I just had a really cool experience.
In my teens, I was fortunate to own an Apple //gs. Thanks to my parents for
that. I was a die-hard Apple // fan. I went to every local Apple // event,
ran an Apple // BBS, and learnt to program on the Apple //. First, it was
Applesoft, and then I got acquainted with assembly.
As a mischievous and clueless teen, I wrote a simple & short program in
assembly that made changes to the battery ram so that the border color,
background color, and text color all equal to black, and changed the boot
device to something like slot 2. "This program will render your computer
inoperable." The program warned the user. "Are you sure you want to
continue?" "Are you sure you really want to continue?" The unlucky user then
finds her Apple //gs with the "black screen of death", unable to reboot,
even if she turned the machine on and off. Those were the fun days. >:)
In university in the early 90s, I made the really difficult decision to part
with my Apple //gs. A SLIP connection to the Internet was becoming
increasingly important to me as a computer science undergraduate. It was
also obvious that Apple // users are abandoning the platform in droves. And
of course, Apple has abandoned Apple // long before. I posted a for sale ad
in the usenet. My GS went to a new owner and a new PC took over the vacant
real estate. The buyer got an extremely good deal. He received a fully
loaded GS with all the licensed software I had: AWGS, the ORCA/M assembler,
among many other titles and all the development references & books. I lost
all contact with the Apple // world since then.
I have been developing for the Windows platform for many years now. Just
recently, I made a couple bids on eBay, and actually got an iMac. I thought
this will be my toy machine until I get bored of it. And then, I found this
really amazing product called 'Bernie ][ the rescue.' It's very stable and
runs better than the real GS.
For the past few days, I have been browsing the net for some Apple //gs
software to download. Under utility section of many ftp download sites I
kept on seeing this program called 'GS Fast Copy.' Since I am running an
emulation of an Apple //gs, there is really no need for a copy program, so I
ignored it for a few days. This afternoon, I ran into it again and I thought
the name seemed familiar so I decided to download it. The archive contained
the executable, source code, and the instructions.
After running it, the screen displays:
GS Fast Copy V2.2.1a
Copyrighted 1990-91 by Tom Peng
You can't imagine my joy seeing this!! This was a program I had written in
semi-65c816 assembly (switching back and force between 65c02 and 65c816) and
submitted to SoftDisk in the early 90s but didn't get published. It was
rejected for not being GS/OS friendly. However, another program I wrote
called GAC (GS Ampersand Commands) did get published. (GAC is an Applesoft
extension that controls most battery RAM parameters, taking from my
experience writing very naughty code.)
Never did I realize that the program actually got archived on the Internet.
And I have totally forgotten about it. Here is one site you can find it:
http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Services/PDA/AppleGSMiscellaneous.shtml
The description of the program is inaccurate, however. The program is not
compatible with GS/OS. It's NOT shareware. The UI is less than desirable,
but the program only occupies 7 ProDOS blocks. I submitted it to Softdisk
for publication and they rejected it, It should have never leaked into the
public domain. Nevertheless, the program does make very quick copies of 3.5'
and 5.25' disks under ProDOS 8. The more memory you have the fewer
disk-swapping you will need to perform. And if you have 1.25MB of RAM as
most serious Apple //gs had in the early 90s, the program only requires one
pass to copy a 800K 3.5' disk. Out of curiosity, I ran the program under
emulation and it ran perfectly copying a disk in seconds!! :)
I guess the time I spent studying ProDOS MLI calls and reading "Inside
ProDOS" written by Gary B. Little, sort of paid off. Seeing my hack-job
archived on the Internet brings back lots of good memories. This is just too
cool.
I made a few other submission to publishers back then. Mindspring
Publications published my "Long Peek, Poke, and Calls" in the Nibble
magazine. For a teenage person I was back then, I was pretty pleased to
receive the measly cheque they sent me. I would like to see if any of my
other failed or successful submissions leaked to the public domain like GS
Fast Copy did.
I am totally happy with my iMac purchase even if I just run GS emulation on
it. Now, I want to track down a copy of Orca/M or maybe a high level
language (emulation is fast!) and do some non-serious Apple // programming
just for kicks.
Tom Peng
Mediastep Software Inc.
email address = tom@spamspam.mediastep.com