0061 A universal keyboard/mouse adapter, an Apple IIe numeric keypad, some NABU stuff and more!
![Adrian's Digital Basement ][](http://yt3.ggpht.com/ytc/AIdro_k7CrQRe71qN6c0Ua7A1P_I8KkxjqLa70u0zYeCvdvnKw=s48-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj)
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 มิ.ย. 2024
- On today's SMMC video, we have a long video where I do lots of talking. It's long to grab a cup of coffee or a cocktail and settle in for lots of cool stuff.
-- Video Links
FormatQM (Best utility for bulk formatting floppies)
vetusware.com/download/Format...
NABU serial interposer board:
github.com/thorpej/nabu-ftdi-...
My NABU video:
• The 80s computer you'v...
NabuNetwork (A big resource for current NABU information)
www.nabunetwork.com/
NABU keyboard adapter:
github.com/thorpej/nabu-keybo...
RetroARDUInput:
github.com/RetroFuturisticEng...
• USB Input Devices on v...
Volker's TH-cam channel:
/ @retro-futuristicengineer
My video on the Tandy 1000 keyboard adapter:
• Build an adapter to us...
Tandy 1000 Github Repo:
github.com/misterblack1/ps2-t...
Apple IIgs "Smart Kids" video:
• This computer was desi...
Adrian's Digital Basement Merch store:
my-store-c82bd2-2.creator-spr...
Support the channel on Patreon:
/ adriansdigitalbasement
Adrian's Digital Basement (Main Channel)
/ @adriansdigitalbasement
-- Tools
Deoxit D5:
amzn.to/2VvOKy1
store.caig.com/s.nl/it.A/id.16...
O-Ring Pick Set: (I use these to lift chips off boards)
amzn.to/3a9x54J
Elenco Electronics LP-560 Logic Probe:
amzn.to/2VrT5lW
Hakko FR301 Desoldering Iron:
amzn.to/2ye6xC0
Rigol DS1054Z Four Channel Oscilloscope:
www.rigolna.com/products/digi...
Head Worn Magnifying Goggles / Dual Lens Flip-In Head Magnifier:
amzn.to/3adRbuy
TL866II Plus Chip Tester and EPROM programmer: (The MiniPro)
amzn.to/2wG4tlP
www.aliexpress.com/item/33000...
TS100 Soldering Iron:
amzn.to/2K36dJ5
www.ebay.com/itm/TS100-65W-MI...
EEVBlog 121GW Multimeter:
www.eevblog.com/product/121gw/
DSLogic Basic Logic Analyzer:
amzn.to/2RDSDQw
www.ebay.com/itm/USB-Logic-DS...
Magnetic Screw Holder:
amzn.to/3b8LOhG
www.harborfreight.com/4-inch-...
Universal ZIP sockets: (clones, used on my ZIF-64 test machine)
www.ebay.com/itm/14-16-18-20-...
RetroTink 2X Upconverter: (to hook up something like a C64 to HDMI)
www.retrotink.com/
Plato (Clone) Side Cutters: (order five)
www.ebay.com/itm/1-2-5-10PCS-...
Heat Sinks:
www.aliexpress.com/item/32537...
Little squeezy bottles: (available elsewhere too)
amzn.to/3b8LOOI
--- Links
My GitHub repository:
github.com/misterblack1?tab=r...
Commodore Computer Club / Vancouver, WA - Portland, OR - PDX Commodore Users Group
www.commodorecomputerclub.com/
--- Instructional videos
My video on damage-free chip removal:
• How to remove chips wi...
--- Music
Intro music and other tracks by:
Nathan Divino
@itsnathandivino - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
I got a kick out of seeing The 8-Bit Guy as a new patron 😆
I noticed that also.
😮
Ulterior motive.
Looks like LGR was a bit down the list as well.
Several Things:
The Nibbling Tool - it is only good for soft materials, as it will get dull if you use it to cut metal, including thin metal. And after the 20+ cuts, you hand starts to cramp up. Radio Shack sold (still sells on the online store) the same tool.
The Apple IIe Keypad, there was a similar unit for the Mac 128K - 512KE, as the extended keyboard for Macs did not come out until the Mac Plus, but by them people were buying Extended Keyboards for their older Macs.
**Sigh** Logo did not come out until at least 1984 when Seymour Pappart help create it under MIT to teach computer programming to children and it did not get into main stream until after 1985 when the competition between Boston, NYC and LA/San Fran school systems tried to the first "Computer schools" in 1985/86 with NYC winning that little competition. LA/San Fran was Second, and Boston was third. (I am the one who wrote the Doctrine of Computer Literacy and Education for the NYC Schools in 1985 which the first computer schools were first created from). With the exception of Japan, everyone else followed along the plan. Japan had the first computer schools but it is that they went a different route with their computer education compared to the USA. Logo came from the Mainframe language LISP and used a "Turtle" to create graphics on a screen. A Subset of Logo because "Yellow Brick Logo in the 1990s for use with the Lego Robotics kits using the Yellow RCX Computer Bricks. From YB Logo came Scratch (circa 2015) - all created by MIT.
Yes from 1978 to 1984, various high schools had computer clubs and in some cases, BASIC programming classes but Logo was not around for another few years in the elementary school level.
The Apple Logo disks, one was its "DOS disk, and then you had to put in the other disk. At the time (of he IIe), Apple wrote a lot of programs (**cough! cough! Apple Works! cough! cough!) where you had to load in ProDOS first and then the application disk but the first disk was usually referred to as "(Application) Disk #1"
If anything you should copy and publicly archive those disks, especially the Logo Disks as they are almost impossible to come by.
Logo is actually a general-purpose multi-paradigm (functional/procedural) programming language, a dialect of Lisp, and one of the influences on Smalltalk. Logo's application to introducing children to computers and the turtle graphics features unfortunately tend to overshadow that. Also, the double-sided Logo's disk label says it's Pascal-based. Other than possibly referring to Apple II Pascal, I don't know what that means.
In this context I believe the Pascal-based was referring to the operating system, using the Apple Pascal OS instead of DOS 3.2, DOS 3.3, or PRODOS.
@@tedthrasher9433 Ahh, okay. Thank you! Is "Apple Pascal OS" what I would Google for, to learn more about it?
@@Ice_Karma It’s something I would like to learn more about myself. I only ever really used DOS 3.3 and PRODOS at the time, but was intrigued by the occasional disk that was formatted in Pascal format. Here’s a link to the Pascal OS Reference Manual and there seem to be many other resources available online, too.
pascal.hansotten.com/uploads/ucsd/apple/ii/Apple2Pascal_Operating_System_Ref.pdf
Long, long ago, before Java, there was UCSD Pascal with it's P-System. Basically, the idea was that you could write a program in Pascal, then instead of compiling it into machine language, you'd compile it for the P-System, like compiling a Java, Clojure, etc. program into the Java VM's byte code. Then, you could run that Pascal program on anything from an Apple II to a very, very expensive Minicomputer at a university or something. The people involved in creating this had the notion that one day, every computer of every size would have a version of the Pascal P-System as a sort of low-level OS, and then all software could be written as platform-agnostic. Then, there would be no need to re-write the same program for different processors (Z80, 6502, etc.), let alone for different machines using the same processor (Apple II, Commodore Pet, etc.).
It never became quite THAT big, and lots of people just ended up compiling Pascal directly into the target machine's machine code. But, there were versions of UCSD Pascal and its P-System for a number of different hardware platforms, and it did have a HUGE influence on the creators of Java and Microsoft's .Net ML, among other things.
@@tedthrasher9433 Thank you very much for the link! 😻
The note on the Apple //e keypad box probably references the fact that, on the Apple ][ and ][+ (which had only left and right arrow keys), you could hit the spacebar in Visicalc to toggle whether the left and right arrows moved left and right or moved up and down.
Newer versions of Visicalc were presumably updated for the //e, which did have all four arrow keys, and presumably dropped the spacebar toggle functionality.
Good call, that's gotta be it
The game "Pick-a-Dilly Pair" is able to do simultaneous polyphonic music and animation on a standard Apple II, by carefully timing the screen updates to only occur during the pauses between the notes. And games like Frogger on the TRS-80 did the same thing.
The "Print" key producing a question mark kinda makes sense, since ? is a shortcut for the PRINT command in BASIC.
Ha I didn't even think of that connection. I wonder if spreadsheets implemented it that way?
could be also a terminal command
Good to see that my packet arrived properly. I was a little concerned about the 3D-printed case of the RetroARDUInput but obviously Haribo is a good packing material. The cables for the RetroARDUInput are quite straight forward, a 5-Pin DIN Cable (should also be enough for Tandy), PS/2 and ADB can be ignored for now (but 6-Pin Mini-DIN cables are also quite common on Amazon and for ADB, a S-Video cable does the trick) and the DB15/DB9 cables would be normal serial or joystick extension cables.
Regarding the BusMousOMatic, the jumper wire is to always straight jumper a source to a destination device. Like when you plug in a tank mouse or the RetroARDUInput to the left input port, jumper e.g. Amiga to InPort and once you found one of the 9-Pin (InPort/Archimedes/Headstart) or 8-Pin (NeXT) cables, you can connect it to a PC. Or you plug in an InPort mouse to the InPort port and jumper from InPort to the Atari, Amiga or Amstrad output and use the InPort on an Amiga. That is the whole idea. all jumper wire connections are 1:1.
Regarding the USB host shield bug: It seems that all USB host shields that I randomly bought throughout the last year have some issue, potentially some ground issue or something. Some voltage builds up and you can even read up to 4V on the 3.3V rail even if the small jumper solder blobs are not set. The current is so low that it will not last to power the host shield and will not damage the Arduino, but it confuses the host shield that it will not work. If you use a current-limited USB power source, the 5V line will collapse, meaning also the I/O signals go slightly below 5V, which reduces the build-up of the rogue voltage in the host shield and it works. The way I want to address this on the modular version is by a 2-rail power supply with which you can reduce the input voltage on the Arduino, but without affecting other logic chips and even being able to provide a stable 5V on the USB host port. There is quite some hardware re-design required, so I put the finalization of the unfinished software parts (ADB and PS/2) on low priority. As the modular version will have I/O boards and a CPU board, there will be the possibility to add further ports as community projects - e.g. once I finished the base unit, you might want to add other old Mac stuff, or a CPU board for Raspberry Pi board will allow a Pi or Pi Zero, maybe even with compatibility to dekuNukems "USB4VC"
I remember using Logo on the BBC model B in school. We did actually use it to control a wired robot (turtle) to follow a path or shape on the floor. This would have been around 1984 I think. It was great fun when we were 10/11 years old!
The NABU stuff is super cool! Love to see the development for that system!
That 3d printed switch panel is just beautiful. Big big props to the author, and also cheers for using FreeCAD for the case design!!
You should get a second nibbler so you can make a full BYTE. LOL
That's a good one! 😅
Just to throw this out there, I really appreciate the longer format videos. I'm sure it get's you caught up a little faster on the old mail call items too. i really enjoy these.
In the uk we had logo on the bbc model b ... we also had a little robot that it controlled called " The turtle " .. you would program it and test it on the screen then send it to the turtle to draw when you was happy with it
I'd vote to see an Ultimate Apple IIe build video if you ever fancied doing it, sounds interesting, even for a Brit who never saw one back in the day!
Hey!!! you wore the Forgotten Machines shirt....THANK YOU ADRIAN!!!!!! It really makes my day to see you wearing this in one of your videos...you are SO cool!!!
I love the shirt AJ! I wear it frm time to time and it's just random if I am making a video that day, so it worked out this time!
The turtle was real - I remember attaching a turtle to one of the connectors on the BBC Micro and controlling a turtle to pen up and pen down on real paper and draw out the pictures using Logo, it was amazing back in the day!
I tried to buy a nabu when the cash was found but they quickly sold out, but because of this video I checked again on ebay and just picked one up! There are 9 left at this time
We had a Logo turtle at primary school that was controlled by the Logo on a BBC over infrared. We’d put a big piece of paper on the floor and make it draw pictures. I think that was the first programming I ever did.
We did the same but with an RM 186 Nimbus :)
I used a Logo Turtle too in grade school! Ontario Canada. Thanks for reminding me. Some of the early tech that got me turned on to tech in general.
It’s neat that we’ve been doing that for so long, American kids missed out on the real turtles. When I was in primary school in the late 90s early 00s it was just a standalone device, but they had a turtle in each classroom. No screen though, so it was harder to keep track of making elaborate shapes.
Ah, Apple ][e LOGO brings back great memories of when I'd code a routine to draw any regular n-gon in the 3rd grade. Fun stuff.
That comma key on the keypad made typing in the data statements in magazine programs so much better
the team that worked on logo[what's left of them since they are aging] had done a presentation at vcf east called 20 things to do with your computer if you want to know more about the history of Logo and where the creators went afterwards.
I've used the nibbler tool - it is so elegant in its simplicity. You might have to use a file on the sharp edges
for the nibble - square hole --- mark hole size with tape; drill center round hole; nibble it out to close to the edge but dont cut past tape edge; use a fine grain flat small file to clean up flat edges
Should also create an inventory DB so you know what you have in each organizer drawer. Though then you need to actually track what's used and subtracting it from the inventory.
add those square product barcodes to each drawer so you can scan the drawer with a phone to find out what's inside, you could even create a local web site that the barcode could open with args that brought up the drawer inventory and if you removed a part you could click the screen and remove it from an inventory database and likewise add a part and input the part with the phone.
I always find it funny that you still call these "super mini" mail call even when it runs over an hour. Not that I mind watching Adrian for that long
Looking forward to more Apple II episodes!
For long term floppy storage, it might be a good idea to drop in a 'do not eat' and reshrink wrap after checking for mold.
ooh! Them nibblers, they look very useful, and also look like they could be used as disk notchers too for making flippies for a 1541 & the like!!! I shall go looking for them cos I want those!!!
Yeah my dad used to use a similar tool for disk notching
(@13:57) Whoa Nellie! Take a gander at how close the pins on that thing are to the metal case of that crystal oscillator! I’d put some insulating tape over the top of the oscillator can (or put an unused 4-pin female connector on it). That’s just short-circuit city, there.
I have had a nibbling tool for over 20 years it can come in handy retrofitting mods.
Logo called the pointer the turtle, I remember a lesson they wanted the class to program a letter of the alphabet and had an hour to do task, me and a friend programmed the entire aphabet.
The nibbler tool changed my life! I had been making messy holes in things my whole life. I cut a perfect heatsink opening for a VIC2 chip so that I could leave the RF shield on (for no reason).
LOGO is not as simplistic as you believe, sadly it was all too common to concentrate on the turtle graphics element. LOGO is a full List Processing language with a lot of the concepts of LISP making it much more powerful.
The nibbler looks excellent for notching 5.25" disks.
Don't let Jason lie to you, he has 3 NABUs 🤣
I remember Logo from before 1985. I was less than 10 years old. Pretty fun Etch-a-Sketch language.
1:00:00 Actually, on my cherry cymotion master linux, the / key is printed with a division symbol..
And i remember a bunch of keyboards from the past, with german layout, having the division symbol printed on it..
While it's always the usual slash ;)
I don't have a massive IC collection but what I found works for me is binders with pages for card collecting and antistatic bags about the same size as the card sleeves. Chips that are too big (or I have too many) go into antistatic bags and then one of those sorter tackle boxes. I find this works better for me than those little draw divider cabinets that just seem to take up way too much space.
I use those collector card pages for loose resistors, one or two pages for each decade. I do have to be careful to keep it right side up (ha ha), and I store the binder in a plastic bag to keep bits from falling out, but otherwise it's easy to use.
And I'm going to give another vote against those drawer cabinets, they're just too fiddly inside, and you can't see what's in the drawer. My big thing these days is stacking a bunch of cheap clear storage containers, then putting sticky labels on them. My favorite storage containers are those 12-partition bead boxes, but I'll use anything that is clear and stacks well on a shelf.
Loving the Apple ][ content. Making a tricked-out //e would be a great arc.
So last year I got my Prusa MK3S+ which included Haribos from Prague (which is where the printer is from). They were decent enough. Well, I've been working on a car part for my parent's car (one they don't use much). and I found filament that was close to the original color. It's slightly more beige. There is no evidence the original part yellowed (inside matches the outside), but if it did, it could be a closer match. Anyway that filament came with a bag of gummys. I don't remember the brand, but holy damn they were 10x better than haribos. At least the ones from prague anyway. lol lol I am getting more haribos though. I have a prusa mk4 kit on order. They haven't shipped the mk4 kits yet. Only the fully assembled mk4's. Hopefully soon. It was supposed to be 2nd half of may.
A TV tech that I used to know (now deceased), would put his ICs into small ~2.5" x 4" paper envelopes with the chip number scribbled on the outside. Then stand those envelopes up in cardboard bin boxes (by chip series 74LS, 74HCT, etc). Also seemed to work well for other components like transistors, resistors, etc...
Most paper is acidic; paper yellowing is due to the acid inside breaking down the cellulose. Even documents kept in climate controlled low humidity storage will suffer this, albeit more slowly than comfortable humidities. The acids can result in staples being 50% rust within 20 years, and iron based inks turning from black to rust. (I worked at the Anchorage branch of the US National Archives for about 1.5 years - mostly pulling staples and tape from documents up to about 120 years old. The newest docs I worked on were from the Vietnam War era; some were already yellowing and had 25% thickness rust on the staples. High quality paper from 1880 was still pristine white, and the straight pins used as fasteners still shiny.) Yellow papers are often acidic. Don't store anything of import in manilla-colored papers.
@@WilliamHostman can it be trusted when it says acid free? Not that I’ve seen it on an envelope, but I’ve always seen it on my sketching and writing paper. I’m assuming that means acid free on sale, but it might still turn acidic?
Adrian you are the best! For sure! :) Just imagine your prescription.. Six haribos per day. Two at moring, two at noon and two at evening. And one small pack in case of emergrncy! :)
Nice content. Congrats Adrian.
The tool for cutting metal we name it "sacabocados" something like "bite extractor"
@@mal2ksc I'm sure is that :lol:
I finally got around to organizing some of my old chips this week. A few months ago I had ordered two 12" square sheets of foam. I cut them up into 4"x6" pieces, to fit a bunch of nice cheap containers that size, they are clear and stack, my two big rules.
Basically I now have a bunch of sheets of foam with DRAM chips sorted onto them, mostly 64K and 256K. But that was just a warm-up, and I still have EPROMs, SRAMs (I plan to put those into old NES cartridge rental cases), CPUs, and other chips to sort.
We used something like Logo in junior high. Our school's tech budget was lacking, to say the least. We were still using Apple IIs well into the 90s.
51:28 pretty sure there was a DOS version of the program. I used it for a couple of years back when I was in primary school, but between the exercises being pointless, the teacher's inconstance and the fact that it seemingly doesn't serve for any other purpose outside of class, not much was done with it (to the point that the second year we used it we started literally from scratch with the new teacher assuming we hadn't ever seen it). The most interesting thing I can say about it is that Mathologer has made a video using its motif as visual aid, just look for the turtle in the thumbnail (or search for "turtle").
There were Logo releases for most major OSs of the era... Apple II+ & up, CP/M, C64, C128, C128+CP/M, Mattel Aquarius, Atari 8-bits & ST line, Mac 128 (usable to about system 6 on later machines, IIRC), MSX (which is a graphical superset of a subset of CP/M), TI99/4a, Acorn, Amstrad CPC.... I suspect the IBM PC version was MS-DOS, but can't be certain, but there were specific versions for the PC and PCjr.
and Berkeley Logo (UCBLogo) is available for most modern platforms, if you want to give it a try today
Logo is actually a full fledge language based on LISP and the Turtle, the drawing module, is just a small subset of LOGO
Cool Stuff! I can't imagine making a panel without a nibbler. You are going to love it!
The 8-Bit guy is now a patron! :D
Not to be confused with Robin, The 8-Kids Guy 😆
"Oh look, there, you can make little J's." Adrian you are just freaking awesome.
I miss my Apple //e computer. The "ping" sound from the keyboard is so satisfying. Unlike the horrible chicklet keys on modern keyboards (who ever thought that was a good idea?!!!)
I use the same "PSU adapter hack" on my Macbook pro. But instead of replacing the magsafe connector with the chip, I used the same adapter socket on a car charger. So I can decide if I want to use it on mains power or from 12V in my weekend house.
The magsafe end has a chip inside to tell the MBP what charger I use. On the other end, it only needs +18V and GND.
For sorting and if you want to be ultra organised, you could also sort/store by chip date as well. So in future if you want to repair/restore a device and keep it date/year correct it'll be a bit easier. I think using one of those plastic storage drawers is good (the ones you see in workshops, electrical stations). What you could also do is store XYX chips in one drawer, if you have too many, also have a code/ref printed on the drawer, excess chips you store in a static bag with the same code/ref. Keep the static bags in a storage container with each code/ref written on the front so you can quickly find replacements to top up the storage drawers.
Those nibbler tools are really useful. I've worn out several.
My num pad connector has a back plate that is threaded, no need for nuts on mine but I do have to use washers to pinch the back plate. Also, you only need to hold down the closed apple for diagnostics, I accidentally slipped my finger off the open apple one day and it still worked. For years I too thought both keys were required. I only tested this on Apple 2e.
i have to say this mail call felt like old times! Candy and cool stuff!
Be sure to be super careful with that rare apple audio card, because, as we all know, it's a sin to kill a Mockingboard. I'll see myself out.
LOL
You're the first person I've ever heard call properly the DE-9 connector!
soooo cool to have great assistance in vid form.
USB4VC is another great converter for modern keyboards, mice and game controllers based on Raspberry Pi. Works really great and has support for different protocol cards! I use it to control my MS-DOS era PC with modern keyboard, mouse and a XBOX one controller.
Came here to say this. I use the USB4VC with an original Pi Zero (and USB Hub) to great success.
USB Mouse, USB keyboard and an XBox controller all show up as standard devices on my 486 without special drivers.
I dunno. Availability aside, I've heard annoyance stories about having to work around the non-instant boot for other Pi-based devices like the PiSCSI. If I'd ever found the time, I've been blinded to these things by my fixation on my inability to find any of the vintage ASIC-based USB-to-PS2 adapters and had been planning to grab an STM32 dev board with an Arduino core and native USB host support in hardware and write my own firmware which bit-bangs PS/2 on the GPIO pins.
The "Print" key just sends an obelix character.
Those Plato cutters with the plain blue handles are legit, think of them as the economy version of those nice ergonomic ones you just got. We actually order them a small box at a time as they are cheap cutters that wear out quickly.
If you keep collecting boxes of cards you'll end up with a house of cards.
I need you to know I live for your show. Keep up the great work!
Chip tubes DIPs potentially take up less space than drawers, and you can scan the top of the tube (assuming they are transparent) to find what you're looking for rather than rummaging through a bin of ICs potentially bending pins along the way.
The problem with chip tubes is that they're just too long. Cutting them shorter doesn't help because you would have to find bumpers for them. If you have a bunch of the same type of chip, fine, but they're not good to store your chip assortment.
You could make a video of you reorganizing your chips, I know I'd watch that!
Regarding the "disastrous chip situation" in the first segment, I immediately thought of Gridfinity for organization. DIP IC organizer parts are up on thingiverse, etc. Even just the usual small boxes could help. I've seen ESD-safe PLA filament, but it's very expensive -- maybe just lining the bottom with a metal sheet would suffice, lol.
HA! I had a similar experience to your LOGO in elementary school story. But at my elementary school they got PCjr. The first thing I remember, as a young exited kid to do computers in school, was when I sat down and saw the PCjr keyboard I thought it was a joke. What is this thing? Having a C64 at home. The second thing, like you, they had us do LOGO programming. I just whipped through that and the teacher didn’t believe I was doing the stuff myself. I asked her - “Really? Do you know what BASIC programming is?”. From the look on her face I think I was 5 seconds away from a slap.
ROTFL!!! I don't recall if I was antagonistic to my teacher. Ah those early days when the kids often knew far more than the teachers....
I never saw any PCs or Macs, or anything other than Unisys ICON computers here in Ontario till I got to high school in 1996 and we had, at the time, the most advanced computers and network of any elementary or secondary school in the region (maybe the whole province), Unisys ICONIX PCs with Pentium 75s, don't remember how much RAM or hard drive space, Windows 3.11 and a Novell Netware server, pretty sure we also had internet. This was a public school. I was like "finally, the school has comparable computers to what I have at home" since we'd been a PC only household since 84/85 and got dial up in 94, cable in 98.
In high school they taught us Turing, an educational language from the University of Toronto. I then taught myself HTML 3.2, but I really didn't like coding, I preferred to play around with hardware.
I had barely seen anything other than a PC, Macs to me were tiny all in one things that looked tiny and gimmicky, Apple II/III were more like game consoles to me, and a C64 scared me because all I saw was hand coding to play a game (didn't know it was BASIC). I had never heard of BASIC (ok, I knew od the MS BASIC DOS program but had no clue what it was) till I was in high school, maybe not till college.
My favorite Comuter lab story from Elementary school was being in grade 4 in a room full of Apple Mac Classic II's and all of my classmates asking me to help them when they had issues so much so that the teacher had to ask them to stop asking me for help because I wasn't getting my own work done.
I used a mockingboard on my Apple IIe when I took computer music composition in '90. It was 4-voice with square, saw, and sine gen. The accompanying software supported 4 voice polyphony.
Why speach chips? So you can make those voices sing! Duh!
When I get my GS set up again, I'll need to get one.
Organization is part of why Im sorta on a break right now. The power issue on the convertor will be the same reset bug thats driven me and many others insane when using external power. There is a simple circuit to fix it
I've also never seen an external Apple numeric keypad as well. The ROM 01 IIGS has the solder pads for the header for that keypad as well, so I'm assuming it would work with the GS for those who had them installed in their old IIe case.
It would be interesting to learn why the PRINT key outputs a question mark. The only thing I can think of is that the ? is a shortcut to typing PRINT when writing Applesoft BASIC. I suppose it could be used for that, but it seems weird that that would be the only BASIC command the keypad could provide.
I kinda doubt the keyboard folks were buying the nabu just for the switches, generally speaking any tall switches are gonna require more work than the average keyboard enthusiast is willing to put in. If you can't take the parts and put them in a commercially available kit or get a commercially available adapter to use over USB they don't care all that much. I know of a few people who have designed passive adapters (so you can run a USB cable out the back of the machine and still use the keyboard with the nabu) and they specifically didn't release the designs for these adapters so people wouldn't separate systems. A lot of modern keyboard kits are hotswap because a decent number of keyboard folks just don't want to solder, buying a board that doesn't have an existing converter/adapter, can't be turned into parts for a commercial kit, and requires desoldering is way too involved for most.
Most of the keyboard folks that got a hold of one primarily have it as a display/collection item more than anything else I can basically guarantee. The seller also had some damaged units so an orphaned keyboard or orphaned system isn't guaranteed to be a result of keyboard folks separating a board from a system. I was trying to get a few of the damaged systems but once the seller realized he could overprice them and put them on ebay he just stopped responding. Before he started listing them on ebay he was selling them for like 15 locally.
They even had "computer camp" school programs where logo was prominently used. 🐢
0:05 "Super *_Mini_* Mail Call"... video is 75 minutes long... 😸♥
FWIW that nibbler tool works well but make sure to wear gloves as it can make blisters almost as quick as it makes holes!
I never tried it, but I remember Atari STs came with an ST Logo diskette (along w/ ST BASIC).
Rando question, since cleaning my garage, would you be up for the sorting drawer sets I found for which I don't have a use at this moment?
When I was in middle School while macs took over most of the computer labs, I had a science class that used appleworks on the ][e to record results of experiments. Appleworks is not y2k complaint so I think we had to have everything dated 9x rather than the real year.
Giant testing and sorting video.
i made a program in logo that painted a house, a lawn, the blue sky and the sun, then painted the same house at night in B&W with a smaller moon.
I spent many many many hours playing Space Quarks off the Apple at Play disk.
Make a video of you organizing your 74 series collection, boom 2 birds one stone
Omg I love sorting chips haha, bring them to Open Sauce maybe
Hi Brett, I’m from Pace Florida also. Small world.
I had the CX85 Atari 8-bit keypad.
Should try getting the plastic tube that chips come in to store them
If I was your neighbor, I would be more than happy to help you out just for the fun of it. cheers.
I think there's 2 of everything on that mockingboard because it's stereo.
There was a space on the board for a jumper labelled "Stereo".
So many cool things!!!
i just got a fully working TI99+4 but it came with a spare video chip i think it was, are those known to go bad?
On modern the / is for division and the * is for multiply. I would my jewelers files to make one of the DB9 port bigger to fit the DB15 plug.
I had a lot of failed 74LSXX over the last years, esp. in once expensive measurement gear from the 70s and early 80s. I distrust all older 74LSXX...
"Dead as a doornail"...Dickens reference.
I was going to suggest an unpaid intern to help sort the chips right before you said it. It's a shame I don't live near you as I'd volunteer.
Turtle graphics! I entertained trying to use it from FORTRAN on the Apple ][ back in 1980. Never got it.
What about sourcing used DIP tubes, then just number each one and start a spreadsheet that lists the contents of each as you go along? That way you get them out of the loose bags for now.
They don't stack and they're too long to put in a shelf, they just end up as a big mess of sticks in a bin. And those pins on the end are a pain to open too. The best way for me with the bigger chips (especially EPROMs) has been to buddy them in pairs and put them in old NES cartridge rental cases that I got back in the 90s.
Does a nibbling tool take apart bytes into 4-bit chunks? 🤭
Is it possible to buy those "chip tubes" that Ali Express etc. uses to ship DIPs? Could you use those tubes to build an organization system for chips?
at 55:00 did you noticed the STEREO SPEECH jumper on the mocking board? just above 2 empty sockets
Probably so you could populate one speech chip and output mono to both channels, or 2 chips for full stereo.
The nibbler tool is to make your disks double-single sided!