Meomories of II

The Woz is speaking at Microsoft today.

Some people can trace their family history with a certain amount of pride. "My ancestor tuned Mozart's piano" or "my family was one of the original families of the Mayflower". Like one of those stickers you see on the back of a mini-van: My kid is an honor role student at Ender Elementary. If it works for you, it works for me.

I can trace my computer history. And thanks to the Woz, a large portion of that history was with the Apple //e in its various forms. My computer history looks like this:

  • Late 1970's -- Dumb terminals linking with Wylbur, an interpreter for the mainframe at the universisty. My favorite terminal was the Act 5a my dad picked up for a staggering amount of cash -- $500? Something like that. I "programmed" simple procedural games using what I believe was a job control language. My earliest experiences were with a Novation J-Cat manual-coupling modem where you'd dial the mainframe, wait for the right tone, slap it in the coupling then toggle the switch to "on" or something.
  • 1980 / 1981 -- Act 5A to Prime/OS system running Prime/OS Basic. When my father wasn't running SAS or running other jobs, I'd get to use a kids account the op set up special for me. Not only did I cut my programming teeth using Prime/OS Basic using a basic book for young folks (it had elephants on some of the pages), the ops left all of the hugely fun games installed, from Hunt the Wumpus ["there are bats here"] to Dragster, Trek and Hammurabi. My apps were mostly simple adventure games or ascii-character "animation" using escape codes. I even had graph paper for laying out code (and would do so at school).
  • 1983 - Atari 800XL with Atari Tape Drive. I couldn't convince Santa to pony up the $250 for the disk drive at K-Mart (a price equal to the cost of the machine + tape drive). It was hooked up to the same television claimed by the Atari 2600. My extra cash was spent on "Inside the Atari", "Peeks and Pokes", "Antic" and a couple of the video game rags (Video Games & Computer Entertainment and Electronic Gaming Monthly). I did a lot of stuff in basic including a simple database program that used the Atari's ability to "self-program" -- it could modify basic while running. I even wrote a very simple game. And played games, one was "Mountain King" (I think), a platformer where you run through levels collecting gems to the music of "In the hall of the mountain king". Ahh, wasted youth.
  • 1984 - Apple //e with Duo Disk Drive and Apple //e Monochrome Monitor. Yeah baby! As Frank N. Footer said, its the "anticipa........................tion". I saved for the //e and finally had the $1150 needed to buy a package at educational discount using my dad's academic credentials. I was out when it came in so my mom picked it up and had it waiting in the living room. I came home and started putting it together ignoring my parents "read the instructions first"...I knew what to do. And when the machine blinked on and spun up S6, D1 it was music to my ears.
  • 1986 - Apple IIgs. Using my membership in the Apple Developer Network, I sold my //e + all of the fixings and bought a GS. I sold it a month later when it took 10 minutes to compile a simple C program.
  • 1986 to present -  IBM PC and clones. I have owned a few used macs (Arashi rocks and 8-Ball Deluxe is still my favorite all-time pin sim) but mostly PC's. It was hard to beat the amount of software available and Turbo Pascal ran faster on the PC clone than on my Microsoft CP/M card in the //e.

The //e and I spent a lot of time together. At first I explored assembly and Applesoft, but soon I had scratched up enough money to get a Micromodem //e (and later an Apple Super Serial Card + US Robotics 1200 Baud modem) and hit the local bulletin boards. There I hooked up with a few hackers and software guys, we had get togethers (and had Drol tourneys). A few of the guys could afford nice toys like Sider hard drives and Novation Apple Cat modems with the 212A upgrade (and firmware goodies for tone decoding and additional library routines) but I only had enough to buy an Apple //e Mouse, a few additional disk drives, and a used wide-carriage Imagewriter I printer and Super Serial Card.

I learned quite a bit about programming by writing a few applications (one was a character generator for a paper/pencil game) and by engaging in spirited hunts through programs from other folks. And while I don't remember all of the Apple //e memory map, I still can reboot the machine 10 different ways, copy a chunk of memory from one location onto the video screen, and click the speaker.

The Apple //e really got me hooked into computing. It was a friendly machine with a strong following and a good amount of software, documentation and hardware goodies. I spent literally hours a day tinkering with the machine and rifling through technical manuals (and playing Tapian). It was more of a lifestyle than a computer.

I eventually sold it (I should have kept the mockingboard). I do have a full complement of Apple stuff in my basement including Apple Cat's, Siders, i/o cards of all kind and a vast collection of software (some with original packaging). I don't make much time to use the stuff anymore (Taipan on the //c+ and Arkanoid: Revenge of Doh on the GS) and will be getting rid of it soon. Hopefully to someone who will use it.

Computing after the //e wasn't the same. Sure, there was more megahertz and memory and faster modems and better monitors, but the sense of community was gone. I had more fun parrying with the Commodore (l)users (and they with us) than talking up my PC clone. Yawn. Kinda like driving an old Thunderbird versus a new Taurus; the Taurus is better/safer/faster/etc but the drive in the Thunderbird was more visceral.

Thanks for the memories Woz.