Re: Troubleshooting on an Apple II

["Sean Fahey" <a2fan@hotmail.com>]

"Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote in message
Ytqdnd0Pm-UwwaHeRVn-tg@comcast.com">news:Ytqdnd0Pm-UwwaHeRVn-tg@comcast.com...

> Interesting.  I almost suggested that this was the only application
> I could think of for such a mod, but decided it was improbable.  I
> guess I forgot to multiply by the very large number of Apple II's.  ;-)

Early in my career, I worked at a state operated mental retardation
hospital. We had a fleet of Apple II's for the kids and adults who lived
there - a couple  hundred all over the campus in class rooms, rec rooms and
in the day halls. Most of the staff were on Zenith PC's and a few Macs. Out
of that, about 40 of the Apple IIs were specially modified or had adaptive
firmware cards of one kind or another. We did things to those machines Apple
never intended, but it was so flexible and open - it was the hackable
computer. Adding hardware and programming them was easy.

I'd been there two years when someone in the clinical management team
decided the Apple II's were too old and would be replaced with proprietary
speech and switch boards, PC clones and other gear. Expensive stuff. So, we
rounded up all the Apple's and sent them to surplus - and the nightmare
began. The PC's didn't work as well in the environment as the Apples did.
The residents would sometimes take out their frustrations on the PC -
breaking it. The Apple's were tougher. Also, the PC's didn't lend themselves
to hacking and modding as easily - and the interfaces cost a lot more. In
the end, even the PCs got the boot... haha no pun intended... and most of
the residents had to make do with boards and tablets. Training was almost
impossible - 3 changes in as many years for those people.