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23 Years Later: the Apple II Receives Another OS Update (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Yesterday, software developer John Brooks released what is clearly a work of pure love: the first update to an operating system for the Apple II computer family since 1993. ProDOS 2.4, released on the 30th anniversary of the introduction of the Apple II GS, brings the enhanced operating system to even older Apple II systems, including the original Apple ][ and ][+. Which is pretty remarkable, considering the Apple ][ and ][+ don't even support lower-case characters. You can test-drive ProDOS 2.4 in a Web-based emulator set up by computer historian Jason Scott on the Internet Archive. The release includes Bitsy Bye, a menu-driven program launcher that allows for navigation through files on multiple floppy (or hacked USB) drives. Bitsy Bye is an example of highly efficient code: it runs in less than 1 kilobyte of RAM. There's also a boot utility that is under 400 bytes -- taking up a single block of storage on a disk. The report adds: "In addition to the Bitsy Boot boot utility, the ProDOS 2.4 'floppy' includes a collection of utilities, including a MiniBas tiny BASIC interpreter, disk imaging programs to move files from physical floppies to USB and other disk storage, file utilities, and the 'Unshrink' expander for uncompressing files archived with Shrinkit."
OpenApple - Reset
Unless it includes systemd I am not upgrading
than Windows 10.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
> is pretty remarkable, considering the Apple ][ and ][+ don't even support lower-case characters.
Wrong, there was a Prodos for the Apple][
> Apple ][ and ][+ don't even support lower-case characters
There was a program that piggy-backed the char display and used graphic mod to display lowercase characters, even supported accentss. Had bee used by word-processors back then. AppleWord and the Jane environment.
And Yes I affirm, there was a Prodos for the Apple][ back then.
Léa Gris
When the Amiga came out it was cheaper and far superior. Apple was still selling this thing @ US $1500 in 1993 (mostly to schools). Fuck, you could have bought a 486 with VGA and a GUS for under $1000. RIP Commodore.
My dual floppy drive Apple II plus with 128K RAM drive (172K total) uses floppies that, um, melted.
Going to be hard to update that.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I understand this is an independent developer's work. How can he name the software like Apple's product, and even print "(c) Apple Computers Inc" on it? Shouln'd that awake Apple's army of evil lawers?
Not everything is about the newest and shiniest, AC.
Sometimes a nice jolt of nostalgia for a lost era in time just feels good. That's what this is for. Running a game in an emulator does not recreate the experience.
The whir and grind of the disk drive, the clacking of the keys, the authentic tones from the real sound chips... For a brief moment, one can feel like they were 8 years old again.
That is what this is about. Now, go take your soulless devotion to consumerism elsewhere.
Hey, it is no less productive than the time spent by AC's posting on Slashdot.
Maybe he's practicing before he gets into updating orphaned Android smartphones? (we can only hope)
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
So do you also consider Lunix to be useful?
this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
supports rs232, ppp, tcp/ip, multitasking, and some other useful bits...
sure. i can think of some uses for such a system.
> Which is pretty remarkable, considering the Apple ][ and ][+ don't even support lower-case characters.
Then why did Apple have a "Tech Note #141" describing how to install the Shift-Key Mod ???
* https://archive.org/stream/II_II-Shift-Key_Modification/II_II-Shift-Key_Modification_djvu.txt
Shift Key mod. Now that's something I haven't thought of 25 years.
5 1/4" floppy drives had SECTORS, and they were 256 bytes each.....not BLOCKS of 512 bytes.
Aren't there better things to do than play with a 30+ year old computer? Don't you dorks have better things to do with your time? There is no practical use for the Apple II in the modern world, nor has there been for at least two decades. You can get a newer computer if you just leave your parents' basement.
Yes, rather than bringing a little bit of extra polish to a piece of hardware/software that's simple and elegant, and does everything that it needs to, he could be spending that time completely ripping out tech in the most obnoxious way, like developing systemd.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
I'm going to leave this conversation now, I'm afraid my geek will show too much.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I don't know why...
5 Billion a year useful enough? That's just Amazon.
https://www.cnet.com/news/amaz...
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Without an 80-column card, those machines do NOT display lowercase characters. That is to say, out of the box, neither the ][ nor the ][+ does what you think it does. Your citation says as much.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I completely messed up the terminology in my parent post. I'll try to use standard RLL terminology here.
Commodore 1541 used an (0,2) RLL code that expands each 4 bits to 5 bits. This is similar to IBM GCR, but the code mappings differ.
The earliest model of Apple Disk II (13 sector, DOS 3.2) used a different (0,1) RLL code that expands 5 bits to 8. This allowed 3.25 KiB on each of 35 tracks, or 113.75 KiB per disk side. A later revision of Disk II (16 sector, DOS 3.3/ProDOS) kept the 8-bit words but improved detection of longer gaps between flux transitions, allowing a (0, 2) RLL code that expands 6 bits to 8. This allowed 4 KiB on each of 35 tracks, or 140 KiB per disk side.
IBM floppy drives and Mitsumi Quick Disk used MFM (Modified Frequency Modulation). This is a form of (1, 3) RLL that requires at least one bit of non-transition per transition, expanding 1 bit to 2 but allowing the overall bitrate to be doubled. This resulted in 4.5 KiB per track.
Compact Disc uses EFM, a (2,10) RLL that expands 8 bits to 14 with three linking bits between words. DVD uses the same expansion but with only two linking bits.
No, this:
Is Your Son a Computer Hacker?
Author:
T Reginald Gibbons
Topic:
Internet Idiocy
Posted:
Dec 02, 2001
Comments:
5913
As an enlightened, modern parent, I try to be as involved as possible in the lives of my six children. I encourage them to join team sports. I attend their teen parties with them to ensure no drinking or alcohol is on the premises. I keep a fatherly eye on the CDs they listen to and the shows they watch, the company they keep and the books they read. You could say I'm a model parent. My children have never failed to make me proud, and I can say without the slightest embellishment that I have the finest family in the USA.
Two years ago, my wife Carol and I decided that our children's education would not be complete without some grounding in modern computers. To this end, we bought our children a brand new Compaq to learn with. The kids had a lot of fun using the handful of application programs we'd bought, such as Adobe's Photoshop and Microsoft's Word, and my wife and I were pleased that our gift was received so well. Our son Peter was most entranced by the device, and became quite a pro at surfing the net. When Peter began to spend whole days on the machine, I became concerned, but Carol advised me to calm down, and that it was only a passing phase. I was content to bow to her experience as a mother, until our youngest daughter, Cindy, charged into the living room one night to blurt out: "Peter is a computer hacker!"
As you can imagine, I was amazed. A computer hacker in my own house! I began to monitor my son's habits, to make certain that Cindy wasn't just telling stories, as she is prone to doing at times.
After a few days of investigation, and some research into computer hacking, I confronted Peter with the evidence. I'm afraid to say, this was the only time I have ever been truly disappointed in one of my children. We raised them to be honest and to have integrity, and Peter betrayed the principles we tried to encourage in him, when he refused point blank to admit to his activities. His denials continued for hours, and in the end, I was left with no choice but to ban him from using the computer until he is old enough to be responsible for his actions.
After going through this ordeal with my own family, I was left pondering how I could best help others in similar situations. I'd gained a lot of knowledge over those few days regarding hackers. It's only right that I provide that information to other parents, in the hope that they will be able to tell if their children are being drawn into the world of hacking. Perhaps other parents will be able to steer their sons back onto the straight and narrow before extreme measures need to be employed.
To this end, I have decided to publish the top ten signs that your son is a hacker. I advise any parents to read this list carefully and if their son matches the profile, they should take action. A smart parent will first try to reason with their son, before resorting to groundings, or even spanking. I pride myself that I have never had to spank a child, and I hope this guide will help other parents to put a halt to their son's misbehaviour before a spanking becomes necessary.
1. Has your son asked you to change ISPs?
Most American families use trusted and responsible Internet Service Providers, such as AOL. These providers have a strict "No Hacking" policy, and take careful measures to ensure that your internet experience is enjoyable, educational and above all legal. If your child is becoming a hacker, one of his first steps will be to request a change to a more hacker friendly provider.
I would advise all parents to refuse this request. One of the reasons your son is interested in switching providers is to get away from AOL's child safety filter. This filter is vital to any parent who wants his son to enjoy the internet without the endangering him through exposure to "adult" content. It is best to stick with the protection A
It was entirely possible for them to keep making iPod classics with a flash drive in them. People are retrofitting them actively to late-gen iPod classics.
Apple didn't want to.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
not surprised the white supremacists mras of the south modded this down.
Says right there in your quoted text
To keep things in perspective, please note that this does not modify the Apple II to display lowercase nor enter lowercase characters
All the shift key mod did was make it possible for programs to detect an independent press of the shift key by mapping it to game controller button 2. Most game controllers only used buttons 0 and 1, so button 2 (as well as two additional paddle inputs,) went unused for 99% of users. I'm not too familiar with the technical limitations of displaying lowercase on the II and IIplus (I had a //e) but I do recall there were word processors that worked around this by highlighting letters that are to be printed as uppercase. When you printed, you got upper & lowercase text even though everything was displayed at uppercase on screen.