In referring to the first Apple II released, the one before the Apple II Plus, it is common to call it the Apple II standard. The one thing I haves noticed as I’ve looked for pictures of the Apple II on the Internet is that I don’t believe there is a single one that shows what an actual Apple II system would have commonly looked like back in 1977, thirty-five years ago, when it was first released. Every picture I find shows either just the computer, or the computer with a monitor and a Disk II drive. But the Disk II did not appear until July of 1978, a full year later.

The earliest Apple II owners did what most of the microcomputer hobbyists of the day did – they used the lowly cassette to save the programs they wrote, or possibly to load software that was purchased. And even after the Disk II did appear in 1978, it was still $495. Although this was less costly than floppy disk drives for other micros of the the day^[1], it was still about one third of the cost of the entry level Apple II ! For many who pioneered the use of the Apple II, it was simply not affordable to get that expensive (though highly desirable) Disk II drive, at least not for a couple of years. From 1977 until around 1982, there were a significant number of software titles that were sold on cassette, because it was the most affordable way to use the computer.

Antoine Vignau of Brutal Deluxe has created a cassette repository on his web site, documenting as many Apple II  (and Apple-1) software products that were released on cassette as he can find.

The point I wish to make is that the most accurate photo of an early Apple II system would be something like this:

Click on the picture for a larger view. Notice that we don’t have any of that fancy stuff – no disk, no monochrome monitor (certainly no color monitors were affordable in 1977!) We have an Apple II (not Plus), with the Panasonic RQ-2102 cassette tape player/recorder, and a standard television to view it all on. Now this is a proper Apple II system, circa 1977 through the early 1980s for many early owners.

Also notice that Apple apparently thought the Panasonic cassette was the best choice; they actually recommended this specific brand as best suited to use with an Apple II. Mike Willegal’s Apple Cassette Interface Notes page states that the RQ-2102 was the one Apple recommended. I find searching through the Red Book that the Panasonic RQ-309 DS is the one mentioned there. (A video on YouTube shows the 309 DS, and it is very similar in appearance to the 2102.) You can purchase a Panasonic RQ-2102 (as I did) from Amazon here, although I see the price has gone up since I bought mine a few months ago. Here is a closer up view of the player from the photo shoot of Carl Knoblock’s Apple II:

If you look closely, you’ll see that the tape drive contains a genuine Apple cassette – in this case, it is a tape of Applesoft IIa (not sure what the difference was between Applesoft II and IIa).

And as I’ve mentioned before, Apple still has a couple of pages that are buried deep on its web pages that deal with the obsolete Apple II, and even deal with the even more obsolete cassette tape storage format. You can see them here:

The Apple II Cassette Interface (1 of 2)

The Apple II Cassette Interface (2 of 2)

1. ^[1]Competing floppy drives for S100 computers ranged from $599 for North Star’s Micro Disk System to as much as $1500 for the Altair Floppy Disk 88-DCDD with one drive and two cards to plug into one of the slots on an Altair. Hogg, Douglas, “Floppy Disks…What’s the Real Story?”, Kilobaud, March 1977, pp. 70-76, as found on <www.retrotechnology.com/dri/first_floppy.html>↩

I have not brought it up much on this blog before, but there is a great event that comes up every year in July. In sunny and hot Kansas City, Missouri is the quintessential Apple II meeting, KansasFest. I highly recommend it for all who want to experience a group of people who are some of the most knowledgable Apple II folks in the world. The keynote speaker this year is John Romero, noted game designer, who cut his teeth programming on the Apple II way back when.

You can find out more about the event at the link here, and if interested, you can register here.

There are those who are collectors who do a little polishing and the job is done.

And then there are collectors that do it like Rick’s Restorations on the History channel. They tear it down to the basics, clean up every piece, and then reassemble it to functional condition.

Todd Harrison has a nicely detailed blog post on how he does that very thing with an Apple II Plus, plus Monitor III, plus Disk II drives (one of which was not working until he did some service on it).

Shows what kind of fun one can have with a couple hundred dollars spent on eBay! Thanks, Todd.

In my Languages chapter, in the story about the creation of Applesoft I, I make mention of Cliff Huston and his own IMSAI computer that was used to help Randy Wigginton rework the 6502 Microsoft BASIC that later became the first version of Applesoft, released in January 1978. The Huston brothers, Cliff and Dick, worked for several years at Apple. (In fact, in my last post I announced some additional information about the creation of ProDOS in the early 1980s, and how Dick Huston was the product champion that made it happen.)

The Hustons had placed some of their historical artifacts on the auction market a couple of years ago, including an Apple-1 board. They have just posted an auction for the other Apple-1 board, as well as the very IMSAI computer that Randy Wigginton used in his programming of Applesoft BASIC back in 1977 and afterwards. They tell a very entertaining story about the entire process, and you can read about it (and the auction) here.

I was never an Altair or IMSAI fan to the point where I would want to try for one of these antiques; but if I was ever going to get one, this special unit would be my dream IMSAI system, because of its historical significance.

Dick and Cliff Huston were engineers at Apple who worked on and for the Apple II in the 1970s and early 1980s. They preserved items from their time at the company, and made some of them available to purchase in the past two years. Antoine Vignau of Brutal Deluxe, who is himself an archivist of early Apple history, purchased the Huston’s printout of the source code of the first ProDOS Golden Master. Included with this printout were notes of the development process and preliminary manuals. These notes have been shared with me, and I am grateful to the Huston brothers and to Antoine Vignau for the opportunity to add to the story of ProDOS you can read here. If you’ve never heard of DOS 3.4, DOS 4.0, or XDOS, get the full story!

Have finally completed my revisions and additions to the Magazines chapters (part 1 and part 2), barring any further information that comes back as a response to some remaining email inquiries.

Many of the entries have been expanded, and some have been completely rewritten. Additionally, I have more magazine covers displayed, and in the case of disk magazines have included some screen shots.

Even the section about Foreign Apple II magazines has been expanded a bit, thanks to information I was able to find on the Internet that was not available to me 20 years ago. Even so, I have very little information I can find about Peeker (a German publication), and the several Netherlands magazines that have been mentioned in the History for many years; on these magazines, there just isn’t much on the Internet available about them.

As usual, anyone who has information about any of these magazines that I have excluded that seems important, let me know and I’ll see if it can be added.

Now, onward to updates to Telecommunications!

The KansasFest 2012 keynote speaker this year is John Romero, who got his start writing games for the Apple II computer, in various magazines, and in the disk magazines UpTime and Softdisk. When he left Softdisk to start his own company and create shareware games, one of the groundbreaking games he helped create established the entire genre of first-persone shooters. Wolfenstein 3D was a reinvention of the older Apple II game Castle Wolfenstein, and although it was not made for the Apple IIGS (or Apple II) in the beginning, it eventually did make its way to the GS. You can read the story in a new Spotlight story here.

News today about another Apple II book that is in the works. Here is the press release, as posted at the VintageComputer forums:

Lincoln, IL – Apr. 20, 2012 – David Finnigan and Mac GUI Vault announce today the first paperback book exclusively about the Apple II to be published in over a decade.

The New Apple II User’s Guide, which is to be self-published on Amazon.com as a trade paperback book, includes over 650 pages. It is intended for all Apple II users, from the absolute beginner to the experienced veteran. The purpose of the book is to serve as a guide to all models of Apple II, and explain the basics of setup, programming, networking, and other specialized topics.

The first chapters deal with identifying each model of Apple and common peripherals and accessories. The next chapters are a complete introduction and coverage of how to program in BASIC. Further chapters detail advanced programming topics such as screen formatting, graphics, sound, and printing. The later chapters complete the book with specialized topics including the disk system, networking and the Internet, using the low-level machine monitor, and subjects specific to the Apple IIgs.

Many appendices hold miscellaneous information of use to programmers, including a summary of all BASIC and disk commands, error messages, ASCII charts and other tables, repair and troubleshooting tips, and how to use software to transfer disks to a modern computer. The book includes a full glossary and index.

No publication date is set, but Mr. Finnigan, the author, hopes for a May date. The book is expected to sell for around $28.

The official book web site is offered in English:

http://macgui.com/newa2guide/

and in French:

http://macgui.com/newa2guide/fr/

Mac GUI Vault, the creation of David Finnigan, is an online source for retro Apple II and Macintosh enthusiasts. It features a fully cataloged and searchable database of software files, pictures, text and PDF files, and Usenet posts. The site has become a popular destination, having over 100,000 visitors and over 50,000 files downloaded last year alone. The New Apple II User’s Guide is its first physical product offering.

Mr. Finnigan may be contacted by email: df@macgui.com

It sounds like a great book! Go get it; watch the count down at MacGUI.

Just had to post the link to this great story in Wired. Jordan Mechner, author of Prince of Persia recently discovered his old disks of source code, and utilized the service of master Apple II collector Tony Diaz (to recover the data from very old floppy disks), and master archivist Jason Scott to put the code on Archive.org for all to see. See the story here.

I’m obviously late to the Apple II 35th birthday party. Being busy with life and writing and such drives those calculations right from one’s mind. Hope this bowl of fruit and bag of M&Ms from Wal-Mart helps…

As many others have posted today, this is the 35th anniversary of the First West Coast Computer Faire, at which Apple Computer, Inc. made its grand introduction of the Apple II computer. Harry McCracken has been the most prolific, with no less than three well done posts about this event:

• Fourteen Ways To Celebrate The Apple II’s 35th Birthday  – which mentions my humble web site in the number 1 position; thank you Mr. McCracken!
• Photos: The Apple II Turns 35 – includes my famous VisiCalc screen shot.
• Apple II Forever: a 35th-Anniversary Tribute to Apple’s First Iconic Product – an accurate capsule history of the product

Perhaps this summer at KansasFest we’ll have some additional 35th birthday celebration!