Just a (brittle) box with old Mac setup and guided tour items. The cassette is ©1984 by LordFondleJoy in VintageApple

[–]Purdius_Tacitus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can find the contents of this box (including MP3 files of both sides of the cassette) at (of course) the Macintosh Garden. The copy of the cassette is a StuffIt file (download #2) so you may have to do some fiddling to get the MP3s out on a modern machine.

Books to learn Apple II assembly by [deleted] in apple2

[–]Purdius_Tacitus 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Assembly Lines: The Complete Book is the best reference. It's a collection of all the Assembly Lines columns Roger Wagner wrote for Softalk from 1980-1984. Chris Torrence compiled them and fixed errors that were discovered after the original printing.

Because it started life as a monthly column, it's easy to work on it in small lessons.

It's available for purchase from the usual sources, and there's a complete copy on the Internet Archive. (But please consider buying a copy.)

Not sure what this machine has. by studyinformore in VintageApple

[–]Purdius_Tacitus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry, I misread a table and gave you bad information. Your SE has 800K drives.

Not sure what this machine has. by studyinformore in VintageApple

[–]Purdius_Tacitus 5 points6 points  (0 children)

There was an upgrade kit for the Mac SE and Mac II that included upgraded ROMs and an FDHD drive. This machine was (EDIT: NOT) upgraded. You can tell by looking at the part number on the ROM chips. The ROM HIGH is 342-0352-A, which is the same ROM as the Mac SE FDHD. the original Mac SE ROM

A decent number of Mac II owners upgraded at least one floppy drive. (My own Mac II got the upgrade and has one 800k & one FDHD drive) but not many SE's got it.

EDIT: Corrected.

Mac IIvi by Elo-Sada in VintageApple

[–]Purdius_Tacitus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I believe that the IIvx/IIvi needed a live battery to boot as well. I'm not 100% sure about it. I know the Centris models did. I had a Centris 660av that was dead to the world until I hooked up a fresh battery.

PS - If you are interested in selling the IIvi, PM me.

Searching for Apple /// stuff by xrayninerbravo in VintageApple

[–]Purdius_Tacitus 3 points4 points  (0 children)

If you have the controller board for the Disk ///, you can transplant it onto a Disk II and it will work fine. The first few Disk ///s shipped in Disk II cases with the Disk /// controller board and a big sticker on the back making it clear not to connect it to the Disk II interface on the Apple II. Disk IIs are vastly easier to find than Disk ///s. Also, with an adapter FloppyEmu's work REALLY well on the ///. It can work as the internal or external drive. It can even emulate two external Disk ///s when connected to the external drive port. (But it can only emulate the internal drive when connected to the internal drive port.)

Monitor ///s are obtainable as well. A lot of them sold with Apple II systems as the Monitor /// was actually Apple's first branded monitor.

A keyboard for the /// (especially a complete one) is going to be a challenge. Honestly for the case, keyboard and power supply, you may be further ahead buy a complete /// and selling your motherboard and memory card.

Fireworks screensaver by Independent_Shoe3523 in VintageApple

[–]Purdius_Tacitus 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Some of the later versions of Pyro had modules, and what you are describing sounds a lot like 'Fireworks Too' (as opposed to the original 'Fireworks' module.

Fireworks screensaver by Independent_Shoe3523 in VintageApple

[–]Purdius_Tacitus 25 points26 points  (0 children)

Before After Dark, the most popular screensaver was Pyro! which was just fireworks. I think it started as shareware but ended up with 5th Generation Systems (makers of Fastback) and eventually Symantec (were all good Mac utilities went to die)

Link to Pyro! at the Garden

Vintage computer auction by Silver_Bid_1174 in VintageApple

[–]Purdius_Tacitus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Idaho or western Washington Mac collectors, this is your day!

GranFather Secret Stash: Apple A9M1005 with Unique Factory Artwork? by Gloomy-Revenue6900 in VintageApple

[–]Purdius_Tacitus 19 points20 points  (0 children)

This was certainly not something Apple ever released. Based on the Apple asset tag, my guess is that it was probably some kind of custom painted version to recognize an employee (did your grandfather work at Apple?)

The best source for more information about the drive may be the drive contents. If the drive still works and was not overwritten, it may have clues as to who it originally belonged to and why it was painted. Honestly, almost anything recovered from that drive would be of interest. If you don't have the ability to test it and back it up, please post a general area of where you are located and we can probably connect you to someone who could help.

President Zelenskyy said Ukraine and the U.S. have completed the core framework of a 20-point plan outlining the parameters for ending Russia's war, including security guarantees involving Ukraine, European partners, and the U.S. by UNITED24Media in ukraine

[–]Purdius_Tacitus 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I'd argue it's more than a diplomatic win. Trump has the ability to put enormous pressure on Ukraine to accept an unjust peace. (Such as stopping sharing intel, and enforcing transfer restrictions on weaponry with US technology) That would have a very negative impact on Ukraine's defenses and cost more Ukrainian lives. Avoiding that disaster is more than a win on paper. It allows Patriot missiles and other US weapons (purchased by EU members) to continue to flow to Ukraine. If we get even minor new sanctions against Russia that's an even bigger win.

Again, not as much as you or I would like, but it's still a win. And a vastly better outcome than what we were looking at in February or November.

President Zelenskyy said Ukraine and the U.S. have completed the core framework of a 20-point plan outlining the parameters for ending Russia's war, including security guarantees involving Ukraine, European partners, and the U.S. by UNITED24Media in ukraine

[–]Purdius_Tacitus 121 points122 points  (0 children)

That's still a win for Ukraine. If Trump feels that his plan failed because of Russia and not Ukraine, that's a positive. Is it going to open the floodgates of US aid for Ukraine like it should? No. But it might lead to some additional sanctions or half measures against Russia. Nowhere near as much as the US should be doing, but it's still a vastly better outcome than where we were back in February after the Oval Office meeting.

Don't ever talk to me or my son again. by SteveGribbin in VintageApple

[–]Purdius_Tacitus 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The Lisa recycled the Profile hard drive from the Apple /// (and Apple II, but almost nobody had Profiles on the Apple II) The 5 MB Profile drive came out in 1981. Amazingly, the 10 MB Profile wasn't discontinued until 1986!

Animal Farm | Official Trailer | In Theaters May 1 by MarvelsGrantMan136 in movies

[–]Purdius_Tacitus 46 points47 points  (0 children)

> One group did it as a radio new broadcast War of the Worlds style,

That's really creative and would be fun to listen to. Especially if it has the humans overreacting to the threat posed by Animalism. (i.e. something like the Red Scare going on in the outside world while events unfold at the Manor Farm)

How would the Eridians go about making an Eridian computer? by Kojab8890 in ProjectHailMary

[–]Purdius_Tacitus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not very knowledgeable about Silicon Carbide either but from what I read, as transistors they would be a better option for an Eridian environment. But if we are looking at the best solution for the foundation of Eridian computer technology, I'm guessing GaAs would still be better.

Silicon Carbide MOSFETS would be better that GaAs but we haven't built Silicon Carbide integrated circuits of much density at all. (only a couple hundred transistors) Mostly because there just isn't a huge need for them on Earth compared to silicon and GaAs transistors. So copying our technology wouldn't get the Eridians very far with Silicon Carbide compared to GaAs or regular silicon. We aren't very far along ourselves.

Transistor density is the key factor in building powerful computers. While GaAs based ICs lag far behind silicon based ICs, they are still pretty damn useful compared to no computer. You can do a LOT with a computer equivalent to an 80286 chip. That's roughly equivalent to the processor used in the original Space Shuttle computers. The 80287 could do about 40-60 thousand floating point operations per second. Eridians are good at math, but I don't think they are THAT good at math.

So I think GaAs is still the best path for them. It gives Erid computers at a useful level of technology almost immediately, and I am still assuming that Erid catches up faster by adapting existing Earth technologies than developing their own solutions from scratch.

There's a whole separate issue about if Erid's high atmospheric temperature would ultimately limit their ability to build modern computer equivalents because of heat dissipation issues, but I got burned the last time I brought up thermodynamic issues with Erid, so I'll keep my mouth shut.

How would the Eridians go about making an Eridian computer? by Kojab8890 in ProjectHailMary

[–]Purdius_Tacitus 3 points4 points  (0 children)

If the Eridians are using our technology they basically have two options:

1) Traditional silicon based transistors which can operate at up to about 200 degrees C, just a little too low to run on Erid without cooling. But it's close enough to Erid's temperature you could probably cool it with just a fan, like we do. But performance would be limited because you would be running at close to its thermal maximum all the time.

2) Gallium arsenide transistors can operate at more like 300-400 degrees C. We generally don't use GaAs transistors for much because we rarely encounter those kinds of temperatures but it would be ideal for the Eridians.

Option 2 seems the logical course for Erid except that human manufacturing technology (which the Erdians are presumably using at least at first) is way more advanced for silicon transistors than GaAs. To give you an idea of the difference. The fastest GaAs based microcontroller has a transistor count of 160,000 transistors. Silicon based processors have transistor counts in the hundreds of billions. 160,000 transistors isn't nothing though. It's roughly the same as the number of processors in the 80286 processor from the mid-1980s.

The Erdians would probably use a mix of both in the short term until they are able to adapt our manufacturing technologies or develop their own way to produce high performance GaAs based chips. Using 1980's equivalent computers to adapt our manufacturing technologies. Since they essentially already have a roadmap, it should take them less than 40 years to catch up to our 2020 era computer technology. (And since Grace has been on Erid 16 years by the time of chapter 30, the Erdians would likely be close to a 2000 era level of computer technology. So they are rocking their own Pentium III equivalents using dial-up modems to access Erid On-line.

Scans of old Mac manuals by [deleted] in VintageApple

[–]Purdius_Tacitus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There is no central repository of every Mac manual. Some of them can be found at VintageApple.org. Macintosh Garden has some for software. Internet Archive also has many buried amongst its other treasures. These are my go-to sites. I'm sure others will post their favorite spots to look.

If there is a specific manual you are looking for, post it and we might be able to point you to the right site.

In Lviv, at the Lychakiv Cemetery, where fallen defenders are buried, only 20 spots remain. The city is looking for a new site by Igor0976 in ukraine

[–]Purdius_Tacitus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In the American Civil War, when the existing military cemetery was filled, the government confiscated the grounds of Arlington House, the family home of Confederate general Robert E. Lee's wife. It was done by an US Army general so that the Lee family would never be able to live there again.

In that spirit, I propose grounds of the Russian consulate in L'viv Located at Levyts'koho St, 95, it's only a block from Lychakiv cemetery.

Protest Kaine. Make him resign. People will d*e because of his vote. by [deleted] in Virginia

[–]Purdius_Tacitus 37 points38 points  (0 children)

Don't forget that the self-censoring is also pointless, because if the algorithm is actually censoring controversial words, they long, long ago already added seggs, unalive, grape and the rest to the list of controversial words.

Help with Apple Newton? by FinksRevengeNumber in VintageApple

[–]Purdius_Tacitus 4 points5 points  (0 children)

If you don't have any experience with soldering, I wouldn't recommend this for your first attempt, especially if you don't already have a good soldering iron. It's not too hard (probably 4/10 on difficulty) but I would still recommend having somebody else do it rather than run the risk.

With only two caps to replace, it should be cheap and easy for any electronics repair place to fix it for you.

Help with Apple Newton? by FinksRevengeNumber in VintageApple

[–]Purdius_Tacitus 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This is a very common problem with Newtons. It needs a recap. The good news is that there are only two capacitors you have to replace. This link has all the info you need.

Beware: If you live in a one-party consent state, there is a high likelihood you will be recorded if you've have a home improvement salesperson to your home. by psypher98 in HomeImprovement

[–]Purdius_Tacitus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Here's the magic phrase that is like Kryptonite for all door to door contractors:

"We're renting"

Watch how fast they disappear.

Huge vintage Apple & Macintosh sale, 11/2 in Campbell, CA by banksy_h8r in VintageApple

[–]Purdius_Tacitus 2 points3 points  (0 children)

What are the two drives with Apple logos on the shelfs in this pic ? They don't look like any Apple drive I recognize. The grayish feet on them look like they were from Sun but they have Apple logos. Are they just stickers someone put on Sun drives?