Re: Apple lle questions

[wbdesnoy@acs2.acs.ucalgary.ca (Byron Desnoyers Winmill)]

ClkWrk6894 (clkwrk6894@aol.com) wrote:
: we had an old apple lle computer that was totaled by a break-in at our house
: several years ago and i have a few questions about using the software again.

That's really too bad.  OTOH -- you selected the right time to replace the
machine.  They are dirt cheap nowdays.  :-)

: 1}  could i get ahold of an Apple lle computer somewhere. and if so, where?

The best places to watch are thrift stores, buy-sell papers, and (I have
been told) pawn shops.  Prices vary from place to place, and from person to
person (some people would rather chuck them, than sell them cheap).  But to
give you an idea, I paid CAN$20 for an Apple IIe with a Commodore 1701
monitor, 1Mb RAM card, and 300bps (!) modem.  This isn't the best deal that
I have found, nor is it the worse.  It is meerly representative.

: 2}  is there someway of getting the apple lle software to run on my
: HPpavilion

There are emulators, I have tried one called Apple PC (or something like
that) which was not too bad on a 486.  For the Macintosh, I have used IIe
from time to time.  It is fine on a 68030.

While emulators tend to offer a lot of features (such as that hard drive
which you always wanted for your IIe), running the real thing is generally
more satisfying.

: 4}  I am confused on the emulator thing..do i need my old computer to use  
:     them, cuz we threw it away after it was broken.

In general, no.  Some commercial emulators require that you have the computer
for the ROM chips.  Others (often shareware) are simply distributed without
the ROM image.  Yet others are distributed with the ROM image, which is
technially illegal.  A ROM image is simply a copy of the software found in
the computer's ROM chips.  This is copywritten material, which is why it is
illegal copy it for use in emulators.  Some people get around this by having
the computer and using the emulator (at least in their mind, I don't know
how the law would treat this).  Other people just break copyright law.

The same goes for software.  In the case of Apple II emulators, all software
is on disk images.  This is because modern computers can not read Apple II
floppy diskettes.  (Exception being 3.5" floppies, where Macs can read the
diskettes.)  Technically, you would need an Apple II with a serial card to
copy these diskettes to your emulator -- though some people offer the software
through archives such as Asimov.  This should be convenient for you, since
you have so much software.  But I do suggest that you keep the originals as
proof of ownership.  (Just because the guys who run these archives are
breaking the law, doesn't mean that you have to do the same.)

--
Stopped (SIGTTOU)         byron.
$