Re: These computers still work?

[Mitchell Spector <mitch2gs@hotmail.com>]

crucifyself03@aol.comnojunk (Crucifyself03) wrote:

>Can an Apple II get on the Internet?

    Yep, in fact I first connected to the Internet using my Apple II's over
12 years ago (mostly Usenet, email, FTP, telnet, IRC at the time). This
was back when I used a VMS or Unix shell account and a 2400 bps
modem. You can still find my old posts to comp.sys.apple2 on Google!

    These days that same method is still really the best overall way of
getting an Apple II online. There have been major steps forward 
though, such as TCP/IP drivers, an Ethernet card and even some
rudimentary web-browsers, IRC clients, POP3/SMTP email software,
an Instant Messanger chat client, and so on. 

    I don't believe any of these were developed to the point of making
dial-up with a shell account obsolete on the Apple IIgs, unfortuntely.
Honestly, an old 16 MHz 386SX is still more capable for any kind of
graphical web-browsing. I always hoped someone would write software
to take advantage of the Second Sight VGA card; never happened.

>Can an Apple II read 1.44 floppies?

    Yes, the most popular way of doing it was with a controller slot card
Apple released in 1991, combined with an external 1.44MB SuperDrive
(you could easily convert an old 800K drive into a SuperDrive). What
was neat about this setup, is you could read standard Apple 400/800K
floppy disks, as well as 720KB/1.44MB PC and Mac disks. I still use
mine for transferring data between my PC and Apple II's.

    I also have a BlueDisk controller card which allows me to plug in
standard IBM PC 5.25 and 3.5  floppy drives (360KB, 720KB, 1.2MB,
1.44MB, 2.88MB). It cannot access Apple GCR type disks though.
Since these drives require a powersource, just as they would on a
PC, I've not had use for mine yet. It would be great for putting a IIgs
in a towercase though.

>Do you have any other removable storage besides floppies?

    I have an IOmega Zip 100MB cartidge drive, plus a 4GB DAT tape drive
connected to my IIgs. I also have a 24x CD-ROM reader which is capable
of accessing CD-RW's directly from the IIgs with the High Sierra FST.
I just write to a rewriteable disc on my PC, bring it over to the IIgs with 
24x reader to pull files off of, then erase it and use it again.

    It's a great way of having a look at some of the disk images and archives
floating around out there, such as the Apple IIGS Memory Gaming Fairway.
(rather than pull out my original floppies, I just extract an image to RAM
Disk). I'd like to organize enough data to burn to a full CD-R, almost there.

>I am suprised so many still use these old computers.  Perhaps you use the Apple
>II under an emulator, as there are plenty.  
  
    I still have my Apple IIgs sitting on my desk beside my modern PC
(upgraded to the absolute fullest--15 MHz, 8MB RAM, VGA video 
card, 1.44MB floppy, internal SCSI hardisk..; you name it, it's there).
I rarely switch it on these days, although last week I had a nostaligic
attack and played some old 8 and 16-bit games on it. :)

    I do use KEGS32 a fair bit--it's really fantastic, not just as a IIgs
emulator, but as an 8-bit Apple II emulator as well. Best one I've 
seen to date.

    I'm planning to pick up a PocketPC in the near future and run
an Apple II emulator on that. I've already seen it done and it's 
almost eery running Copy II Plus or an old favorite Apple II game
(in full color and sound) on a tiny hand-held pocket device. I look
forward to the day when I can emulate an Apple II on a wrist watch! :)

    Right now I have an old Palm Pilot IIIe, though I've not seen any
Apple II emulators that will run on it so far (I'm love to know if one
exists--it should work, it's processor is essentially a 16 MHz 68000).

Mitchell Spector