Re: You are Here! So: How did you get into Apple II Computing?

[Dave Astels <dave.astels@audesi.com>]

jim@calico.litterbox.com (Jim) writes:

> : On Thu, 21 May 1998 15:36:57 -0500, Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>
> : wrote:
> 
> : |>The May FAQs release has led to an email discussion about various
> : |>lead-ins to becoming an Apple II user. So ...
> : |>
> : |>How did you get into Apple II computing?

I figure I should wade into this now that I'm a reaffirmed Apple II user.

When I got started with computers (it'd be back in ... '79 or '80.. it
was late juniour high.. I'd have been ~15) I taught myself BASIC using
Commadore PETs that a local college library had for public use.  One I
had that mastered I mustered the courage to try my hand at one of the
elite machines (there were only 2 of them... and the had DISK
DRIVES!).  They were Apple ][+s packaged for/by Bell&Howell (charcoal
cases & black keyboard... I still think they looked cooler than the
Apple color scheme).  Anyway, my BASIC career moved along briskly
after that.

The next step was to get a computer of my own.  Apple ][ clones were
starting to appear, but were still outside my price range, so I
settled for a Sincliar ZX-81.  Shortly after that I discovered the
availability of Apple ][ clones.  I had a goal in sight.  Over the
next year or so I saved frugally & gathered the required bits &
pieces.  First a motherboard, then sockets.. power supply, chips,
keyboard, and finally a monitor.

At last I had my very own Apple ][+!  I did amazing things with that
machine..( it's still in my parents basement as far as I know... I'm
going to try to get it back when they visit).  I progressed through
Basic, assemble, pascal, and C... eventually getting the yurning for
something with a bit more muscle.  I was working parttime by that
point, and so with a regular paycheque and my father's help I took out
my first loan and bought a brand new Apple //e, complete with extended
80 col card.  I did some cool UI stuff with the extended character set
& douple hi-res graphics mode.

Over the course of this I build several custom hardware cards,
including sound effects (using the sound chip out of the Commadore 64)
and speech (using an SC01 phoneme synthesizer).

Alas all good things must end, and in a fit of insanity I sold my //e
to help finance a very early PC clone.  That was me through my
undergrad years after which it was replaced by a Sun 3 UNIX
workstation for several years.  That was followed by a brief
flirtation with a Mac Plus.  My professional life has so far been
limited to the various incarnations of WinDoze.  I've recently
installed Linux on a small laptop at home.

Now just last week one of the guys at work gave me a trunkfull of
"computer junk" (my wife's term :-) since he was moving and had to get
rid of some clutter.  About 2/3 of the stuff was Apple ][+ related
(unfortunatelly he felt compelled to keep his //e), including 2
working ][+ clones, several partially populated clone motherboards,
and a large boxfull (i.e. dozens) of various interface cards in
various states of population.  So, now I'm a Apple ][ user once again
and the timing is great!  I'm just embarking on a robotics project
that I've begun on my Linux box... hardware level interfacing will be
so much easier with the Apple ][ that I'm considering switching to it
as a development platform... it'll also be trivial to build embedded
controllers that will run the same code.

One of the systems I'm planning to set up for my kids to use for games
& to teach them some hardware/software basics.  I can't think of a
better machine for that than a ][+... it's what I learned on... it's
capable enought to do some serious projects, and simple enough to
understand.

So there you have it... once an Apple II user, always an Apple II user!

BTW.  If anyone has information on the various popular Apple II cards
that were commonly cloned as bare boards, I have a bunch that I'd like
to get working... especially a couple 128K boards.

-- 
;; .signature -- File added to the end of mail, containing joke or info.
(defvar me '((name "Dave Astels") (profession . "Software Engineer") 
	     (company . "AudeSi Technologies Inc.") (city . "Calgary")
	     (country . "Canada") (email . "astels@audesi.com")))