Re: What model Apple II did your school have?

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

Perry <Munged@Nospammers.NoNet> wrote:

> Just a quick survery:
> 
> What model Apple II did your school have (if any)?

We didn't have these modern computer things in my primary or
intermediate school, but there were two 48K Apple ][+ machines (each
with two 5.25" drives) at my high school (Wellington High) when I
started in 1981.  (The first one had been purchased in 1980 - I remember
seeing it when I went on a tour of the school that year.)

I only used them occasionally for the first half of the year, but took
computer studies and typing as options in the second half of the year,
and haven't looked back!  I learned to program in Pascal that year
(before touching BASIC, thank goodness, as it taught me good habits).

In 1982, the computers were moved to a larger lab and grew to five ][+s.
I taught myself BASIC and started dabbling with machine code around this
time.  Computer studies and typing as options again.

In 1983, we replaced the ][+s with Apple IIes (all 64K with an 80 column
card, I think), and set them up on a network (Nestar, consisting of a
shared 20 MB hard drive controlled by a ][+, and a parallel cable
connecting all of the workstations to the server).  By this stage I was
getting seriously interested in the innards of the machines, and was
teaching myself everything I could find out about the IIe.  I was also
assisting with the running of the computer system and founded the school
computer club.  I was also acting as a tutor at computer camps during
school holidays, which gave me some exposure to other computer platforms
like the BBC Model B and Commodore Vic 20 (though nothing detailed).  I
wasn't able to take any computer-related courses this year, as Computer
Studies wasn't an examination subject (yet).

1984 brought in more Apple IIes, and most of them were probably upgraded
to 128K by this stage.  I took Computer Studies again, during which I
learned Logo (and haven't used it since).  I started dabbling with
ProDOS, and disassembled the firmware of the Nestar network cards
sufficiently to be able to reburn the EPROM to contain a ProDOS block
driver, allowing the network to support ProDOS (adding to its existing
support for Pascal and DOS 3.3).  This year also saw the founding of the
Wellington Apple Users Group, which had its in inaugural meeting in the
staffroom at Wellington High School.  I joined as a student member at
this meeting, and I'm one of the few founding members still in the club
(now known as the Wellington Macintosh Society; I'm in my second year as
President, having been on the committee since about 1989).

By 1985, we had about 17 Apple IIes.  I expect most of them were
enhanced, and all had 128K.  Only a few of them had disk drives, as we
used the network for almost everything.  We even had a couple of obscure
third party memory expansion cards which gave them a little more RAM for
selected applications (probably a 128K auxiliary slot card with two
banks).  This was my last year at high school, during which my only
computer-related course was Applied Maths (one third of which was
effectively Computer Science).  I got a part time job (in the field of
embedded systems programming, where my experience with Apple II assembly
language came in very handy) during the holidays while going to
university, and I'm still doing the same job 17 years later!

I don't think we ever had a colour monitor on any of the Apple II
machines - we started out with a 9" black and white monitor around
1980-81 and migrated to 12" green monochrome monitors for the rest of
the time.  I recall two printers - one was an Epson wide carriage
(something like an MX80) and I forget the other one.  No other
peripherals of note.

I stayed in touch with the high school over the next couple of years.
The Apple II computer lab was broken up some time around 1987-1990, with
most of the computers being scattered around the school (e.g. to the
Physics department).  The school started using Macs and then went with a
two platform arrangement, with separate labs for PCs and Macs.  I don't
know what they are using now.

Few (if any) Apple IIs at university - the computer labs were using VAX
and IBM minicomputers (we undergraduates were only using the VAXes).
They had a lab of Macintosh SE computers for the graphics course I did
in 1989.

Since I spent most of my free time using the computers at high school,
and was able to borrow a portable CP/M computer from work during 1986, I
didn't bother to get my own computer until I bought a IIgs around July
1987.  Ah the beauty of colour!

I bought my first Mac in 1996, and haven't used the Apple IIgs very much
since then.  (I don't even know where my original IIgs is right now -
probably buried deep in the pile of boxes at the back of my bedroom.)
I'm now on my fifth Mac (PowerBook G4).

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz