RFC (Request For Comment)

I have been asked numerous times over the years to consider taking the Apple II History and to put out a print version of it. I’ve turned down the idea in the past (“It’s already online for free – why would anyone pay to have a print version of it?”), but in the past year I’ve been warming up to the idea. Over the couple of months I’ve been working on porting it from HTML to DOC, and I would like to announce today that, Lord willing, there will be a printed version of this History available for the first time ever. I expect to get involved in learning how to use iBooks Author and make this an iPad book as well.

What I’d like to ask for is help from the fans of the Apple II History site. I have a bit of updating to do with the History – there are parts of it that have not been touched in twenty years, despite the fact that things have happened with the Apple II since 1992. I am finding and updating the things that I can see need attention, but I know that there are important parts of the Apple II story that I don’t know, or don’t know well enough to make this the definitive story that it should be.

Here is what I could use:

• Comments about content that is just wrong. If you know of anything I have put in this history that desparately needs correction, let me know.
• Comments on things that need to be added. I don’t expect to be able to include every bit of trivia about the Apple II that I can scrape together, but if there is a company or product that you think I should discuss, let’s talk about it. To be able to tell a story about a product or company will require that someone TELL me about it (if I knew about it already, I would have already included it).
• I would also be interested to collect stories from Apple II owners or users that tells your story, about how you got started with the Apple II, why you liked (or still like) the Apple II, etc. If you want to tell a story but don’t want to be mentioned in the book by name, just let me know and I’ll make it an anonymous entry.

Any product photos that you would iike to contribute would also be accepted, though I cannot commit to using all that might be donated, nor can I afford to purchase photos.

Any information that you might want to tell me about should be sent to here on this site. I will get back to you with additional questions if I have any.

I would really like to have my additional content and revision of old content completed in time to have a print book available for distribution by summer. So repost this, blog about it, and spread the word! I will post informtion later about how I’m going to work out funding for this project; I don’t yet know if a Kickstarter-type of funding will be necessary. I will also start posting comments in the blog here about progress on work to update existing or to add extra chapters to the story.