The idea of using the Apple II home computer for digital photography purposes may seem somewhat daft considering that this is not a purpose that they were ever designed for, yet this is the goal that [Colin Leroy-Mira] had, requiring some image decoder optimizations. That said, it’s less crazy than one might assume at first […]
The Apple II was made in great numbers, as was the Commodore 64. But the Mimic Spartan? It was a weird Apple II clone that you needed a Commodore 64 to use. [ARC Javmaster] has found one of these obscure machines and has set about bringing it back to life. Check out the video below. […]
Recently [Colin Leroy-Mira] found himself slipping into a bit of a rabbit hole while investigating why only under Apple II MAME emulation there was a lot of flickering when using the (emulated) Apple II MouseCard. This issue could not be reproduced on real (PAL or NTSC) hardware. The answer all comes down to how the […]
When we think of programmable hardware, we think of FPGAs. But they’re not the only option. [Oliver Schmidt] has been exploring how the Raspberry Pi Pico can serve in such a role for the classic Apple II. The talk was presented at the KansasFest event this year, and it’s well worth diving into! [Oliver] has […]
What’s more fun than porting an old game released for an old system such as the Apple IIgs to its 10-year-older predecessor, the Apple II from 1977? Cue [Deater]’s port of the classic video game ‘Another World‘ to the original Apple II. As was fairly obvious from the onset, the main challenges were with the […]
We spend a lot of time in our community discussing the many home computers from the 8-bit era, while almost completely ignoring their industrial equivalents. While today a designer of a machine is more likely than not to reach for a microcontroller, four decades ago they would have used a single-board computer which might have […]
Vintage parts may be documented, but that doesn’t mean they’re particularly useful or accessible. If the phrase “eyestrain from unsearchable, badly-scanned PDF datasheets” makes your lower eyelid twitch in sympathy, read on. While [Bald Engineer] was researching how he might make a portable Apple II, he was delighted to find that the vintage components he […]
The Altair 8800 was, to its creators, a surprise hit. Despite looking nothing like what we would today consider to be a computer, it sold thousands of units almost immediately upon its launch, way back in 1975. A few years later, the Apple II burst onto the scene, and the home computer revolution began in […]
For one reason or another, we’re going with a retro-futuristic 80s aesthetic in this case, [Mike] decided to turn an Apple IIe into a robot. If you have to ask why, you’ll never know, but this project does have some interesting things going for it. There’s a voice synthesizer, a brand spankin’ new power supply, and […]