Questions tagged [apple-ii]
The Apple II series of personal computers and related software and hardware. Use [apple-iigs] for the Apple IIgs in particular, or [apple] for Apple hardware in general.
231
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How to make a maximally compatible Integer BASIC (Apple II) game disk for the Internet Archive?
I'd like to get an old Apple II Integer BASIC game running on archive.org's embedded MAME in such a way that it just runs without the user having to choose anything from a menu or type any commands to ...
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1
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Where can I find the awesome programs from Apple II's Beagle Bros's Uncle Louie's two-line programs contest?
Back in the old nostalgic 1980's there were these very cool guys making fantastic programs for the Apple II, the Beagle Bros.
Among the very cool stuff they publish there were these amazing two-line ...
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1
answer
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How can I get reasonably-priced APPLE-II manuals? [closed]
I am making a emulated apple-ii based on a raspberry pi and a custom chassis. I would like to have physical manuals to go along with it.
Obvious approaches are to download and print one of, or to pay ...
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17
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1
answer
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Was any commercial end-user software written in PROMAL?
PROMAL is a procedural programming language from the 1980s. Its designer, Systems Management Associates, released compilers for the Commodore 64, Apple II, and IBM PC. The language and development ...
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12
votes
3
answers
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Disk copy protection schemes for Apple II
I have a vague recollection back in the late 70s of using a wonderful program called Locksmith (from memory, so I could be wrong).
It apparently could handle all the different ways that disk-based ...
- 2,386
9
votes
2
answers
788
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Extensions to Apple BASIC with ampersands
I have a vague recollection of some early software that extended the Apple II BASIC language, though I'm not sure if this was Integer or Applesoft BASIC.
It provided more features for the language by ...
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16
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2
answers
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Can someone make a photograph of the original Apple 1 Integer BASIC cassette?
I'm wondering if anyone here has an original Integer BASIC cassette and might be willing to upload an image of it to the wiki commons? There's a serious lack of imagery in the article in en.wiki, and ...
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11
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1
answer
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Can you read the character definitions (font) in an Apple II using PEEK in Applesoft BASIC?
Can you read the character definitions (font) from ROM in an Apple II using PEEK in Applesoft BASIC? You can do this on some other computers e.g. Sinclair ZX81, Commodore 64, and Amstrad PC1512, but ...
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Commodore / Apple II GEOS Document Cross-Platform Compatibility
As I have never used Graphic Environment Operating System (GEOS) on an Apple II (only I on a Commodore 64), I have always wondered were the documents created (from programs such as GeoWrite and ...
8
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2
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Could a Saturn 128K card be used as a /RAM device under ProDOS?
For starters, the Saturn 128K card was a RAM expansion card produced during the Apple ][+ era. From what I recall, unlike the later AUX slot RAM expansions for the Apple //e, it did not provide bank ...
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2
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0
answers
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Apple II c repair keyboard and check disk driver error [closed]
I'm new in this forum and I want to say hello to all and sorry my bad English!
I'm trying to repair an Apple II c computer that was stored in my house for many years. When I stored it, like 15 years ...
- 21
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1
answer
602
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Copy content between floppy disks on Apple II
I own an Apple IIe with the Apple DuoDisk device. I've been trying to find out if it is possible to copy content from a floppy disk inserted into the disk 1 slot into a floppy inserted on the disk 2 ...
- 293
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votes
1
answer
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How are Apple II address lines mapped to DRAM rows and columns?
The Apple II's MK4096 (4 Kbit) and MK4116 (16 Kbit) DRAM chips have
6 and 7 (respectively) address line inputs that are multiplexed: first the
row address bits and then the column address bits are ...
- 21k
4
votes
1
answer
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Does the Apple II's non-linear frame buffer layout help DRAM refresh?
The Apple II uses non-linear frame buffers for text and graphics. Rather
than storing each line in sequence at
lines 0-23: $400, $428, $450, $480,¹ ..., $7D0
it stores them at
lines 0- 7: $400, $...
- 21k
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votes
3
answers
449
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How did Apple IIe software handle 64K bank switching?
The early microcomputers were well served by 8-bit CPUs with 16-bit address bus width, but later generations of these machines tended to run out of address space, and had to resort to some form of ...
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5
votes
1
answer
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Apple II Assembly DSECT
I'm trying to define a section of data in a program. The Apple 6502 Assembler/Editor mentions an assembler directive called "DSECT" but I can't tell if I'm using it correctly or not. Here is ...
- 53
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2
answers
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How did Apple IIc daughtercard expansions work?
I've been doing a lot of reading about the ways Apple IIc owners expanded their machines in the absence of the IIe's slots, and it's very intriguing stuff. The ones that I'm most curious about are the ...
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1
answer
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Why does Applesoft BASIC get confused by a nonzero value at $0800?
Applesoft BASIC programs start at location $0801 in memory (usually). If you put a nonzero value at address $0800, though, you get an error when you try to run the program:
?SYNTAX ERROR IN 65124
...
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6
votes
1
answer
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What determines the amount of space occupied by an Applesoft BASIC program?
I've been writing an Applesoft BASIC program over the last few months or so (IIgs and IIe, ProDOS 2.4.2 with BASIC.SYSTEM v1.6).
My large BASIC program was sitting at something like 51 ProDOS blocks. ...
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4
answers
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Applesoft (pseudo) Random Numbers - alternatives?
What are the alternatives (with examples on how to implement) to Applesoft RND(1) command? I have read of people using a completely different algorithm by poking machine code stored in a DATA ...
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6
votes
3
answers
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Apple II Toggles between 40 and 80 columns in assembly language (Apple IIc)
To switch from 80-column to 40-column display, what is the difference between the following two actions:
lda #$11
jsr COUT ; $FDED
and
sta $C00C ; 80coloff switch
In the first case, I do not ...
- 173
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votes
1
answer
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Apple IIc : displaying HGR page 1 in AUX memory
I need to display HGR page 1 ($2000 to $3FFF) located in AUX memory (not in MAIN memory).
According to the "Apple IIc Reference Manual - Volume 1", page 45, I must first turn 80Store on by ...
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votes
1
answer
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Apple II double buffering and double high resolution
I write programs in assembly language using HGR mode.
For a fluid display, I use the double buffering technique.
Is it possible to use this technique in DHGR (double high resolution)?
If so, I am ...
- 173
2
votes
1
answer
212
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How to convert series of hex digits in memory into the format for use with Applesoft math subroutines
I'm trying to write a calculator program in assembly for the Apple //e. I know that there are built-in subroutines for performing all kinds of math operations involving the floating-point accumulator (...
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2
answers
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How did the Apple IIGS automatically slow 5.25 inch disk I/O code for backwards compatability?
Apple II software often used hard-coded timing for 5.25 inch floppy disk I/O, for example to control the duration of each track step or the rate at which bytes are written and read from the disk. ...
- 293
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3
answers
278
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Apple II: ProDOS, zero length prefix and MLI calls
I have a simple program on my Apple IIc written in assembly language. It starts by getting a filename from the user (just the file name, not the full path), then it opens the corresponding file with a ...
- 173
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votes
2
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What is the reason of the particular range of the last 4K block of memory selection in Apple II
Following my previous question on Identifying the functionality of the memory select in Apple II and now that I know that the memory select device is simply an interconnection block. Searching for ...
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Identifying the functionality of the memory select IC in Apple II
Three are ICs labeled memory select used in Apple II.
One to apply A6 on the three banks of RAM ICs.
One to generate /RAM_SEL applying the latched RAM output to the data bus.
And one to apply /CAS on ...
- 1,025
3
votes
2
answers
279
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Did any 5.25" floppy drives not based on the Apple Disk II offer quarter-track control
Unlike many drives, the Apple Disk II has inputs that control the individual head stepper coils. These are commonly described as advancing by half-tracks, since advancing a full track requires ...
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2
votes
0
answers
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Apple II DMA daisy chain also used to arbitrate /INH?
On the Apple II series of computers, peripheral cards contend for bus mastership through a priority daisy-chain system. A peripheral card is only allowed to perform DMA if its DMA_IN line is at logic ...
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27
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17
answers
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How much did the first hard drives for PCs cost?
I would like to know how much early PC hard drives cost but have only been aable to find adjacent or unsourced data.
According to the Centre for Computing History:
The "IBM 5161 Expansion ...
- 373
9
votes
1
answer
1k
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Why does the Applesoft BASIC have shapes?
Why did Apple include shapes in Applesoft BASIC? There are no sprites on the Apple II, but shapes provide a simple vector drawing tool. As graphics go the shapes are kind of an odd duck, they provide ...
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votes
2
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Was the ProDOS beep part of the kernel or just a commonly duplicated piece of code?
On the Apple II, system beeps were typically just the 'Control-G' beep noise. However, many ProDOS-based applications from Apple Computer abandoned the firmware-based beep routine and instead used a ...
- 14.3k
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votes
2
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What were the alternative graphic cards for the Apple II?
In this question, it's mentioned the Apple II's slot 7 was used by third party graphics cards. Is there any documentation on those? What were those cards and what were their capabilities?
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How did VisiCalc decide how many decimal places to display?
VisiCalc represented numbers in BCD to be able to handle decimals precisely. But how did it decide how many decimal places to display?
In some screenshots like https://www.researchgate.net/figure/A-...
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3
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Algorithm for Apple IIe and Apple IIgs boot/start beep
What is algorithms use for boot/start sound (when turn on computer) in Apple IIe and Apple IIgs? I can't find information about Apple boot sound algorithms or where in computer ROM store either ...
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1
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What are the HIFI and MUSIC modes of the RocketChip?
One of the CPU accelerators for the Apple II series is the RocketChip, which came in 5MHz and 10MHz versions. It came with a floppy disk that contained a number of utilities for manipulating the ...
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3
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I need to find a controller card for an apple II 5.25 inch floppy drive, the 20 pin connector wont work on the 34 pin controller card i have
I cant find any adapters or secondary connectors, can anybody get me a link to a working floppy controller card that works or possibly a connector that goes from 20 pin male to 34 pin female? i have ...
1
vote
0
answers
169
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Frozen horizontal width coil in old CRT monitor
I have an old Apple IIe CRT monitor which could use a small horizontal width adjustment. Unfortunately, as I try to rotate the hex key in the coil with a CRT adjustment tool, it doesn't want to move. ...
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1
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How many different standard boot sectors are there for Apple II DOS 3.3?
When formatting a blank 5¼ disk on an 8-bit Apple II using the INIT command, was there only ever one variation of the boot sector code that was written, or was it updated from time to time over the ...
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votes
1
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Determining which sectors in an Apple II floppy disk/image are used when the boot sector declares more than 1 sectors
The Apple II disk bootstrap process looks at the first byte of track zero sector zero to see how many sectors long the bootstrap code will be. It then loads these sectors at location 0x0800 and jumps ...
- 4,350
2
votes
2
answers
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How can the composite out of an Apple II be disabled?
The PC Transporter provides composite out via a cable run to the internal video header of the Apple II. In order to do this, I assume it has to disable the sync and colorburst generators so the Apple ...
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1
answer
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Which Apple II emulators were the first ones each to use the .do and .po "dsk" floppy disk image file formats?
Apple II emulation must have started around 25 years ago but I can't seem to find a history of emulation of the platform.
There are several disk image file formats but for now I'm interested in the ...
- 4,350
3
votes
1
answer
285
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What bug in first version of game Karateka for Apple 2e cause this game reset in Apple 2c?
If I try to start the first version of the game Karateka for Apple IIe on an Apple IIc, the Apple IIc will restart after reading the game from disk after a few seconds. Later versions of Karateka for ...
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votes
1
answer
660
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How do I read the position of an Apple II joystick?
Many games on the Apple II supported input from the keyboard, joystick, and Sirius Joyport. While reading the keyboard and Joyport are straightforward, getting the joystick's position is not.
How ...
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3
votes
1
answer
237
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Converting Apple II ProDOS blocks to DOS tracks and sectors
The 8-bit Apple II had two disk operating systems with different disk access semantics.
DOS used tracks and sectors. A sector is 256 bytes.
ProDOS used blocks. A block is 512 bytes.
But mapping ...
- 4,350
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votes
2
answers
991
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How can I programmatically determine whether an Apple II .dsk disk image is a DOS .do image or a ProDOS .po image?
I'm interested in working with the most common Apple II disk image file format, .dsk.
(I only programmed these machines briefly in Basic around 1979-81 and have not been in the emulator scene, so I'm ...
- 4,350
6
votes
2
answers
345
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How to get out of Apple IIe mode on Macintosh Color Classic?
I just picked-up a Macintosh Color Classic with an Apple IIe card. I've never used one of these before but was able to get it to enter into Apple IIe mode. However, I cannot seem to figure out how to ...
- 635
4
votes
1
answer
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How was the second bank of Apple IIc ROM accessed?
The original Apple IIc had a 27128 16 KB ROM mapped into the
$C100-$FFFF range (the $C000 page was decoded for I/O). According to
the Apple IIc Technical Reference Manual the ROMEN1*
and ROMEN2* ...
- 21k
4
votes
2
answers
2k
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How to get into Apple BASIC prompt on an Apple IIc?
I just picked up a used Apple IIc. For some reason all I get when I boot is Check Disk Drive on the screen, even with a bootable disk in the internal drive:
I cannot even get the system to read the ...
- 635