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

[ismdr@aol.com (ISMDR)]

Rubywand wrote:

> How did you get into Apple II computing?

In April of 1980 we discovered that my wife was pregnant with our first child,
due
in October.  I had heard from various friends that once you started a family
your
discretionary income disappeared (unfortunately this is true), so I started
doing
some _serious_ investigation into a personal computer.

I had looked at them for the previous 2 years, but my soldering skills were,
and
still are, non-existent, so it had to be ready to go out of the box.  At the
time, there
were a number of machines to choose from (TRS-80, Ohio Scientific, Bally, the
Color Computer by somebody, and of course, Apple).

I talked to salesmen every place I could, made wall-size charts comparing
features
and read every article I could get my hands on.  Eventually the Apple won out 
based on color, and the fact that it had 2 Hi-Res pages that you could swap in
and out with a softswitch (I've been programming for 24 years now, and I was
going
to write the Great American Game, like some people are going to write the Great
American Novel).

When I ordered the computer, the Apple II+ was just becoming available, and I 
had my choice of an Apple II or the II+.  Since the II+ was the newer version,
I went with that, paid an extra $100 to bump the RAM to 32k, and was off on my
Apple adventure.  I took a day of vacation the day after I took delivery,
figuring
that I would be up all night (a self-fulfilling prophecy if I ever heard one).

The next morning I had been through all the manuals, had a pretty good command
of Applesoft, and was ready to take on the world.  Life got in the way,
however,
and the closest I ever came to fame and fortune was "Mike's Moving Marble Maze"
in the old Softside magazine.

I used the II+ until I gave in and got my GS in 1989.  Since then, I've
acquired a
IIc, a IIc+, another 2 GS's and enough peripherals to fill a closet.  My only
regret
is that Apple didn't find a way to continue the II line.  I've got games
running on
my GS that my son (he's 17 now), still plays, and they stack up well against
Wintel.

ISMDR
Mike Rasmussen