[no subject]

So, most newsgroup-engendered "collaborations" soon wither on
the vine.  Too bad, but true.  Many like to point to the "open source"
movement as a contradiction of this dynamic, and to some degree
it is applicable.  But vital open source projects are in areas where
there is active competition to improve the product, and a pool of
many possible contributors who would like to "get a medal" for
advancing the cause.  Hobbyist enterprises like the Apple II
cmmunity today are not such "hot" environments--one can put
a project on the back burner for a year or two without any fear
that they will be "scooped", so the urgency in collaborating is
absent.  You, yourself, have noted that the natural state of things
is that nothing much is developed.

New people do enter the community all the time, and find help
and comfort in it, which is some compensation for the experience
that leaves each year.  But on balance, I think it is clear that the
Apple II is not poised on the brink of major breakthroughs in
capablilty and relevance.  It is loved for what it is, a wonderful
reminder of a day gone by, when one could change the world
with a handful of LSTTL parts and/or a coding pad--when all
the documentation needed to completly understand a machine
weighed less than the machine itself.

>> There are many voices in this community--some dormant for random
>> periods of time--who speak with some understanding and authority.
>> When they say that a thing cannot be done or need not be done, there
>> is a fair chance that they are describing reality. This is not nay-saying,
>> this is "just the facts".
>
>But if the problem is a lack of hardware, let's duplicate some of the good
>out of stock and out of date versions and improve them not only in size
>and cost, but in performance if possible.

Careful--"improving" them reminds me of the suggestion to put a 2.8GHz
PIII into a IIgs case!  ;-)  WTF?

Duplicating (copyright be damned!  ;-) useful boards could be interesting
for some few boards--but the most interesting ones have proprietary gate
arrays on them--not your average Radio Shack parts!

The reason that most "new" boards cost around $100 is that the
maker loses money with each one sold if they are not priced in
that vicinity--remember, we are talking a few a month, at most.
And the investment to build them is all up front.

If you have the tools and ability, it is not difficult to reverse-engineer,
or design from scratch, interfaces that you find useful.  But to do
this you will have to value your time at zero--that is, do it for love.

But to then manufacture them requires a very different kind of
investment--mindless board stuffing and soldering, best done at
least a dozen at a time so that it becomes sufficiently mechanical
that you hardly know what you are doing.  This is harder to justify
as a labor of love!  Most people want to be paid for doing something
so mind-numbing (unless it's watching "reality TV"  ;-). 

<snip>

>> WRT your observation that there are inexpensive microcontrollers now
>
>WRT?

With Respect To--which has been around for a lot longer than the
Internet.  ;-)

>> that could enable, for example, connecting a Disk ][ to a PC parallel
>> port, you are absolutely correct.  This is, in fact, an example of the kind
>> of external hardware that can make such a connection possible.  I would
>> be delighted if someone wrote a PIC program that would graft these
>> "genetically incompatible" organisms together.  ;-)  It should be possible
>> to make something less expensive and less general than a Catweasel
>> board to connect Apple II disk drives to a PC.
>
>I'm trying, but all I have so far is generic assembly code for 6502+.
>I need more closely knit Apple II info. It's there, just all over God's
>internet. Would be nice to have that Opus II package. Just can't
>swing it right now.

Actually, the big problem in connecting a Disk ][ to a PC is the
PC software.  And the most useful PC platform (meaning of the
most use to the most people) is Win32, despite the shouting
of some to the contrary.  Of course, if its a labor of love, who
cares how many others can use it.  ;-)

<snip>

> ...for example, I placed a superdrive controller in slot 5 of my IIe,
>then attached the 800k drive. Leaving the 5.25 empty of disk, it sat
>there waiting for one, never scanning down to slot 5 for the 800k.
>Why? Whine to me please. ;-)

Recall that the Disk ][ controller was the first bootable peripheral for
the Apple II, so when the Autostart ROM finds it in a higher-numbered
slot than your Superdrive Controller, and gives it control to boot a 5.25"
disk, it keeps on trying and trying and trying, since it "knows" that
there's nothing else to boot from!  By the time that the 3.5" Controller
was made, "everyone knew" that it was only one of many potential
bootable devices, and so it should time out after a while to give
another one a chance.  Since history loves Disk ][ Controllers to
be in slot 6, move your preferred boot device up to slot 7.

>> >Let's get together and make the Apple II like Woz did, with
>> >persistance and insistance. Am I getting my point across or
>> >am I talking to a wall? Maybe, but I want my Apple IIs to
>> >sing and dance as much as they can, don't you?
>>
>> I sure do!  My past efforts have been directed toward making
>> Apple II's "sing" (see .sig), but lately I've been using them to do
>> things that depend on specialized peripherals, so my efforts are
>> not of general interest. ;-)
>
>Many have ideas that are being performed inside the machine.
>This is all well and good for their machine, but what about others,
>they would need to perform all the same hacks and what if they
>have no knowledge of the inner workings? I believe that the Apple
>II should remain intact whenever possible. Thusly requiring cards
>cables and the like which can be connected by even the least
>knowledgeable. Agreed?

I always felt that a software hack should run unmodified, widely
available hardware.  That's why my sound editor and sampled
sound player runs on unaccelerated, unexpanded, unenhanced
Apple II's.  The only concession I made to modernity was using
lower case, and even that is trivially fixed.  Of course, it does use
ProDOS, so that requires a 64K machine, but most Apple II's have
been at least 64K since 1987!

The reason for my preference is simply that the hack should be
usable by almost everyone "out of the box".  I also most appreciate
hacks that are exercises in "resource constrained" programming--
"Look how much can be done with so little."

Cheers!


-michael

Check out amazing quality 8-bit Apple sound on my
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/