Re: Apple ][e - Getting started

[fl332@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (John L. Graham)]

Sounds like you've got the hardware already, so you're after system
software. Drop Mike Westerfield at Byteworks (MikeW50@aol.com) an
eMail and ask for a price list. He's got the original Apple system
software.

The disks you'll need to dig up are double sided, double density. The
drives themselves are single sided, but you'll never find single
sided disks. You can use side 2 by just adding a notch in the right
place and flipping the disk over.

The IIe used several operating systems, but the most common are Dos 3.3
and ProDOS. Dos 3.3 is the older of the two and not a bad system, though
a popular variant called ProntoDOS was much faster. ProDOS is more
flexible, but you'll need a utility disk to format disks and copy files.
My guess you're just looking to tinker at first anyway so Dos 3.3
should work fine.

Yep, you can start hacking BASIC (Applesoft BASIC) right away. BASIC is
in the autostart ROMs so you don't need a program disk. Once the computer
is started press Control-Reset. The machine will quit accessing the drives
and give you the Applesoft ']' prompt. From here you can enter BASIC code,
but without a DOS loaded you can't save programs.

For fun try the ever popular...

     10 N=N+1
     20 PRINT N;
     30 GOTO 10

Type run and watch it fly. Press Control-C to stop.

For another cheap thrill...

     10 HGR
     20 HCOLOR= 3
     30 FOR X = 0 TO 279
     40 A = 20*X/279
     50 Y = 80 + 75*SIN(A)
     60 HPLOT X,Y
     70 NEXT
     80 HTAB 1
     90 VTAB 22
     100 PRINT "FINISHED."

Type 'TEXT' to turn off the graphics page when the program's finished.

For more fun see if your local library has any old Apple II books, and for
some real fun drop Vernier Software an eMail (Vernier@Vernier.com) and ask
for their catalog which includes kits for the Apple II.

-John