Re: A couple of newbie questions

[gkomatsu@Hawaii.Edu (Galen Tatsuo Komatsu)]

In article <ECD2zs.4ty@nonexistent.com>, Richard T. Waters <richtw@cybernex.net> wrote:
>I recently got an Apple IIc.
	cheers!

>1) If I want to hook this upto my TV, can I just use the cable from my
>old original nintendo or atari?  I suspect this may not work, since I
>recall having to choose between channel 3 or 4 when I hooked those up.
>If this will not work, what do I need?

	Admittedly I don't have a //c (got one of just about every other
// cpu though...)  But if it's like any of the others, it only puts out
composite video.  Connecting it like your NES or Atari won't work.
However if you have a VCR hooked up, you can channel the video through
that.


>2)  I understand that while the nine pin mouse/joystick port has the
>same form as the PC serial port, the pinouts are not the same.  Are
>the pinouts the same as the old Atari/Commodore  64 joystick ports? If
>so can I use my joysticks and paddles from them?

	nope, the Atari/C64 joysticks are digital, meaning it'll only
report back if the stick in being pushed in a certain direction.  PCs
and Apple//s use analog controllers, look at the joystick and draw two
axes with the stick at the origin.  These joysticks report the horizontal
and vertical position of the stick along these axes with a range of 0-255.
0,0 is the top-left, 255,255 is the bottom right.
(not to confuse you, you can skip over this part, the joysticks used on
the Apple// is more like the Atari's paddles than the joystick...)

>3) Do I need to clean the floppy drive head(s)?  I have a 5 1/4
>cleaner disk which requires me to put a few drops of Alcohol on it and
>then do a directory on my IBM-PC.  Can I insert the disk in the IIc
>and do a CAT or will I screw up the disk drive?

	there's a couple of POKEs you can do which will turn the drive
motor on, but I've yet to tattoo them on my hand.  (and there's a cool
little Beagle Bros. program which will make your disk drive(s) sound
like a choo-choo. =^)
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