Daily Apple

I intend to use this space to post on a daily basis about Apple II computers.

I bought my first Apple Computer on December 29 of 1984.  It was an Apple //c and came with a 9″ monitor and stand, a scribe printer and a cricket speach synthesizer.  All this for $1475 after discount and before taxes.

Set up on a card table, in the corner of the livingroom, I used this apple on a daily basis for years.  As with most computers, you add pieces, equipment and software, as time goes on.  I added another 5 1/4″ 140K diskette drive (Laser) and a modem (a screaming fast 1200 baud).

I played around with Applesoft, added ZBasic, Assembler and Kyan Pascal.  No apple II was complete without AppleWorks so I picked that up.  Never forget the games; Zork, Ultima, Flight Simulator and others.

Early on there was a problem with the serial port, so the Apple dealer replaced the motherboard.  The first versions of the //c were known to have  a serial port problem.  At one point the the monitor took a fall and I replaced it with one from ebay.

The Apple //c went into storage in a basement closet for a couple of years.  A few years ago I dug it out of storage and fired it up.  Unfortunately, conditions in the closet were not optimal and the //c developed some problems.  The sad fact was, I have no electronics skills per say.  I replaced the //c with one I got on eBay for about $35.  This later version of the //c allowed the use of larger drives so I picked up a 3 1/2″ 800K drive and later another, at very reasonable prices.