Re: Apple II vs Atari 800

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

Michael J. Mahon <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote:

> Ensor wrote:
> > "Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote:
> >   > Apple, in contrast, published *everything* needed to make
> >   >software, plug-in cards, and even more computers!
> > 
> > So, you're saying that the Atari Technical manuals I have not 6 feet away
> > from me are figments of my imagination? :-)
> > 
> > True they weren't shipped with the machine, but had to be bought seperately,
> > but they contain full schematics, operating system listings etc....
> > 
> > 
> > By the time of the XL/XE series machines Atari had stopped publishing such
> > manuals, but then again so had Apple etc.
> 
> They *never* stopped making all info available on the Apple II line.
> 
> It was automatically included with the Apple II and II+.
> 
> Around the time of the //e (1984+), as the typical user profile shifted
> toward "application users" instead of "programmer/enthusiasts", the
> provided documentation became more "user manual"-oriented--but full
> technical documentation was still available separately.

Apple started to reduce the level of detail by the time the IIgs was
released (1986). There are no official ROM listings for any part of the
IIgs firmware, nor for the IIc+, but they did publish schematics and
most other technical details.

The second edition of the IIc Technical Reference doesn't contain any
ROM listings (even for the original IIc), but the first edition did have
ROM listsing for the "UniDisk" IIc firmware, and I think I've seen a
supplement which lists at least one other revision.

(None of Apple's published firmware listings include Applesoft BASIC,
since that code is copyrighted by Microsoft.)

I'm not sure what their policy was with the Apple /// and Lisa, but I'm
not aware of any publically available ROM listings or schematics of any
Mac (no point - it wouldn't fit with the general philosophy).

> So for the Apple II, the details and examples were there from the
> beginning (the Red Book and the WozPak, for example)--just when
> they needed to be there.
> 
> I've often said that the Apple II was the last personal computer
> for which all the documentation needed to completely understand
> its hardware and software weighed less than the machine.  ;-)
> (The Apple //e shipped into the 1990s.)

The IIgs certainly wouldn't qualify on that measure. I needed a
moderately large shelf to hold my nearly complete set of IIgs technical
documentation.

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz