RetroRetrospective

January 9th, 2014

WW2014 Update 1 – Back to the Drawing Board :(

8 Comments, Apple2, Programming, RetroChallange, by Michael.

Thought I’d get a jump on the rewriting of S-Basic in S-Basic by dumping the S-Basic Applesoft code to a text file, then reformatting it as S-Basic, then running it through S-Basic5.3 on my disk image.

Great idea, but . . . . .

The code is just too unstructured. Too many unexpected terminations within a routine using a GOTO that drops you part way into another routine. Arrrrrrrrgh!

I love structure, indenting, flow control, so looks like I’ve got to do it myself then.

So back to my original plan of writing from scratch using the Applesoft listing as a guide only.

Tags: Apple2, Nibble Magazine, Programming, RetroChallange, S-Basic

January 3rd, 2014

“2014 Winter Warmup”?

10 Comments, Apple2, Programming, RetroChallange, by Michael.

Nibble Programmer 1983 Issue 06

OK, so it’s summer here in Australia, so what is this “Winter Warmup” thing. 2014WW is the Retrochallenge and to quote the site:

“In a nutshell, the RetroChallenge is a loosely disorganised gathering of RetroComputing enthusiasts who collectively do stuff with old computers for a month.

The event is very much open to interpretation… individuals set there own challenges, which can range from programming to multimedia work; hardware restoration to exploring legacy networking… or just plain dicking around. It really doesn’t matter what you do, just so long as you do it.

While the RetroChallenge has its competitive side, it’s not really a contest… it’s more like global thermonuclear war — everyone can play, but nobody really wins.” More

Tags: Apple2, BASIC, Nibble Magazine, RetroChallange, S-Basic

September 12th, 2013

Apple LaserWriter 16/600

131 Comments, Printing, by Michael.

Apple LaserWriter 16/600

In a blog post at the RetroMacCast, I mentioned I’d picked up up an Apple LaserWriter 16/600 back in Nov’09, and getting it on my network New Years Eve 2009. As I said the printer came with an ethernet adaptor, so no problems putting it on the network, but without a control panel on the printer, how was I to set it up on my network so that my modern Mac and Linux PCs could find it, and print to it. More

Tags: Macintosh, Musings, Printer

September 5th, 2013

Apple EDVT for the Ethernet Adapter Card

12 Comments, Manuals, PDFs, by Michael.

Apple EDVT (click to download/view)

Another interesting find while plundering the treasures of eBay. “Apple Computer Inc . EDVT (Engineering Design Verification Test) ETHERNET ADAPTER CARD”

In my day job I have to produce documentation, as well as review documents produced by others, and it never ceases to amaze me how much extraneous verbiage people pad their work out with. I’ve always attempted to keep my documents succinct and relevant to the task at hand, so I was delighted when I came across this document in eBay.

Now that I’ve dropped it onto the scanner and OCRed it, it’s now posted here for others to enjoy.

Tags: Macintosh, Manuals

August 23rd, 2013

The AppleII Monitor Peeled

5 Comments, Apple2, Manuals, PDFs, by Michael.

You never quite know what you will find when you go browsing on eBay. A couple of weeks ago I came across “The Apple II Monitor Peeled” and the old style presentation of it intrigued me, so I put a bid on it, and won it for pretty much the hand written price in the corner of the front cover. Its ye olde charm, and printed on 3-hole paper with a two staples binding, it was too much to resist and just had to add it to my bookshelf.

A typewriter composed book written in 1979 (2nd printing) by William E. Dougherty, and perhaps his forward to the book would be the best description.

Tags: 6502, Apple2, Archiving, Manuals, Programming

May 8th, 2013

Programming like we did back in the day.

5 Comments, Programming, Random Thoughts, by Michael.

There is a new podcast coming from the Retrobits family by Earl Evans for all us ‘ancient’ programmers. Called “?NEXT WITHOUT FOR” it aims to discuss retro programming languages and systems, as well as new tools for current systems for creating programs to run on the old iron.

This got me thinking and remembering, that back in the 80’s and 90’s I used a mainframe document generation system called DCF (Document Composition Facility http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCRIPT_(markup)) and as well as a GML (Generalised Markup Language) extension it had quite a powerful scripting language itself.

One inadequacy that I encountered early on using DCF, was that there was very little loop control/processing available, so I created my own FOR/NEXT command, and to celebrate Earl’s new “?NEXT WITHOUT FOR” podcast, I’ve decided to post the code for my FOR and NEXT commands. More

Tags: 80s, DCF, Musings, Programming, retrobits

January 1st, 2013

What Do You Do On New Years Day?

3 Comments, Apple2, by Michael.

What do you do on New Years Day when you’ve got too many unfinished projects?

Tags: Apple2, PAL, VGA

December 30th, 2012

I’ve Found My First Macrosoft Project

9 Comments, Apple2, Macrosoft, Programming, by Michael.

I was tidying up my desk and found my copy of “Creating Adventure Games On Your Computer” by Tim Hartnell, I’d recently purchased off AbeBooks, and the little voice in the back of my head said, “This is it. This is the Macrosoft project you’ve been looking for.” More

Tags: Apple2, Macrosoft, Musings, Programming

November 21st, 2012

Classic Arcade Machines

9 Comments, Random Thoughts, by Michael.

Remember those days in the 80’s going to TimeZone, dropping in all those coins (or tokens), to play the latest machines, or playing Space Invaders down at the local shops. Well, here is the podcast to bring those memories back, as well as find out the history of those games, and trivia about them that you just won’t know how you survived without. More

Tags: 80s, Musings

October 26th, 2012

My First Macrosoft Program

12 Comments, Apple2, Programming, by Michael.

The time had come. Time to use the Macrosoft programming language for my MindCraft Assembler. Time to realise I’d forgotten more about ProDOS than I’d thought!

Tried booting the Macrosoft disk image on my Virtual][ emulator, only to find that it is not a bootable disk. What’s going on here? Tried the Assembler disk, and that booted up fine. Surely I couldn’t have been supplied a faulty disk image. Surely not? Desperate times call for desperate means . Yes, time to read the manual. (Technical types are permitted to cringe)

Tags: 6502, Apple2, Assembler, Macrosoft, Programming