Apple ][ Forever... and ever

19:52 Wednesday, 24 August 2016

Current Wx: Temp: Pressure: Humidity: Wind:
Words: 1204

The Apple IIe I bought on ebay arrived yesterday. Kudos to the seller for a superb packing job, everything arrived intact.

Once I freed the computer and the monitor from copious quantities of bubblewrap swaddling them, I set them up on the dining room table. (It's not really a "room," it's more like just a place to put a table. But anyway…) The damn thing is beautiful. It's like it just came home form the store. It's got some store logo badge glued on it, but other than that, it's perfect! I've seen a lot of Apple IIs on ebay that just look awful. Schools engraved (badly) property numbers in large figures on them, they're discolored from the fire retardant leaching from the plastic and reacting with sunlight, many are missing keys.

This one is cherry. It's an early model IIe, the same as my first IIe, from 1983. It has the gray keys with the large white lettering, and the case is less susceptible to yellowing, purportedly painted, though it doesn't look that way to me.

The bottom of the computer was equally pristine. All the screws were present, and none showed signs of having been removed. All the rubber feet were still in place.

I removed the lid from the computer and peered inside. Everything looked great. No swollen capacitors on the motherboard, though who knows what's going on in the sealed power supply? Everything was coated with a very thin layer of dust. You'd hardly notice it was there if you didn't disturb it.

And, yes! It is a Rev B motherboard. That means it'll display "double-hires graphics" with a 64K RAM card stuffed in the Aux slot.

I had to find a power cable for the computer, so I pulled the one from my PowerMac G4 MDD (soon to be sold by some means).

I plugged everything up and prepared to perform the smoke test. I flipped the switch and got the familiar, cheerful "beep!" of an Apple II, and no smoke!

Encouraged, I plugged in the Monitor II, connected it to the composite video port of the IIe and powered it up. It came right up and looked great.

I performed the built-in system test and it passed.

Looks like I got a winner!

I didn't get a disk drive for it, but we have the internet these days. So I got a 3.5mm audio patch cable (stereo, but it doesn't matter), plugged one end into the cassette input on the IIe and plugged the other into my iPad. I pointed Safari to the web site asciiexpress.net and typed "LOAD" on the IIe, hit Return and then returned to Safari and pressed play on an audio file of Night Mission Pinball, and in less than a minute I was playing an old favorite!

So cool.

Now I'm kind of wondering what I want to do with it. At first I was thinking it was just going to be fun hacking around with it, burning my own //e (enhanced) ROMs and buying a 65c02 and upgrading it to an "enhanced" IIe. That was a later modification offered by Apple to support something called "Mouse Text" for a text-based mouse interface, and fixing some bugs in the firmware. There's a mod you can make that can intercept the reset vector so you can basically halt the machine and look at or move memory, which was an important thing for the guys "cracking" copy protection, but now is just kind of cool to play with. All of that involves removing chips on the motherboard, and replacing them with non-OEM chips, which isn't exceedingly risky, but it does alter the character of the machine.

So, do I keep this as a very clean "stock" machine that I just sort of build an altar around and take to retro-computing shows? I could get a "beater" IIe on ebay and use that to hack on. Or do I sort of honor Woz's intention and just start playing with it? The IIe isn't as "iconic" a machine as an Apple I or an original Apple II, but I have no idea how many there are that are as clean and completely stock as this. And does that matter?

I did kind of guess that it'd be a Rev B motherboard, there were relatively few Rev A's manufactured and Apple offered to upgrade all of them to Rev B, so it seems the number of pure Rev A's out there is pretty damn small. Based on that, I went ahead and bought an extended 80-col card for it, which will, when installed, enable double hires graphics. It's a period-corrected version too, complete with the manuals which were still in the shrink wrap. (Not any more.) I was worried about whether or not it would have the molex-pin connector installed on the card that enabled DHR graphics. On a Rev A machine, you'd leave that jumper off or the machine wouldn't work.

Surprise! Damn thing came with all the paperwork, including the little sheet with the molex-pin connector taped to it, explaining what it was for! Wow! Twice lucky with ebay!

So I'll pop that card in and then apart from not having a disk controller card and two Disk II drives, it'll be the same machine that I bought in October or November of 1983. I later upgraded that machine with the enhanced ROMs and the 65c02, and I had a RAMWorks III memory card in the AUX slot with about a meg of memory as I recall. Had a 2400 baud modem in it, which I used on bulletin boards and GEnie (the General Electric network for information exchange), a Mockingboard sound card, and a mouse card. Oh yeah, I also put a Zip Chip in it, which was a cpu replacement that ran a 65c02 at 8MHz (stock was 1MHz) with some cache memory in the package to keep up with the processor. Also had a Grappler-clone printer card in slot 1.

In other, "semi-retro" computing news, I bought a 1.33GHz G4 Mac mini for $70.00. I've got my PowerMac G4MDD (dual 867MHz G4 processors) set up in the other bedroom, but I seldom use it because it's noisy. It was disparagingly referred to as the "wind tunnel" machine. I've got some old MacOS PowerPC software that I want to retain access to, chiefly HyperCard and WebArranger, and it won't run on Intel machines. The PowerMac is nearly fully loaded. I'm 256MB shy of it's 2GB max memory, and there may be a HD bay open (it'll take 4). It has two DVD-burners in it, and I added a USB 2.0 PCI card, and the RADEON 9800 AGP graphics card with, what?, 64MB of vram? Can't remember. The damn thing weighs a ton!

I'm going to get rid of it and then tether the Mac mini to the Apple II and use ADT Pro as a server to load programs for now.

Anyway, with Bodhi gone, I seem to have some spare time on my hands. This seems like a happy way to fill a few idle moments.

Here's a quick pic:

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For Jack Baty

19:03 Thursday, 24 August 2023

Current Wx: Temp: 76.51°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 91% Wind: 3.87mph
Words: 36

Hey Jack! Spotted this on my (birdless) walk yesterday. It made me chuckle. Figured some osprey had dropped its breakfast. Funny enough for me to grab a shot with the phone.

Hey, it's not a bird!

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!Mosquito Control

20:22 Thursday, 24 August 2023

Current Wx: Temp: 80.13°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 84% Wind: 11.5mph
Words: 47

This morning's (non)bird: St Johns County Mosquito Control District airborne asset. Heard a helicopter lingering nearby but out of sight. Figured it was the sheriff's, but then it flew into my line of sight. Glad to see them. Little buggers have been thick and aggressive lately.

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The "Debate"

20:25 Thursday, 24 August 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 80.13°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 84% Wind: 11.5mph
Words: 142

The marmot did not watch the Republican Presidential Pageant last night, as the judges interviewed the contestants to gauge their intelligence and personality. I have seen some of the coverage this morning. Suffice to say, none of those individuals possess the qualities of leadership, intelligence, integrity or character to be president of the local neighborhood watch. Yet the Orange One, or one of these clowns, will be a candidate for the highest office in the land next year.

The marmot thinks America is on the verge of becoming a failed state..

The biggest knock on Joe Biden is his age. But the marmot thinks he's been a decent president. I certainly wouldn't want any of these jokers seeking the job to replace him. If absolutely forced to choose one, it'd be Nikki Haley. The marmot doesn't think she's totally lost her mind.

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Spell Checker

21:27 Thursday, 24 August 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 84.15°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 75% Wind: 9.22mph
Words: 67

As I'm eating breakfast this morning, Mitzi and I are discussing the Republican debate. All of a sudden, it occurs to me that I misspelled Nikki Haley's name in my post.

Seems kind of odd, but also interesting. Some part of my brain is either still editing that post, or trying to make itself heard when it couldn't as I was writing it.

Anyway, corrected the error.

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Boil Water

21:32 Thursday, 24 August 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 84.63°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 73% Wind: 9.22mph
Words: 197

I've mentioned before that I try to take a moment each morning, as I'm filling my water bottle, to appreciate the privilege it represents. To be grateful for it.

Well, we had a water main rupture earlier this week, and unlike receiving power wirelessly from a remote, off-site fusion reactor, which insulates us to a great extent from utility outages, we are pretty much dependent on JEA for our water.

So I've been boiling water at night to fill my water bottles so they're cold in the morning. It's the first time I've made use of the "Hi/Boost" setting on the induction range. It does boil water fast. Of course, it does nothing to help cool it after it's been boiled. But I've started early enough in the evening now that I just watch a TV show while it's cooling.

While I really value safe drinking water, what really troubles me is what happens if the water utility fails and we can't flush out toilets?

It's not like we can all go dig a latrine or build an outhouse.

So, another privilege to appreciate while we enjoy it.

Because it may not always be so.

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Breakfast Club

08:58 Sunday, 24 August 2025

Current Wx: Temp: 67.51°F Pressure: 1012hPa Humidity: 84% Wind: 8.99mph
Words: 600

I started to go outside to take care of a little chore and spotted one of these fawns. Stepped back inside and closed the door and pointed it out to Mitzi through the window. She spotted the second one. We watched for a little while, they seemed to be enjoying the tender bits of new growth from where I'd whacked some of the weeds.

Mitzi opened the door and stepped out onto the porch and they didn't seem to notice her. She asked for a camera and the E-M5 was handy, so I gave that to her. It was last used with -.7ev exposure compensation, and I didn't notice it when I handed it to her, but it brightened up ok in Photos.

Of course, as soon as she brought the camera to her eye, they noticed that. And right after she pressed the shutter, they bounded off up the hill.

Yesterday was trash day, and the Watkins Glen Public Library was having its annual book sale. So we stopped in after we dropped off the trash. We were early, so we became Friends of the Watkins Library (FOWL) so we could go in and look around. They had a large collection of books, fairly well organized. What I found most interesting were several people with their phones mounted on their wrists and a scanning device they used to scan the books and then deposit some in a plastic tote. They were moving pretty efficiently as all the totes were nearly full. I guess resellers hire people, or maybe these were resellers themselves.

Despite the competition, I found several books to bring home, even though I have no place to put them. I got a copy of Malcom Gladwell's The Bomber Mafia. It's really just a long essay and I got halfway through it yesterday afternoon. I really don't care for Gladwell or his writing, but I was interested in the topic, something I wrote a paper on thirty years or so ago as a student in the Naval War College non-resident program.

Gladwell's book is a gloss, mostly interesting trivia and the broad strokes of the myth of "strategic bombing." I'd call it something like an entertaining diversion, rather than a historical work. That is, if I found Gladwell's writing entertaining. But for a buck, it's a welcome break from the grinding minutia of Gannon's Colossus.

After shopping for books, we came home and had lunch and then spent some more time working in the yard, which then earned me a couple of hours in the recliner with Gladwell and the bombers.

After dinner we read some more. Mitzi got a book about James Hope, a 19th century painter from Watkins Glen, which she was enjoying. It's a slim volume and she finished it last night.

Then I bought a digital copy of Mission: Impossible The Final Reckoning. I was hopeful because I seem to recall it received decent reviews. Mitzi saw it in the theater when I was up here in May and she was using up gift cards. She liked it. For me, it was meh. The plot was weak and the whole thing was more an homage to the franchise and a Tom Cruise stunt exhibition, which the plot was structured around.

I guess I'm glad I saw it, it's only shame I couldn't have waited until it showed up on a streaming service for free.

Taking it easy today. Yesterday's yard effort seemed to have tweaked my back again.

Thanks for dropping by. As always, well, for now anyway, the beat goes on...

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The Bomber Mafia

15:19 Sunday, 24 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 78.66°F Pressure: 1009hPa Humidity: 68% Wind: 4.27mph
Words: 260

Finished Gladwell's glorified blog post this afternoon. Serious criticism may be found in this review at Army University Press, and if you're interested in a more scholarly opinion than mine whether or not to spend your time reading this book, read that review.

Gladwell is a dilettante. A product of the internet. He "surfs" his topics, looking for the "angle." Then does his confirmation bias research to promote his reputation as a contrarian with "new" or "fresh" insights.

Most of his stuff is probably harmless, except insofar as it is mistaken as serious work, which it too often is. But it's especially offensive given the nature of this particular topic.

I don't regret spending my dollar for this bullshit, but I nearly do.

There may be a longer post forthcoming, because the same phenomenon that gave us the bomber mafia, also brought us the internet triumphalists of the early blogosphere. The Cluetrain people, the "smart mobs" people. "This changes everything!" Supposedly for the better.

Inevitably, not so much.

But the "visionaries," garner attention. Get funding. Book contracts. Page rank. Money.

Frauds. All of them. Not purposely. Perhaps "fools" would be more appropriate.

Technology changes how we do things. It compresses action in time, and expands it in space (in both directions). In the main, technology does not change what we do.

And it is in the field of action, what we do, where our morality or judgement is revealed.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our technology but in ourselves.

Technology may change, but human nature remains the same.

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Power to the People

08:38 Monday, 24 August 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 55.54°F Pressure: 1012hPa Humidity: 88% Wind: 7.4mph
Words: 337

Lots of activity this morning. And it's chilly!

"Winter is coming..."

Ken's here digging the trench for the power line. My plan to do just one dig didn't survive contact with reality. Different depths, dirt's gotta go someplace, not enough room to do it once, so it's going to be two digs. Same path though, so that's some, small, comfort.

We're doing power first, then he'll come back and dig a deeper trench alongside for the water line. The electrician is supposed to be here this week to lay the conduit and the cable. We don't know when NYSEG will get here to put in the new transformer, so it's all going to be inert for some time.

We're also burying conduit for the future garage and a piece for a future ground-mounted array.

But once the power line is buried, we can do the water line.

Concrete wasn't supposed to be available this week, but Brad the Builder spoke to the owner and we're getting it poured on Wednesday, which is great news. But it means we have to really nail down where the penetrations go for the ERV, the makeup air vent, and the range hood. I was just up there and we think we know what we're going to do, but we've got until tomorrow to think about it, because that's when they'll be cut.

Speaking of power, I have a Ting electrical arcing sensor plugged into an outlet here. It's never detected any arcing, but it does detect undervoltage episodes that we probably wouldn't notice, and there are a lot of them.

But the app also has a little news section, and this report from last month caught my eye. 3 gigawatts of demand vanished from the grid instantly because an issue with a, wait for it, data center in northern Virginia. The grid held up, but the effects were reported by Ting sensors everywhere east of the Mississippi (and a little west) and they made a nice little video about it.

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