Look what I found in our mailbox today!
(pic is a bit blurry because it was taken with an Apple device ;-)
Apple-fanboy s(ch)wag for an upcoming Apple fan like me. What a pleasant surprise!
All the way from the United Arab Emirates via my dear friend Turbodave.
Asante sana, bro!
Disclaimer: this isn’t the Motter Tektura or Cupertino font, but still comes very close to the original…
Thanks for the honourable mention! :-)
Of all the eighties’ eight-bitters, the Apple //e was my favourite computer. Unfortunately, there were no resources available in Nairobi at that time – no books, magazines, software or a geek-community. So I sat infront of the machine on many occasions, wondering what else could be done with it, apart from playing games or writing simple BASIC-code. With today’s possibilities available at that time, history might easily have gone a different path and I would have chosen to go digital, instead of going into professional aviation. ;-)
I’m still using the apple emulator on my PC today sometimes. “WinApple” is the best emulator that I could find. Owning an original Apple at home, I can even legally (for whatever it’s worth on a 20 year old computer) download and use the kernel-ROM. WinApple allows the installation of different ROMs, thus turning it in to an Apple II, II+, IIe or IIc.
The emulator’s settings can be changed to any original configuration: Available RAM, display (color/monochrome monitor or TV-emulation), you can set the two floppy-drives’ speeds to “authentic” or quick, and use your gamepad to represent the apple’s original joystick (unlike the C64, the apple used analogue ones).
Needless to mention that the printer works on your PC, but even more rare pieces of hardware, which most people didn’t have at that time, are featured: A mouse was never common on an Apple II, it became popular only with the introduction of the Macintosh. It works on the pc.
But Apple also had a device called the “Mockingboard” (following the Mockingbird, a kind of parrot, which imitates the sounds of other birds). The Mockingboard was a real sound card, doing incredible things like enabling the computer to talk, or to play a whole classic concert. I only saw one once, on a demonstration machine somewhere. On the AppleWin-emulator, the pc’s soundcard easily supports the Mockingboard.
It’s the machine of my choice! :-)