the europlus zone

Update: added support/use within emulators to the wish list – that’s what you get rushing: you leave out something you always wanted to say!

There are a lot of very smart people in the Apple ][ scene.

Hardware and software products proliferate in a way I can’t recall being matched at any time since I got back into Apple ][’s in 1998.

And a large amount of time and effort is being spent on disk-related projects, especially hardware and disk content preservation.

For example, there are at least four active or semi-active disk drive emulation hardware products available at the moment: Nishida Radio’s UnisDisk, Rich Dreher’s CFFA3000, Пламен Вайсилов’s SDFloppy II, and Steve Chamberlin’s Floppy Emu.

On the software preservation side, 4am and Brutal Deluxe Software are amongst those involved in making old software, especially protected software, available for use by preserving the software, often via copy protection cracking (often detailing the cracks to allow them to be reversed or studied).

These preservation efforts often require a non-standard disk image file, such as a .edd file, made using an EDD+ card and software like Brutal Deluxe’s i’m fEDD up. These files preserve the stream of bits coming off the disk before they are decoded by the Disk ][ controller card, and this data can be captured down to a quarter-track resolution (can those in the know please correct me in the comments if I’m misrepresenting this?).

Occasionally a .nib file, which records extra track data (such as DOS volume number) beyond a standard 140K .dsk image file is enough to defeat copy protection which relied on this information.

So I’ve been thinking recently that it would be nice if we could use Apple ][ disk drives on modern computers, say via a USB-based device, to capture not only .edd files, but also .nib and .dsk files (ProDOS-ordered and DOS-ordered). Let’s call it the “Disk ][SB”.

I know I’m not alone in contemplating such a device: Apple ][ luminary Mike Willegal worked on an interface card in 2008 and 2009 with a view to having a final version utilising USB. Glenn Jones indicated on Mike Willegal’s site that he had worked on a similar device at some point in the past. Both projects are currently on hiatus.

Glenn pointed me to the Device Side Data FC5025, which connects a PC 5¼” floppy drive to modern computers via USB and is a currently active project – this is pretty close to what I’m suggesting, but can only create .dsk Apple ][ disk images, and can’t read “flippy” disks, which were not uncommon in commercial Apple ][ software, let alone in home use. Perhaps the most famous example of a flippy disk in Apple ][ circles is the original Karateka disk, which would allow you to play the game upside down if the disk was inserted upside down.

Further along the path to deep-reading of disk data is the KryoFlux, which reads the magnetic flux transition timing from disks and saves that data to modern computers. This is, perhaps, the bee’s knees of software preservation – but it’s also between €98 and €125 (plus the cost of a floppy drive), which for me is above my budget.

I envisage the Disk ][SB as operating somewhere between the KryoFlux and the FC5025 – not as low-level as magnetic flux transition timing, but higher resolution than the .dsk images the FC5025 will produce. Almost like an EDD+ card for modern computers. Having it Apple ][-specific meshes nicely with my computer model chauvinism. Perhaps the only “special” hardware required would be a physical Apple ][ disk drive.

And then, of course, there’s use in emulators. Charles Mangin, through his RetroConnector store, offers various adaptors for using legacy hardware on modern computers, and modern devices on legacy computers, such as his Joystick Shield for using Apple ][ joysticks on modern computers, including use within emulators. How cool would it be to be able to boot an emulator from a physical disk in a Disk ][?!

While contemplating such a device, my mind keeps returning to the Apple II Pi, which integrates modern hardware with ancient. On one hand, I wonder if the Apple II Pi could be utilised in some way in my grand scheme for modern disk image capture, while on another it makes me think that surely it would be possible to design a new USB-based solution for connecting Disk ][’s to modern computers (and I’m aware that’s just the certainty of ignorance passing judgement on the Disk ][SB’s feasibility – I’m no hardware or software engineer).

So, to summarise, my initial wish list for the Disk ][SB is:

• allows connection of Apple Disk ][ drives (20-pin connector) to modern computers via USB;
• allowing DB19-based drives to connect would be a bonus (and is SmartPort support too much to wish for?);
• copy data/files to/from disks (perhaps via FUSE);
• ability to use legacy drives and physical disks in emulators;
• capture .edd disk images;
• capture .nib disk images;
• capture .dsk disk images;
• capture other suitable disk image formats such as .2mg (see SmartPort meta-wish above); and
• incorporating 4am’s cracks from Passport would also be a bonus to allow direct cracking of Apple ][ protected disks to .dsk image files on modern computers.

The division of labour between hardware and software would be at the discretion of the developer/s.

What do you think – am I hoping for too much?

I’ve read a heap of books about Apple, its people, products, and history. These include, but are not limited to (and in no particular order):

• Apple: The Inside Story of Intrigue, Egomania, and Business Blunders, by Jim Carlton (ISBN 0-7126-7901-4)
• Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can’t Get a Date, by Robert X. Cringely (ISBN 0-14-025826-4)
• The Mac Bathroom Reader, by Owen W. Linzmayer (ISBN 0-7821-1531-4)
• iWoz, by Steve Wozniak with Gina Smith (ISBN 978-0-7553-1407-2)
• The Apple II User’s Guide, by Lon Poole with Martin McNiff & Steven Cook (ISBN 0-931988-46-2)
• Return to the Little Kingdom: Steve Jobs, the creation of Apple, and how it changed the world, by Michael Moritz (ISBN 978-0-7156-3941-2)
• Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography, by Walter Isaacson (ISBN 978-0-7481-3132-7)
• Becoming Steve Jobs: How a reckless upstart became a visionary leader, by Brent Schendler and Rick Tetzeli (ISBN 978-1-444-76200-6)

And then there are the numerous articles, blog posts and reminiscences about my favourite tech company by past and present employees, journalists, users, and podcasters.

You could say I’m steeped in the Apple culture, and not just because I’ve literally bled six colours!

I’ve certainly known of Ron Wayne’s part in Apple’s founding, and how Mike Markkula not only helped Apple establish itself with finance and guidance, but also by writing some of the early Apple-branded software to help showcase the Apple ][’s capabilities when it was first released.

What I didn’t know until last week was one little snippet of information about Mike Markkula’s impact on the Apple culture which is still on display in many products and in product announcements throughout its history – the programs he wrote were published as being authored by none other than “Johnny Appleseed”.

Yep, that’s right – the perennial Apple-using chap who shows up in probably every screenshot of a phone call, contacts list, iMessage chat, or e-mail shown during Apple keynotes and product announcements, and as a dummy name programmed into many Apple products, started his association with Apple 40 years ago as the programming nom de plume of one of Apple’s early founders.

I simply cannot imagine how this fact has eluded me all these years – I suppose there’s a chance I missed it when reading or hearing about it in the past, but it really is exactly the sort of factoid I tend to remember and take note of. I can find it referenced on websites going back to at least 2010, and I’m sure it must have been mentioned or relayed somewhere before then.

I know I don’t know everything there is to know about Apple – but I obviously know at least a little less than I previously thought!

It says something of my obsession that I was thrilled to learn even this little tidbit – here’s to learning a heap more!

It takes a lot to inspire dedication – people have to care very deeply about something to be dedicated to it.

Apple ][ aficionados are by no means the only dedicated species on this planet: car enthusiasts, Raspberry Pi tinkerers, painters on art tours – we all share a degree of passion which outsiders often view askance…while being so dedicated to their own “thing” such as a football team, a TV show, or a favourite restaurant.

But today, I was reminded of just how dedicated my fellow redo-computer enthusiasts were, in a few (very) different ways.

Firstly, there was an e-mail from Ken Gagne, the Editor-In-Chief and Publisher of Juiced.GS, the world’s only remaining (and longest running) Apple ][ print magazine. [Disclaimer: Ken kindly commissioned a story for the June ’16 issue of Juiced.GS on WOzFest from me.] To continue sourcing material for and publishing Juiced.GS takes a special kind of dedication. I burned out after only a few years of co-editing the Club Mac magazine, MACinations – Ken has been Editor-In-Chief of Juiced.GS since 2006! And, it seems, he has no intention of stopping – what an effort!

Secondly, Jeremy, an attendee of WOzFest /// posted his gallery of photos from the event on the WOzFest /// Galleries post I finally got around to putting up. Jeremy drove up for WOzFest /// from Canberra, a 6-hour round trip. And Jason and Geoff flew up from Melbourne to attend – it takes a certain kind of dedication (or crazy) to go so far for what is, in effect, a one-night informal gathering of Apple ][ collectors – what an effort!

And lastly (for now), there’s Steve Chamberlin, of Big Mess o’ Wires. I’d been following Steve’s travails around sourcing/reproducing DB19 connectors for his most excellent Floppy Emu disk drive emulator for many retro-Apple computers. It turns out, Steve has bitten the bullet and organised manufacture of 10,000 (yes, 10,000!) DB19 connectors to supply not just his own needs, but (as a group purchase) the needs of other retro-enthusiasts, including Atari and NeXT enthusiasts.

Steve had already gone above and beyond in extending his Floppy Emu beyond its original scope of being an early Macintosh floppy drive emulator. It now emulates pretty well any Apple drive designed to use the DB19 connector, including SmartPort drives, the Macintosh (non-SCSI) HD20, Apple ][ drives and Lisa drives. Steve could have quite rightly rested on his laurels and said, “No more DB19? No more Floppy Emus!”. Instead, he took the bull by the horns and solved his own supply issue and that of other enthusiasts – what an effort!

With dedication like the above, there are many exciting days ahead for us Apple ][ collectors!