Re: Apple II sucks

[Cyrus Roton <croton@ridgecrest.ca.us>]

Right-on, David. You tell it like it is. The detractors usually don't 
know what they are talking about.

My favorite reply to those who knock the Apple2 is, "Do you know that the 
Aple2 still can do everything it was designed to do, that it still can 
run every bit of software that was ever written for it, that new software 
still is being written, and that new applications for the machine still 
are being found?"

My Apple IIe has a meg of RAM, two 5.25 drives, one 3.5 drive, a hard 
drive, a serial card, a parallel card, mouse, graphics tablet, a chip 
tester card, two EPROM burners, and more. Heck, I need a spare IIe just 
to handle the overflow of functions.

I have two Macs and access to PCs, but my IIe still gets used for some 
things. For example, when I designed an electronic organ, a while back, I 
wanted to use a PROM to control most of the functions (like delayed 
vibrato, sustain, soft attack, etc.). With the IIe, it was quick and easy 
to write a simulator program to test all the functions of the organ. 
Thus, I was able to edit the PROM image in memory. When I finally burned 
the PROM, it was perfect the first try.

I have a digitizer for my o-scope ("Wave Saver"). I can capture a 
wave-form, transfer it to my IIe (via a simple interface card I wired), 
display the wave on the IIe screen, calculate the Fourier series to get 
the harmonic structure of the wave, plot and save the results. Then I can 
use the Linear Circuit Frequency Response program I wrote and design a 
filter for a synthesizer to reproduce the wave (ie., in a musical 
instrument).

Sure, this kind of thing can be done on other systems. But, not as easily 
and at such a low cost for equipment.

As we Apple2 lovers know, there is no end to what can be done with the 
old A2.

Cyrus Roton   croton@ridgecrest.ca.us
Ridgecrest Apple User Group