided I wanted to own an Apple II again to relive my childhood. It was a tough choice but this video helped ... I now own 9 different Apple II's! XD
Excellent video! Apple IIc was also my first computer and took me all the way through college. I love what you did with the title screens in the video. You captured the font AND the correct shade of red in the Apple manuals. I spent many a day reading the AppleWorks literature learning how to use the database so I could categorize my baseball card collection. Because of these experiences I feel our generation is unique in that we have seen and lived the widest spectrum of technological advancement. Great job!
I’m young so I wasn’t around when the apple 2 came out or when any of the older style computers came out for that matter so could you tell me what computers were used for before the internet came out because it’s hard to imagine a computer being used for anything else really
Amazingly computers now do what computers back then laid the groundwork for. Just to name a few things:
1. Gaming!
2. Word processing/Desktop Publishing - Being able to type out a letter in its entirety and THEN print it out was a BIG deal. We literally had to spell check manually using a dictionary (no really an actual book sitting next to us to look up words) But, we learned spelling, grammar, sentence and paragraph structure and how to avoid run-on sentences ; ) You could add graphics, clipart etc. and now schools, churches, organizations had a way of creating, printing, and distributing their newsletters. Information sharing took off.
3. Spreadsheets/Databases - Accounting was able to transition from manually written ledgers to early spreadsheets for easier calculation and accuracy. Business merchandise inventory was able to be kept in a database for easy query.
4. Graphics - My Apple IIc had MousePaint where you could draw out and print your own designs, logos, plans, etc. and then I got Blazzing Paddles which printed in color!
5. Programming - BASIC (just to name one programing language) was taught in schools and magazines and allowed you to write programs (apps). Anything from a simple conversion tool (Miles/Fahrenheit -> Kilometers/Celsius) to more complex programs tailored to your needs was possible.
6. Connectivity - Although this was before the internet, these computers were not completely isolated. If you were lucky enough to afford a modem, you could connect to a BBS (Bulletin Board System) Schools and Libraries had computers that you could dial and connect to for a virtual bulletin board of announcements, news, etc. This was early information exchange and was a game changer.
These are just a few examples and I am sure others could chime in. Anything done on a computer today started in these early days of computing. Although it may seem rudimentary to most now in comparison, for this generation it was light years of advancements when compared to doing things manually. I hope this helps.
@@AleCatGarage Do you happen to remember how to change the current drive in prodos?
i loved the x/y joysytick analog inputs for exeperiments so much!!!!
I ordered the first Apple IIe because it was the one I used as a kid, and I want that exact experience again.
This takes me back to my childhood
I considered upgrading from a C64 to an Apple IIGS back in the '80s... Then I came to my senses and bought an Amiga. Really dodged a bullet there... The IIGS could have (should have) knocked the Mac in the dirt, but they ham-stung the machine because they were afraid it would cannibalize Mac sales.
In 2007, I won an auction on eBay for an Apple IIgs with monitor, keyboard, mouse, 5.25 and 3.5 drives for $36. Shipping was $46.
I still have my confirmation email from eBay since it’s so unbelievable today.
It didn’t have any cards or ram expansion- but I wasn’t quibbling at that price. Still works good.
I second you on the monochrome monitors. You can always switch to a color screen if you need it. Another trick I discovered on accident was when I used a //e with a LCD broadcast monitor. The broadcast monitor was able to detect the difference in the Apple video signal and automatically turned on the chroma killer (I think the color burst may be present in Text mode I never checked on a scope) giving you a monochrome monitor until you switched to color graphics.
Also, never use 80 column mode on any machine on a color monitor in color mode. These vintage composite monochrome computer monitors (especially Green and Amber) are something that should be valued, even if you always otherwise bin CRTs. This monochrome trick for 80 column composite is still valid today, but with modern computers with composite outputs such as the Raspberry Pi, you can actually disable the chroma signal (you add a line in config.txt).
Apple computers were always very expensive. I remember back in the early eighties going to flee markets and seeing people selling Apple 2 clones. I never had access to an Apple computer, we had Commodore PET's in high school and the Atari 800 or Commodore 64 at home.
You have brought back many memories for me. I built a Heath Kit Computer before buying an Apple //e. I went to buy and Apple ][, but the //e had just been released and was actually cheaper and I used the difference in price to add a memory card bringing the memory up to a massive 128K. I had a serial and parallel part card and amber monitor, later replaced with an Apple Color Monitor. I became something of an Apple ][ guru, programming in machine language as well as the built in basic and later Apple Pascal and Beagle Brothers Basic. I upgraded to a llGS and yes I did get the later ROM upgrade. I also had an Apple SCSI card with a 30 megabyte RODIME hard drive that I got on sale for $800. I also had 4 megs of ram upgrade. as well as both the 5 1/4" and 3.5" floppy drives with the mod that allowed me to use the 1.2 meg double sided disks. Unfortunately, I lost them all when we flooded with Salt water during Hurricane Isaac in 2013. Your videos almost convince me to spend the money and replace my old system, but the immense cost of replacing all I had is a severe impediment. I had all the books, including the very expensive Apple Development Series. I knew the Peeks and Pokes of both the older Apple //e models as well as the newer llGS Rom. One more upgrade I did was the WDC 65816S processor which if memory serves ran at a whopping 12 or 14 mhz, which would not slow down less than 4 mhz and made a lot of older //e games unplayable.
Great video and thank you for keeping the technology going. These computers changed the world.
I got a almost brand new 2c with color monitor and monochrome monitor. Used for around 15 minutes total in 1988.
That Choplifter is one of my favorite games.
A few comments.
The IIc can boot off of Floppy emulators. There's two ways to do this. The easiest is to just hook it up internally to the internal floppy connector. (Floppy Emu supports this). The other way is to Install the newly released Rom 4x, that restores booting off of external drives. It's available on github at github.com/mgcaret/rom4x and make a couple minor modifications to the motherboard so it'll accept 32K ROMS. Option 2 is a bit harder, since you'll have to burn your own ROM. I don't _think_ anyone currently sells this.
When first looking into Apple 8-bits, I wanted to buy a IIgs for largely the reasons you spelled out. After looking into it a bit, there were three things that killed it for me.
1. Price
The IIgs looks inexpensive... until you realize that most don't come with a keyboard. A keyboard that's itself is at least $100, maybe $140. The IIGs itself is at least $100, so you're now at $240 just to get started. That doesn't include any disk at all, since the disk is internal. So add on another $100, for $300-$340, all just to get something that will boot an OS. So ultimately I decided it wasn't worth it to pay so much for an old retro-machine. I bought a IIc for $150 that had an external floppy and power supply. Assuming the floppy works, I can sell it on ebay for maybe $30--$40. $100 vs $300 just to get in the door is a big difference.
2. Experience
As you said, the added experience of the IIgs just looked like running a Mac, which doesn't appeal to me at all. I decided any extra time, effort any money on re-capturing the 16 bit era should go into the Atari ST, which I've long heard about, but never actually ran. I _think_ there might be more games for the ST than for the IIgs in full gs mode.
3. Size
I much prefer the size of the IIc. For most people this isn't something they're going to use a whole lot, so it winds up taking valuable space The IIc you can tuck away somewhere and pull it out when needed. That's quite a bit harder with the IIgs with the larger box, + keyboard.
So "better" is often a matter of perspective. The IIgs is more attractive because it can run more software, which is what originally drew me to it. But the other advantages of the IIc made me ultimately decide to buy a IIc.
To piggyback off of this, BMOW now also has a drive switcher for their Floppy Emu, that allows you to select which drive you want to be bootable. Useful if you have a mix of old disks and emulated images you want to run, as you won't have to crack open the case every time you want to switch which drive is drive 1. Because it's physically switching the address for each drive, it doesn't matter which ROM your Apple IIc is running (as long as you're emulating the 5.25" floppy drive).
Thanks for this. I've always wanted to get a little GS setup. Someday when I have more space :)
This was a great video! I would love to see dedicated videos on each system. :-)
THAT was a VERY thorough and informative look into the Apple ][ line. Thank you!
Man, growing up in the early 2000s the leap from the 80s to then was massive
The 90s were WILD for computer processing speeds.
You forgot the Amiga line which was able to run the same software as an Apple IIGS at a faster speed due to its similar chipset and higher speed CPU.
Great video! This is what I come to this channel for!
If, like me, you are from PAL land (UK, Europe) then you will get black and white video, unless you get a colour PAL card, or get a NTSC motherboard. I have a NTSC motherboard and get colour on a CRT TV that supports PAL and NTSC. I have one of the newer floppy drives, not the disk II, and I use the website Apple Disk Server - to send Apple Disk images via a Laptop and a 3.5mm audio jack from the headphone socket to the Apple IIe's cassette IN port. The Apple formats a 5.25" disk, then writes the disk image in blocks. Amazing to see it work, especially since this thing is late 70s tech.
Such a fun machine to use in the flesh, better than using the Apple2win emulator. I could have got a IIGS, but it felt too much like a Amiga 500 and not a Apple IIe - despite being able to run IIe software. Mine's been restored, the PSU has new caps, the case and keys retrobrite done, fully cleaned, disk drive cleaned and aligned. Everything looks as good as it did in the 80s.
I bought my Apple II in August 1977 after graduating from college. Remember loading floating point BASIC by audio tape. Gee willikers!!! :-)
Thanks for that, fascinating walk-through and much appreciated.
This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you!
I'm a zoomer but I spent hours upon hours playing games and programming in BASIC on my dad's old Apple II//c. I think all of those games were pirated off of suburban BBSes. I was devastated when I woke up one morning to find it thrown away. Someday I definitely want to own my own, and maybe even the dot matrix printer again too. It was so much fun.
Apple II+ was my first computer!
Greate video. All I remember of the apple II is being forced to type on them in school. More interesting these days
Another tip is that if you leave white space at the end of a document, it will print out as blank space. Another tip is that if you have trouble saving multiple files to a save disc, you will need to use ctrl+n to restore functionality.
I have no intention of buying an Apple 2 (II stands for 2nd, btw.), but it's still interesting to watch a quality-made video.
No, it stands for 2. No one called them Apple, the second. Ever.
Apple the 2nd? May be one of the dumbest comments on CZcams.
You are so right about the IIgs. I grew up on a IIc and lusted for a IIgs. The IIgs was the dogz balls to a 1987 suburban kid...but if your ‘rents just shelled out for IIc in 1984...and are still paying it off on the AppleCard...they don’t want to hear your BS whining.
Damn those graphics were so good and that sound was...unreal!
Yeah, so as an adult...I just bought 2...one as a backup.
You get the classic 8-bit Apple II experience if you want it, but in GSOS you have the first full color, mouse-driven GUI on a PC...EVER! (Earlier GUIs were either monochrome or left out the Mouse).
The Mac was overpriced and ran a sharty black and white version of....well...GSOS.
And that software designed just for the IIgs? WOW. It still impresses, especially the sound chip. It was a full bore MIDI experience in 1986...a decade ahead of its time. No shit.
It is a piece of computing history and is a better PC than any early era Mac...
It was so good they had to stop marketing for it and limit CPU upgrades because businesses started buying them for their graphics and sound work...and they were supposed to be buying Macs.
It was the best Apple II of the 1980s...unquestionably.
In the early 80s we could turn on our tv switch the jerrold converter to one of the channels on the bottom and watch video games, we could also call in ( the line was always busy ) and get to chose what video game you wanted to play using a touch-tone phone ( modem ) thanks the the Apple II. Two games I remember was a defender-type game and star trek.
I’d try to get the Laser 128, if it were me. Better than the IIc, despite being cheaper than it back in the day. And it’s a pretty legendary computer to those of us who read 8-bit computer magazines, due to it being largely sold mail-order! I had a Commodore 64, but I wish I’d supplemented that with a Laser 128! If only I’d known how good it was! It would have been a great Apple II machine for GEOS.
I should add, later variants even optionally ram at 3.6 MHz.
I’d love a IIGS, don’t get me wrong, but I retroactively appreciate how much the Laser 128 added for such a reasonable price!
Great video! Appreciate your continued work on this and other topics.
I mean, I don't care about apple ][s, or Apple IIs, or apple2s, really (though I did use them quite a bit in elemetary and high-school), but that 4-note stab that introduces your videos is cinematic gold. And yeah, your vids are generally good stuff: even junk I don't care that much about is watchable and interesting. But, man that musical stab is great!
Ha, thanks! It's actually just from the CZcams Audio Library :)
I’ve always wanted a IIgs! Hopefully some day. I had a II+ back in the day (which I’ve recently reacquired). My dad had the IIe. But yeah, IIgs, I covet... my precious.
I had a //c and got it the same year you got yours. Mine had an AppleColor Composite monitor (ooh la la!) AND an Apple ImageWriter II (ooh la la-er!). As for the monitor, I experienced the "color bleed' spoken of here regularly. My friend had one with your monochrome monitor and it was much easier to look at for most things. My main addiction was Print Shop and games (the order of obsession change regularly. Ah, the days when we had to get productivity software that matched both the computer AND the printer.
I really appreciate this video. Thanks.
Very informative video! I decided to go with a IIe
Terrific video about Apple IIs
Interesting review. I was a PC person back in the 80's and I recently got a couple of old clones, monitors and some boot disks and games on diskette. Until my wife told me to "get rid of that junk". Now I have to be content with DOSBox on my laptop and downloading games from Abandonia, which is ok :-)
I got a 2c and i LOVE it. I would say a later 2c ROM rev 3 and a second 5.25 with a couple packs of disks and adtpro is your best shot. Ill also say i do like to push my computers and limitations of old systems are a soft spot for me personally. I adore for instance the sinclar 1000 i got for free lol.
Lmao, I love how they use GOD (!) in the commercial for the GS. Apple were never modest hehe. Great video. :)
80s.... i was a 90s kid and am nostalgic for the apple 2 since it was in my schools until i graduated in 2002, in varying capacities.
I had the Apple ][+ (still do) man, that computer was fantastic. It was so much fun back in the day. I wrote my own adventure programs in basic and created graphics using Graphics Magician by Penguin Software. 🐧 In addition I had countless “kracked” games including Castle Wolfenstein.
(I was playing CW in 1980 when I heard by TV announcer Howard Cosell that John Lennon had been shot on December 08 1980-never will forget that shocking moment)…Back to the positive, the ][+ was pure bliss.
You should do a classic macintosh buyers guide
hey, the FloppyEmu guy (Big Mess o’ Wires) seems to have solved the problems with the IIc. give it a check, i will certainly now buy the FloppyEmu device for my IIc.
i literally bought a 1978 Chevette 2 days before watching this video...and as such was thinking...you dont have to have ONE Apple II system either. Hell, i have 3 IIgs', two Apple IIes, a IIc, a Franklin 1000....If you like em enough, just buy them all! Still want a IIc plus pretty badly. And i don't want a Corvette either, but i will agree that the IIgs experience is more about the games you play on it versus the physical hardware, it feels like a late 80s 16-bit machine when you play GS-specific software, and feels like a IIe if you play something like Airball on it. Also, if you have a II, II+, or IIe with no software, cassette player, disk drive, or floppyemu, you can boot software off your smartphone with a normal 1/8" audio cable, if you're desperate, although software options are very limited. Additionally, adapters exist for using PC-style joysticks on Apple II joystick ports. I prefer using a Gravis Gamepad on my IIc, and it works great with this adapter. Nice video!
You definitely don't have to have only one Apple II - I have three as you see here, and would love to have more (but don't have the space). I assume, though, that most people buying a machine for the first time would want one that could reasonably be expected to do pretty much everything, and then if they really get into it, they can move on to the more niche models just to have something different. I didn't actually know that about the smartphone option, although I've heard of that done with other machines... it just feels alien to me to even think about Apple II's using tape drives because I never saw it when I was that age and using one for real, but it makes sense that it'd work!
Excellent..! I've an Apple IIe, Apple IIc, & IIc Plus. All works well. But I think the best solution using Apple II software is the virtual emulator not real machine with disk image storage.
There is another obscure control, apple+m. This will reveal the ASCII values of the formatting marks, especially the escape characters.
I really need to get one of those floppy EMUs. Collecting for the apple II and mac lines are fun, but it gets frustrating when you are trying to track down little pieces here and there. I found a good condition iie color monitor, but it is missing the cover for the adjustments in front. Also I just need to find a cable from the duo to the controller card and I will have fully replicated my childhood computer. Great video, glad i found your channel recently.
The Floppy Emu is one of the best purchases I have made for my Apple II. One of the big problems today is that floppy disks have become horrendously unreliable, so I've even been backing up the ones I made when I was a kid for when they finally fail. Every time I look at my old disks, including storebought games, something new doesn't work anymore since the last time. About half those boxed games I show in this video are no longer working, but I can play them from the Floppy Emu.
Nice informative video, I like your style🙋♂️ Apple II 4FR!!
I'm glad I jumped on the waiting list for the CFFA3000 earlier this year. I was anxious to receive it and have been thrilled with it so far. I was sad to hear Rich may not do another batch. It's a great card. I should have bought two. :/
My dad built an Apple ][ kit into a printer casing. It had a disk drive, a joystick, and a green phosphor Zenith monitor. I miss playing with that. Never had any problem with yellowing, since the casing was already yellow and was metal besides.
13:00 The Apple IIgs monitor (RGB) is a RGB monitor with some clock rate that is common on old Arcade machines. I think SONY PVMs work.
In 2005, I bought a complete IIe system (platinum) with two disk drives, printer, display, mouse, software, and all, for $26. I guess I should consider myself lucky. I think I'm going to go home and fire it up this weekend to see if it still works. I have no idea where the software is, so I guess I'll need to look into getting one of those disk drive emulators!
I just got an Apple iiE since it's the computer I first played games on as a kid. I purchased the enhanced upgrade kit and the system came with a Taxan 80 column card. Now I just need to figure out if I need to hook the monitor to the expansion card or if I can just use the composite out. I have a Sony PVM from that Era as well so I can get a great retro experience. Cheers!
Thanks! Great vid.
Hi Modern Classic!! So I got an Apple II plus two years ago for my birthday and just wanted to know how it ranked on your apple II list and how to fix the screen being green. I don't know if all apple II pluses were made to where The screen is green and the text is greener but if that is a common problem or if I can fix it please let me know!! great video!!
Although I recently picked up an Apple IIc with a monitor as I've wanted once since that first one showed up in the library of my high school back in 1985 my preferred Apple II is actually the Apple II card I have in a Mac LC. It allows the use of a more modern VGA monitor and I can dump software to the ProDisk partition on the SCSI drive. Oddly enough I recently gave my full ( 2 drives and apple green monitor ) IIe Platinum to my brother-in-law who is also a fan of the Apple II line thanks to it prolonged use in the schools of NY State.
I have been seriously thinking about (and off and on looking for) a pizza box Mac and Apple IIe card just to play around with. It's a little more money than I want to pay for something like that right now, but if I can build the channel up a bit more, I might get a little more serious about buying.
You'll never convince me that the best one is not the IIe platinum. Mine still runs, never replaced the ram. I'm been through 2 IIc's and I'm about done with them. The IWM seems to go out almost as often as ram.
Ram replacement is to be expected. What is the IWM?
@@Nas_Atlas Not on the IIe Platinum it's not. It's only 2 chips and it's the most reliable RAM on the whole lineup-ever.
IWM=Integrated Woz Machine IC -When it goes bad, it starts overwriting disks. Fortunately you can cannibalize old Mac motherboards that were more common than IIc
추억의 APPLE II 💕
Thanks. !!
It is interesting that in this chart only Apple has survived as a company (Atari exists as a brand), not only survived but is the highest valued tech company in the world. In the mid 90s Apple was for sale, but no deals were ever finalized, then comes the iconic return of Steve Jobs in late 90s to reboot Apple into the company it has become today.
Our ROM 255 (original ROM - from the IIc's launch date until the release of the UniDisk 3.5 drive in 1985) Apple IIc also tried to start from the built-in 5.25" floppy drive each time. The original IIc ROM will not search for a disk in the external disk drive on startup, and the only type of floppy disk supported was the 5.25" as an external drive with ROM 255. ROM 255 was hard-wired to check the built-in floppy drive (slot 6, drive 1...err, "virtual" slot 6) upon power on. You had to control-reset to the Applesoft prompt and type PR#7 (the code in virtual slot 7 was to activate the external floppy drive - slot 7 was later used for more substantial built-in firmware on later Apple IIcs) to boot from the external drive, and that only worked with ProDOS-based programs because they weren't tied to having the floppy drive controller in slot 6.
I also thought that any Apple IIc ROM version later than 255 supported the SmartPort protocol like the IIGS, which means that a disk drive of up to 32 MB under ProDOS is supported, so technically the FloppyEmu can be used with a later ROM IIc, just not the original 255 ROM (1984-1985). The only 3.5" drive the original IIc could not support over the SmartPort protocol was the Apple 3.5" drive that was usable on the Apple IIc Plus, Apple IIGS and the Macintosh (with an appropriate disk controller card for the Apple IIe, like the SuperDrive card), the one with the eject button, because the Apple 3.5 was a "dumb" drive and the 1 MHz 6502 in the Apple IIc was too slow to control disk access to the Apple 3.5.
I thought the later Apple IIc ROMs were actually more intelligent - if the computer didn't find a disk in the built-in drive, it would then go to any daisy-chained disk drive, be them 3.5" UniDisk or Apple 5.25/UnDisk 5.25/Disk IIc until the computer found a bootable disk. If not, I'm sure the computer would give up and put the "Check Disk Drive" message on the screen, and then a control-reset drops you into Applesoft BASIC.
Any Apple II gurus, please correct me if I am wrong, but this is what I remember.
It's confusing and it's very possible that I messed up a little bit in that section of the video. I've read contradictory things from different people in various forum posts, and also experiences from people in other forum posts that contradict stuff in various wikis. One problem seems to be that a lot of people are going based on memory, and some of those people seem to have even owned IIc Pluses, not IIc's!
I have a later IIc ROM (later than 255, anyway), but I don't remember which one at the moment. There's no way I've found to use the Floppy Emu with it. No, it won't boot from it. It'll only boot from drive 1.
But I have not tried this trick: www.applefritter.com/?q=node/24307#comment-59171
Of course, booting only into ProDOS, and then from drive 2 when most software expects drive 1, is not really all that helpful.
I only know about the 255, and that it didn't like the UniDisk 3.5" attached to the floppy drive port. It kept the drive motor running until the power to the computer was turned off!
In Applesoft, you can type "PRINT PEEK(64447)" to find the ROM version if you want to know.
That's odd that the Floppy Emu won't work in SmartPort mode with your non-ROM 255 Apple IIc. I thought there was an Apple II mode for the Floppy Emu that supported SmartPort and that all SmartPort-enabled IIs would therefore inherently support the FE.
It's nice to know that there are still other ardent Apple II users after 41 years!
There's not really an "Apple II mode" per se; the problems with the Floppy Emu are strictly related to the smartport's daisy chaining rules and the way the IIc implements them. Here's Steve's (the guy who makes the Floppy Emu) blog post on the subject: www.bigmessowires.com/2017/04/02/bootstrapping-apple-c-with-floppy-emu/
The trick he mentions in there is similar to the one I linked to earlier; it will force any IIc to boot to ProDOS from drive 2, but like I said that's not particularly useful for games (which Steve notes at the bottom of the post). The only really good way to use the Floppy Emu is if you can configure it as drive 1, which you can't do on a IIc without either removing the real drive 1, or installing a switch.
So you can't use a 32 MB hard disk file with an Apple IIc?
You can use a hard disk file, but I'm not sure how that helps with booting floppy disks. Most Apple II software doesn't like running from a hard disk, even IIGS stuff.
Question... What if instead of buying one, I wanted to pull a unicomp and make a fully compatible computer from scratch, without bios knowledge. Do you know some good rescources for that?
It should be noted that if you get an Apple II GS, and want to use an accelerator card for IIGS software and the OS, then make sure you upgrade the power supply which can be a bit hard to find these days. That's why I've held off on getting one at the moment, till I can find a unit with an upgraded PSU, and a decent accelerator card at a price I can afford.
Accelerator cards are basically going to be out of reach for average people unless somebody decides to make a new one (as has been done with memory cards). I don't think they're really needed anyway; most people don't have them for other Apple II's and the IIgs runs 8 bit software as fast or faster than them as it is. For IIgs-specific stuff, GS/OS would definitely benefit from an accelerator but most of other software probably wouldn't. I feel like accelerators are probably fun to play around with, and useful if you're using certain specific applications, but most of the time I keep my IIgs locked at 1mhz as it is.
MY first PC was an Apple //c in 1985. Oh i dont count my Timex Sinclair. I loved my Apple //c
I bought one in fully working condition and only two weeks later the video chip Fried
Great video!
Apple key +N is the multifunction key, used to enhance iWorks and some video games.
Am I the only one who prefers and loves the older yellowing colour?
Apart from pure aesthetics, is there any reason whitening em back up is better? i.e does it make the plastic "feel" nicer like on the keyboard for example?
It is really noticeable that you are reading the text you're going to say.
I am interested in getting an Apple II to run some old Apple FORTRAN programs for a scientific demonstration. Any suggestions?
No mention of soundcards? My ||c gets most of my retro Apple use, but I head to the //e with its Mockingboard to hear the great music in games like the !ater Ultima games.
Yeah Mockingboard is one of the few Apple II expansion cards that seems real compelling to me. (As a IIc owner that's a little difficult - though there *is* a mockingboard available for the IIc!)
I love the asthetic of the apple //c, and think that it's the right size for being a little computer to play around with in my free time, and feel like I could pretty easily keep it on my desk without it taking up to much space, but I feel like I should get the //GS just to have a more powerful machine that I could also expand. Any suggestions?
A bit late but here's my take:
I felt much the same way about the space concerns when it comes to the IIc. I have a lot of fond memories of the Apple II (and, frankly, the IIc in particular) and I want to play around with the machine, learn about it, etc. - but I don't have loads of space so I like that the IIc is a compact solution. I was also lucky enough to get a good deal on one, complete with the little 9" monochome CRT monitor and a carrying bag for the computer. (Personally I am one of those folks who feels the Apple II is best in monochrome... It just seems sort of a shame that most game software is designed for color.)
Personally I don't put much stock in the IIgs as a "more powerful" machine. It's not that much more powerful, it's sad to see the thing choke on a relatively simple game like "Lemmings". It's also not got a whole lot of native software, and personally I find a IIgs running in backward compatibility mode (Ensoniq sound chip idling while the CPU bit-bangs bleeps over the speaker, that nice RGB monitor displaying a very crisp rendition of 140x192 6-color graphics, etc...) to be mostly a pretty sad statement on how the machine failed. But that said the IIgs is a very attractive machine, and having a machine that outputs RGB is great.
Since I've got a IIc the world of expansion cards is mostly inaccessible to me. I had thought I'd be OK with that limitation but I have learned of some expansion cards I'd actually be interested in. The ones I'm most interested in would be a sound card like the Mockingboard (the most-widely supported add-on sound card for the Apple II - a couple dozen games support it), a RAM expansion, network card, and mass storage. Some of those are available for the IIc (notably, RAM expansion and Mockingboard) but due to limited space you're pretty much limited to just one of those. Also, while all these add-ons are fun the cost of them does add up - between $70-$130 for each of these modern add-on devices. I think it's worth thinking about whether it's really worth dropping that kind of money for Apple II add-ons.
To me, it's not just important to consider what these machines can do, but what they represent. The IIc mostly represents the Apple II as I experienced it as a kid. I had always thought of the older Apple II's as relics because of their big boxy cases and the older-style DiskII drives they were usually paired with, but looking at it now I feel like they may represent the Apple II at its peak - hailing from a time before the platform felt badly outdated, and also a time when the platform was meant to be open to tinkering. Looking at it that way, the IIe represents the tail end of a period of the Apple II that I mostly didn't experience, when the platform was a little less a finished product and a little more of an adventure. If anything could convince me to get a IIe, it would probably be that. But for now I'm very happy with my IIc.
and what if I happen to have found an empty Apple IIe platinum case(using a clone keyboard) and decide to throw in a Raspberry Pi?
If I had a 3.5" drive, would I be able to make Apple-compatible images on a Windows PC with an emulator?
Hello! Could you help me with the standoff for the 128K expansion board for the IIc? I need to know the height of the standoff. I have the expansion bard and the IIc but not the standoffs. Thanks!
Around 5:00 - There's a device produced in Japan by Nishida Radio that is amazing! It fits inside the IIc and goes between the internal drive and the controller; one wire goes out so we can select if the emulator is boot or second drive. The guy who does it has some health issues so availability is complicated. The device is, however, a masterful example of Japanese ingenuity. He also did a DVI output for the IIgs - it has a clever non intrusive installation that has some problems: it clamps on top of the Woz Video Chip and keeps both video outputs working however it keeps popping out so some sort of creativity is necessary to make it work properly.
Hope you have some videos on how to repair the CRT monitors.
I'd love to have an original 1977 model, as impractical as it is I just think it's fascinating that home computers existed that long ago.
One of the interesting things to me is that early on, the nature of home computing was a bit different, too. There wasn't nearly as much ready-made software, so computers were more of a DIY kind of thing. Early on you had computers like the Apple I sold as kits, but later with the Apple II I think there was still an expectation that people would experiment not only with the software but the hardware, too... Into the mid-1980s I think this was much less the case.
Ok... my first computer was a IIci (I really wish I still had it, for purely nostalgic reasons). Yes, all 5 megs of it’s Ram and 20 megs of it’s hard drive space. But where is that on the list? Doesn’t it have more in common with other models than the ones listed here?
Awesome video!
The Apple IIc does not have a cassette port so you can’t load programs with say a iPad and load them from a website for example.
my dream...a IIGS but almost impossible to find in Europe.
Apple II GS reminds me of iphone 3GS. But I cannot say how much more powerfull the iphone 3GS is.
Sweet16 on an eMac is good enough for me, I checked the prices of Appe IIe cards for my LCIII though, way too expensive!
good afternoon, I want to sell or place in a auction a new cpu and monitor in its original sealed box never opened apple iie model, do you now a place or forum to get an idea of the price?
We didn’t really have Apple II’s in the UK. Mostly BBC Master’s over here.
I heard that retro brightening doesn’t last long.
I just picked up an Apple iic+. I’m just going to use ADT Pro to use it as a disk writer. I’ll just keep my software on disk. Also, since the iic+ uses the same floppy drive as the early Macs, I can use the iic+ to write Mac software on to disk.
I still need a monitor for it. I’m thinking of getting a 9inch monochrome monitor that came with the iic. Anything should I know when looking online for one?
Not that I know of; they're pretty reliable.
Ok, thanks. Just got one on ebay yesterday for $100. Its not too yellowed; at least not cheddar cheese yellow lol. I also got a mouse for it and plan on running mouse desk 2.0 for apple ii on it. Have you ever heard of mouse desk 2.0? It appears to be a version of the GUI on the apple iigs, but for 8bit apple ii's that have at least 128k of ram.