Re: What do you do with an Apple //?

[salfter@ibm.net (Scott Alfter)]

In article <33CE6D47.25CE060@integrated-tech.com>, Scott Moorman <techs@integrated-tech.com> wrote:
>Please, this isn't an insult in the PC/MAC genre.  I'm just curious what
>the Apple ][ user in 1997 does with their computer still.

Part of it is just an attraction to older equipment.  Yes, I have a modern 
"tower of power" (5x86-P90 with 40 megs RAM, nearly 6 gigs of disk, tape, Zip, 
scanner, wavetable audio, and all that other great stuff, running Win95 and 
Linux).  It gets most of the use around here nowadays, but I've built up a 
collection of several older computers.  They're fun to tinker with.  I have a 
IIGS that my parents bought new in '85 as a IIe (upgraded it a lot, mostly in 
the early 90s).  I've also acquired a IIe (paid $35 at a garage sale for a 
system comparable to what Dad spent over $2100 on in '85), a Tandy Color 
Computer 2 (free), a Commodore VIC-20 (free), and an IBM PC/XT (free).  I now 
wish I hadn't had to leave my TI-99/4A behind back in '88...that was my first 
computer.  They're fairly cheap nowadays, though...kinda like tube-based 
radios, ham gear, and such in the 70s.  I don't think any of this gear will 
appreciate in value like, say, an Apple I, but it could be kinda neat to have 
this stuff a few decades down the road.

My GS has gotten a little bit of work lately, though...on and off, I've been 
thinking of picking up a ham license.  To that end, I've picked up a 
Morse-code training program for it, and I've written a program that provides 
practice for the exams.  (I converted the new Novice and Technician question 
pools over to its format just a couple of weeks ago.)  On a technical level, 
it's kinda neat.  It's written mostly in BASIC (easier for debugging), but it 
displays everything on the DHR screen.  I wrote a DHR character generator for 
it that hooks into the operating system so that anything that would normally 
appear on the text screen goes to the DHR screen instead.  This allows the 
program to freely mix text and graphics.  (Maybe I'll upload it if I ever get 
around to cleaning it up some and adding the other question pools.  The 
program could easily be adapted for other types of multiple-choice tests too, 
not just ham exams.)

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(IIGS(  Scott Alfter (salfter@ibm.net)
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