Re: You guys are NUTS !

[dalloff@gcfn.org (Dave Althoff Jr)]

Outsider (shinlee@bellatlantic.net) wrote:
: Ur posts made me CRY and then LAUGH.
: I've fallen in love with my old Apple IIc all over again.
: It has less processing power then my old Palm III (2 megs, 25MHZ).
: I think my old Super NINTENDO has more processing power.

And my IIgs is slower (but has more memory) than my Psion Series 3mx. 
What's your point?  The IIgs has a much better keyboard than the Psion,
and the screen is a lot easier to read...and in color, too!

: Currently, I think its in the closet in a card board box with several towels
: over it, my cat uses it as a bed. Or is it my old Apple Powerbook DUO 210.
: Anyway, my cats loves whatever is making up his bedding.

: Hmm.... what can I possible do with it ?
: Hmm... cannt connect to the internet, unless anyone knows of a version of
: Netscape for the Apple II.

Can't use Netscape, of course, but you certainly can connect to the
Internet.  In fact, I'm doing it right now!  The IIgs makes a darned good
terminal.

: Hmm... cannt do CAD.

Actually, you can, but it's pretty limited.

: Hmm... cannt do C++ programming, or can I, I am not sure how much can be
: done with 128K of memory.

Not C++ (I think you can program C on the IIgs, but not on the //c.).  But
you can program in Apple PASCAL (if you can stand it!), SuperPILOT, 6502
Assembler, and of course, Applesoft BASIC.

: Hmm.... cannt watch DVD movie with it.

No, but with 560x192 maximum screen resolution, why would you want to? 
Much better to use a DVD player for watching DVD movies (I never
understood why someone would want to watch a movie on a computer when it
looks better on a good TV set).

: So many good memories about the Apple IIc as a kid . So much time spent
: learning to use it. So much time spent optimizing it. So much time spent
: collecting software for it. Learned to program Pascal on it.As a kid I would
: ride my bike for half an hour in the winter if I thought I could get a copy
: of a game. Such foolishness.

: I know !!!!
: Anyone have a idea on how I can convert it to be used as a monitoring system
: for my Fish Tank ! I am not joking ! It would look great by my fish tank,
: monitoring the pH, temperature, hardness, controling the lights, feeding the
: fish ! Any engineers out there ?

Well, the controlling would be the easy part...get yourself an X-10
computer interface and a couple of modules and you can use it to control
the lights.  With some creativity, you can even use it to do things like
chemistry and feeding.

Getting feedback from the tank would be a little more difficult; you'd
need to have a sensor that you can connect to the serial port or the
paddle port.  If you can convert the measurement to a resistance of 0-150k
ohms, you can use the paddle port for data input...

It's all perfectly feasible.  And some benefits to using the Apple?  No
hard drive, no fan, in fact no moving parts at all most of the time, and
you're not using it for anything else, so it can be devoted 100% to the
automation task.  One thing, though...you might want to invest in a No
Slot Clock if you intend to do real-time operations.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.
-- 
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