Category: Hardware
R&D Automation, makers of the CFFA Compact Flash drive card for the Apple I and II series computers, has announced the immediate availability of the latest version of the CFFA 3000 Firmware for beta testers. The CFFA 3000 is a dual drive multi-capability card that R&D has been working on for about 2 years now. The card is in final stages of development and release of the initial order of cards is forthcoming. The following email was received by the…
Vintage Micros (http://www.vintagemicros.com) has produced and released one of the hardest to find products for the Apple Lisa computer. The Lisa DAC Sound Card is considered to be the holy grail of collectables for the Lisa and now for a limited time, they are offering the card for sale for $229.00 The card uses the Lisa speaker to produce the sound and can produce anything from standard computer sounds to full blown voice and audio reproduction. The card comes with…
The short response is don’t. The long response is it can be done but… It is very painful to get the TV to work as a monitor. The resoluton of a 720p TV is supposed to be 1200 x 720 (or fairly close). The aspect is 16:9. Unfortunately up to this point I’ve only been able to get 1024 x 768, which is an aspect of 4:3. To get there I first wasted a couple of hours fiddling around with…
The Entire run of 200 of the new CFFA3000 cards have sold out. This run was released just over 4 weeks ago and according to Rich Dreher, “this run probably sold out quickly due to the long development time frame”. Rich is now taking emails for a second run but he is saying that it could be 6 to 12 months prior to said run being completed. For more information about the CFFA3000 and other cards by Rich Dreher, check…
This article is a variation/enhancement to a post I found at http://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/freenas/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=9289 for a FreeNAS server. Of course purely Mac folks would likely want to stick with the AFP protocol. In terms of generalities the NFS server does not necessarily have to be running FreeNAS. It just has to work. FreeNAS is basically a “Swiss Army Knife” of external storage. I find it does a lot of things very easily. It doesn’t work on all machines (I’ve had a 60%…
Most of our readers know I volunteer for an educational charity on Fridays. I install software on computers which are then given out to students. We have a “special needs” married couple who came in about a year ago and took a Linux box. They wanted to get their webcam running on it. After a couple of weeks I managed to get it more or less working. I thought it might be a good idea to pick up one and…
Mike Willegal has announced that final beta testing on the Brain Boards has begun and that the kits will be $59.00. Pre-built units will be available at some point for an additional fee. Mike has also put out a beta of the users guide for users to familiarize themselves with the board and created a website for the board at: http://www.willegal.net/appleii/brainboard.htm Orders for the Brain Board will begin to be taken on 19 March 2011 with the first units expected…
Over the past few months, I have been watching and waiting for someone to take an iPod (yes the small 6th gen Nano) and turn it into a usable wristwatch. Many of my cohorts commented on the same idea in January and February with the first articles appearing about it this past 2 weeks or so. No it seems that everyone is jumping on the band wagon including us. Having had a computer on my wrist since the early 1990’s…
Mike Willegal has posted a photo of his fully assembled Brain Board for the Apple II. The Brain Board turns an ordinary Apple ][ computer into an Apple-1 allowing the user to perform all of the same functionality of the Apple-1 computer while utilizing the Apple ][ cassette interface and keyboard for I/O. For more on the brainboard, check out the post at: http://www.willegal.net/blog/?p=1321
This week, we were thinking about the new iPad2 and the discussions of a holder for the machine came up. So we started searching and came up with a number of case hacks or cases themselves that we thought were absolutely brilliant. The funny thing is that in another few days, many of those hacks will have to change in order to accommodate the long awaited camera that is expected to be in the iPad2. But in the mean time,…
Brutal Deluxe has posted photos of many of their hardware items in a new photo gallery. The gallery with a number of hard to find and one of a kind Apple ][ items is at http://www.brutaldeluxe.fr/pictures/ Arcording to the post by Antoince Vignau of Brutal Deuxe, “The pictures are or were part of our collection and if some items interest you (trade, info, scans, etc.), contact us and we’ll tell you the status of the items.” In the past year,…
If you have a spare Apple ][ sitting around and always wanted the Apple-1, now you can have your cake and eat it too. Mike Willegal has developed a new “Brain Board” which is essentially an Apple-1 computer on an Apple ][. The card itself slides into an Apple ][ slot and performs just like an Apple-1 when the Apple ][ is turned on. The Brain Board uses the Apple ][ cassette interface for all program loading and saving. In…
Robert Justice has produced a new Compact Flash card for the Apple //c computer which connects to the smartport interface of the external disk drive connector. The card is still in the initial stages so it is not exactly a completed product but it is certainly showing promise. You can read more about the card at: http://www.users.on.net/~rjustice/SmartportCFA/SmartportCFA.htm
8BitSystem, famous for products such as the LittlePower IIc+, DoubleSeven, Switch-a-Slot and the LittleProto II, is now offereing their products through ReactiveMicro.com for reduced prices. With the prices being reduced by up to 30% on select items, the time is now to own these products for your own Apple ][ collection as this is a limited time offering. For more information, check out the ReactiveMicro.com website. About 8BitSystem 8BitSystem is a sole owner enterprise which builds custom order parts and…
Many people over the past few years have been searching for the ever elusive DuoDisk Cable. Unfortunately, the longer we go in time from actual sale of the cable, the further between the sales of them on Ebay are. But now, thanks to Herb Johnson, we now have a great pinout chart of the cable which is as follows: DB25 male DB19 male 2 1 3 18 4 2 5 15 ——– 6 19 7 6 8 9 9,21 3…
The inventor of the only real multitasking Apple II computer, Michael Mahon has moved his website. The move of the Apple Crate II website was necessitated by the decision by America Online (AOL) to discontinue hosting websites. Michael has chosen Comcast as his new host for the site. The new URL is http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon/
A Star is Born In the world of corporate servers, there are the haves and the have-nots among manufacturers. Until 14 May 2002, Apple Computer Inc was among those have-nots. This changed with the introduction of the Apple Xserve. A server in an unusual for Apple, industry standard 19-inch rack mount 1U case, the Xserve introduces a form that is a great standard to follow. Long criticized for not having a server that was useable in the corporate world, the…
By Eric Shepherd www.A2Central.com About the Author Eric Shepherd is the webmaster of A2Central.com in Tracy, California and is also the director of Syndicomm.com. He is involved primarily in bringing many of the software packages from the 1980’s into the freeware realm by writing to the individual authors to gain the releases. Please note that A2central.com is not related to the magazine from the early 1990’s. The Card I wandered by my mailbox yesterday, as I do just about every…
The last 90 days or so have seen a tremendous influx of peripheral equipment available for the Apple II, much in the form of plug in cards. Cliff Gazaway of ComputerLand has told us numerous sad tales of mishaps that have occurred while changing cards. Here are two prime rules to follow: 1. NEVER plug a card in or out while the power is on. 2. Wait a minimum of 10 seconds after the power is off, before pulling a…
Here is a quickie about setting up the APPLESOFT ROM card. First, as the instructions indicated, this card will function only in Slot #0 of your Apple ][. This card allows you to make a choice of whether you want Integer BASIC or APPLESOFT to be called with Control-B after you power up. If the switch is in the down position, APPLESOFT will be selected. In addition, it is not necessary to change the switch position to call the non-default…
