Apple ][

Apr 23 2012

New Apple ][ Series Users Guide to be Published

David Finnigan of the Apple and Macintosh centric site, Mac Gui City has been working hard on a new users guide for the Apple ][ series computers.  the new guide with some 600 plus pages and 12 chapters will include information about 6 different Apple ][ series computers and their setup.

As for a release date on the new book, according to a recent post in CSA2, david says "The first complete draft (meaning that every section of the book was complete) was made early last week. It's currently being poured over by a team of leading Apple II experts. There are 12 chapters and nearly as many appendices. My hopeful guess is that the review will take at least 3 weeks. "

The new Apple ][ Users Guide will be the first Apple ][ series specific book published in nearly twenty years and aims to better educate this generation of Apple ][ users and hobbyists.  For more information about the book, you can check out The New Apple ][ Users Guide web page at:

http://macgui.com/newa2guide/

By admin • Apple //c, Apple IIgs, Apple ][, Vintage • 0 • Tags: , , , ,

Apr 17 2012

Original Source Code fof Prince of Persia now Available on GitHub

Jordan Mechner posted on his twitter account about the ongoing source recovery of the original source for the game Prince of Persia.  The floppies containing the source code was found in a box his father had recently discovered and shipped to Jordan.   Now, the source code for the Apple ][ version of the game is available for download to anyone who wants a copy from the GitHub repository at:

https://github.com/jmechner/Prince-of-Persia-Apple-II

By admin • Apple ][, Vintage • 0

Apr 13 2012

ADTPro 1.2.1 Released

David Schmidt has released an update to the ADTPro disk imaging package.  ADTPro allows users to convert Apple ][ and Apple /// disks to digital images for use with emulators.  According to the press release on CSA2, "This release has a couple of snazzy things that folks won't need to see very often:

The bare-metal bootstrapper works in about 1/3 the time it did before.  It now shifts the serial hardware into high gear to transmit the bulk of  the code in binary rather than via text on the screen.  Much the same way as Blurry's Apple Game Server.

There's a video of Speediboot(tm) in action here:
http://youtu.be/1xworYThmMI

The OSX version of the sever has an "installer" whereby the user drags the ADTPro folder to the Applications folder.  Much the same way as lots of OSX installers, like Mozilla.

http://adtpro.sourceforge.net

1.2.1 - April 12, 2012

New functionality:

* Serial now bootstraps from bare metal in 1/3 the time it used    to take with Speediboot(tm) technology

* [Server] Mac OSX has a prettier “installer” via the DMG – just   drag/drop the ADTPro folder to Applications

Bug fixes:

* [Server] Improve serial error recovery for two different   scenarios: 1, by waiting (much) longer before timing out to  allow for problemtatic/errorful block reads, and 2, flushing
   the serial port after things like checksum errors“

By admin • Apple III, Apple ][, Apps, Disk Imaging, Emulation, Software, Vintage • 0 • Tags: , , , ,

Mar 28 2012

8/16: The Journal of Apple II Programming Now Online

Mike Maginnis, the curator of the Apple II scans website has posted 7 of the 9 issues of  8/16: The Journal of Apple II Programming. The Journal was produced by Ross W. Lambert and became 8/16-Central in 1990 when the publication was sold to Tom Weishaar.

You can download the currently available scanned issues from the Apple II scans  website at:

http://apple2scans.net/2012/03/25/816-the-journal-of-apple-ii-programming/

By admin • Apple //c, Apple IIgs, Apple ][, Documentation, Magazines, Vintage • 0 • Tags: , , ,

Mar 11 2012

R&D Automation to Produce 2nd Run of CFFA3000 Cards

R&D Automation announced in a blog posting last week that they will be producing a new run of the CFFA3000 cards for the Apple ][.  The CFFA3000 is a card which allows the Apple ][ to use Compact Flash Cards and USB Thumb Drives for hard drive storage of disk images.  According to the R&D Automation website, "We are now in the process of getting final quotes on parts for run #2 of the CFFA3000. We hope to be placing orders for the parts this week or next. We have not made a final decision on the run size yet, but we are looking at quantities of 400 and 500. The price of the next run will likely stay the same at US$149.95. It should be available in summer of 2012.

We are also adding support for image file directories to the firmware and making a lot of optimization to speed up all disk operations. Time permitting we will also be looking into DMA support, but there is still much work to do before we have something to test.“

The previous run of cards sold out in a matter of days after the much anticipated update was released.  The specifications of the new card are as follows:

  • A CompactFlash / USB flash drive interface for Apple II family of computers
  • Support 1 to 13 partitions under ProDOS and GS/OS, and 2 virtual floppy drives
  • Virtual Floppy image support allows the use of almost any non-copy-protected floppy disk image, including .dsk, .2mg, and .nib files. Note: .nib files of protected floppies will not work with the CFFA3000
  • Allows storage of thousands of floppy and smartport disk images
  • User configurable partition count
  • Boot from either device and any partition
  • Allow booting from Dos3.3, Pascal, CPM, Contiki, ProDOS or GS/OS directly from the Interface card (for a floppy-less system)
  • Configurable as a CFFA smart port controller (i.e. a mass storage device) or as a floppy controller, or both. When configured as both, requires 2 slots in your Apple II, one for the physical card, and one for the virtual floppy controller.
  • Hardware supports DMA, although v1.0 software does not currently support DMA. Future support is planned, but not guaranteed.

To order a CFFA3000 Card, you will need to email Rich Dreher, the proprietor of R&D Automation using the “email me” link on his sales webpage at:

http://shop.dreher.net/

By admin • Apple IIgs, Apple ][, Disk Storage, Hardware, Vintage • 1 • Tags: , , , ,

Mar 8 2012

The Albert Apple ][ Clone in Living Color

ResetVector, run by Tony Diaz, has put up a new article outlining the history of the Albert Apple ][ Clone.  The Albert, was created with  all of the drives built into into it's own box and the machine complete with all of the normal Apple ][ features as well as a number of enhanced features all on board.  While most manufacturers of the time were busy copying the Apple ][ as is, wholesale, cards and all, the Albert was a truly innovative computer.

According to the posting on the ResetVector website, "Albert Computer said theirs was not a copy, but an improvement. The courts on the other hand, were not convinced and they ended up retreating. Despite their soft-boot method, perhaps they were just a few years too early as Video Technology (Laser Computer) managed to finally figure out how to do it and launch a product a year later”

You can read the entire story of the history of the computer at the reset vector website at:

http://resetvector.com/a2/33/albert-computer-a2-clone/

Tony has also added 19 photos of the Albert on the ResetVector Gallery.

By admin • Apple ][, Clones, Vintage • 0 • Tags: , ,

Mar 8 2012

GEOS for Apple ][ File Strucures Explained

Oliver Schmidt, long known for his work on several projects in the Apple][ community including Contiki and Applewin, has now delved into documenting the internals of  GEOS, the Berkeley Softworks  produced operating system for the Apple ][.

In his announcement in the comp.sys.apple2 newsgroup, Oliver says" Although the Apple GEOS filesystem is based on ProDOS 8 the Apple GEOS  files are not standard ProDOS 8 files. I’m not refering to file  content here but to the file structure – meaning that Apple GEOS files  aren’t seedling, sapling nor tree files.

I’ve done some reverse-engineering and have documented my findings here:

http://wiki.cc65.org/doku.php?id=cc65:apple2:geosfileformats

GEOS files are more than the usual byte stream with a few attributes. Therefore they need to be converted in order to represent them in other filesystems. This is just the same as with GEOS 64/128. And again just the same as with GEOS 64/128 it is desirable to have this conversion work “in place” instead of creating copies. To facilitate this a suitable “convert format” has to be specified. I defined one here:

http://wiki.cc65.org/doku.php?id=cc65:apple2:geosconvertformat

Who can make use of this “convert format”?

1. Convert tools running on Apple GEOS (like on GEOS 64/128) or on ProDOS 8. I’ve already written a ProDOS 8 convert – which however currently only supports the “deconversion”.

2. Apple disk image tools like CiderPress or AppleCommander. They could use the “convert format” to represent Apple GEOS files in the host filesystem – and do the (de-)convert on-the-fly when moving files from/to an Apple GEOS disk image.

What’s the benefit of all this?

1. In general it becomes possible to move Apple GEOS files around, transfer them with any filetransfer technicque and share them on the
net etc.

2. I’m working on porting the cc65 GEOSLib (http://www.cc65.org/ snapshot-doc/geos.html) from GEOS 64/128 to Apple GEOS. The cc65 linker creates a “convert format” file which is then tranfered to the Apple GEOS filesystem and finally deconverted there. That’s the reason why my ProDOS 8 convert tool only supports this direction.

3. Now that the basic Apple GEOS file structures are known one can apply the already present knowledge on GEOS file contents – as they are the same for Apple GEOS and GEOS 64/128. Thus it becomes i.e. possible to implement an Apple geoPaint file viewer (or editor):

ftp://ftp.zimmers.net/pub/cbm/geos/programming/documents/geoPaint%20format.txt

From the cc65 developers perspective it would of course be great if  CiderPress and/or AppleCommander would allow to place the output file of the cc65 linker directly in an Apple GEOS disk image as Apple GEOS file, thus superseding the additional convert step. ”

A.P.P.L.E. obtained permission to distribute the documentation for GEOS in 2003 and if you would like to check GEOS out or to run it on your own system, you can download the entire GEOS CD complete with all of the documentation from our December posting about the program at:

http://www.callapple.org/2011/12/10/geos-apple-cd-re-posted-to-download-section/

 

By admin • Apple ][, Assembly Language, Documentation, GEOS, Manuals, Operating Systems, Programming, Software • 0 • Tags: , ,

Mar 7 2012

Ideas for Wasteland Kickstarter Project Posted

Brian Fargo has posted some ideas about what he thinks the Kick Starter rewards will look like when he posts the project later this week.  The re-start of the famed Apple ][ based franchise came earlier last month when Bran decided to try and make the project completely funded by a Kick Starter project.  Ideas include statues within the game dedicated to the upper level donors as well as a private party hosted by Brian and Alan Pavlish in honer of the donor.

Wasteland was one of the most popular Apple II games and inXile is attempting to revive the franchise in a manner that is more community driven and community funded.  Brian has laid out all of the levels and each progressive level includes the rewards for the previous level.

You can read the entire layout being proposed at:

http://wasteland.inxile-entertainment.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=114

By admin • Apple IIgs, Apple ][, Apps, Games, Software, Vintage • 0 • Tags: , , , ,

Mar 7 2012

Shink-Fit X Now Available for Older Machines

Kelvin Sherlock’s Shrink-Fit X, the application which allows for ShrinkIt files to be manipulated on Mac OS X, is now available in a Universal Binary for Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5.   The binary is downloadable from his new website at:

http://osx.ksherlock.com/

Or you can download the file directly at:

http://osx.ksherlock.com/Shrink-Fit-X-10.4.zip

By admin • Apple IIgs, Apple ][, Apps, Software, Vintage • 1 • Tags: ,

Mar 4 2012

David Schmenk Releases PLASMA Assembler for Apple ][

David Schmenk has released his new Proto Language ASsembler for Apple or PLASMA for short.   This latest language release is the second for the creator of Java for the Apple ][.

According to the introduction on David’s website, “PLASMA is a combination of virtual machine and assembler/compiler matched closely to the 6502 architecture.  It is an attempt to satisfy a few challenges surrounding code size, efficient execution, small runtime and fast just-in-time compilation.  By architecting a unique bytecode that maps nearly one-to-one to the higher level representation, the compiler/assembler can be very simple and execute quickly on the Apple II for a self-hosted environment.  A modular approach provides for incremental development and code reuse.  Different projects have led to the architecture of PLASMA, most notably Apple Pascal, FORTH, and my own Java VM for the 6502, VM02. Each has tried to map a generic VM to the 6502 with varying levels of success.  Apple Pascal, based on the USCD Pascal using the p-code interpreter, was a very powerful system and ran fast enough on the Apple II to be interactive but didn’t win any speed contests. FORTH was the poster child for efficiency and obtuse syntax. Commonly referred to as a write only language, it was difficult to come up to speed as a developer, especially when using other’s code. My own project in creating a Java VM for the Apple II uncovered the folly of shoehorning a large system into something never intended to run 32 bit applications.”

You can find a complete breakdown of the assembler and implementations in it at:

http://schmenk.is-a-geek.com/PLASMA.html

By admin • Apple ][, Assembly Language, Vintage • 0 • Tags: , , ,

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