Apple II Learns to Print

[@TechTangents]

A surprising number of people aren't getting that the printout was a joke. I explain it more here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iYXXkomqhJqkY80 but it was just a cascade of different things. I even said at 34:20 that I wouldn't have added the lower text if I had know how it would be laid out on the page, I was just trying to fill the message box to see what a full sheet would look like.

[@gnericgnome4214]

My Panasonic 2135 (nee 2130) does page feed like that, iirc.

[@needfuldoer4531]

I miss old computer box art that's just a watercolor of a bunch of people doing Important Computer Things with their home computers.

[@JoBot__]

The way you wrote that reminds me a lot of someone called Foone Turing.

[@omegahelix]

The original Print Shop! What a throwback. I distinctly remember the “Post no bills” icon for signs and the magician shooting lightning. I printed the kaleidoscope patterns with my Imagewriter II. And banners wishing Mom happy birthday. Thought I was so cool.

[@caseyrevoir]

You are cool!

[@benholroyd5221]

"post no bills"?

[@lolodiculous]

"A computer doesn't feel complete until it can print" Well, vintage printers ARE the hardest part to find, from my experience. Great video man!

[@Toonrick12]

Congrats on being the first real comment on this video.

[@lolodiculous]

@@Toonrick12 thanks, kinda sad how fast bots are taking over...

[@HamburgerAmy]

me looking like homelander with my visible disgust for home printers.

[@jakint0sh]

@@HamburgerAmy Brother printers are actually a joy to work with in my experience, basically anything else is not though.

[@HamburgerAmy]

@@jakint0sh that's true, don't ruin that by looking or using (residential) brother printer products from the last few years though...they've fallen into the specialty ink rental agreement scams as well

[@rivards1]

By the way, the SUP R MOD RF modulator came with almost every Apple II/II Plus. Virtually no one had a dedicated monitor, and those Sanyo security monitors really weren't consumer items. No TVs had Composite in. The FCC prevented Apple from including an internal RF Modulator due to interference concerns. So the SUP R MOD was practically a required accessory. Remember that the other two computers from 1977 - the PET and the TRS-80 were B&W, with companion monitors. I think the Atari 800 was the earliest computer with internal RF out - and it required shielding like a tank!

[@c1ph3rpunk]

I swear my 800 is just a giant faraday cage.

[@OttoJuJu]

yeah, and I used this exact model Hitachi TV with my Atari 800 for about 20 years!

[@CharlesOttman]

10 D$=CHR$(4) 20 PRINT D$;"PR#1" 30 PRINT D$;"CATALOG" 40 PRINT D$;"PR#0" 50 END

[@andrewdunbar828]

Came across this a month ago. I had no recollection of having learned it back in 1979. I was trying to read random binary files off the drive. I think it's something to do with "CATALOG" not being a BASIC command but a DOS 3.3 command?

[@CharlesOttman]

@@andrewdunbar828 Correct CATALOG isn't a Applesoft command which is why when he listed the program it was showing up as "C AT A LOG" because Applesoft tried to break it up into BASIC. AT and LOG happen to be BASIC words/functions. The control-d, CHR$(4) is the escape/hook character to cause the string that follows it to be dealt with in DOS 3.3. ProDOS follows the same convention.

[@rager1969]

Oh man, I totally forgot about CHR$(4). It's also funny that EVERYONE used the variable D$, cuz that was the prototypical example, just as I was the variable used to demonstrate FOR/NEXT loops. Of course, D$ makes sense because D is the 4th letter of the alphabet and I makes sense because we are using an integer.

[@andrewdunbar828]

@@rager1969 It's actually D$ because the same character is control-D. But I'm not sure where that came from since it's ascii name is 'eot'... Well what do you know? You're also right because the ascii control codes are mapped to "caret notation" starting with "control a" being ascii 01. I never knew that before!

[@ajslim79]

who needs Dolby Surround, when you can have Shelby Spatial Audio :D

[@BradinSiouxCity]

ADT Pro always works to write disks from pc to apple II through the serial card in a pinch

[@jakint0sh]

Wait until he figures out that it works with the cassette port too :)

[@CheshireNoir]

ADTPro was my main reason to get a Super Serial Card.

[@shawnmulligan3471]

I have an Apple IIgs, and ADT Pro worked very well with that, since it has a built-in serial port. You can bootstrap the communications using PR#1 to receive the ADT bootstrap program over serial, then run it to receive the disk image and image it. Works well with Linux, and Apple II disk images are pretty small so transferring over serial isn't that much slower than imaging them on a modern PC. The IIgs also supports automatic net-booting over Appletalk, from a Mac running OS7 and AppleShare Server 1. This can give you a "hard drive" without buying anything extra, and an easy way to transfer software, since the Mac ran access the Apple II files. I have a Quadra 800 acting as the server, so I can just FTP files over to it and drop them into the IIgs' "root directory". With GS/OS you get a decent GUI with a file browser like MacOS that can access all the files on the share.

[@BradinSiouxCity]

The Imagewriter II is a pretty great printer too, especially with a sheet feeder attachment.

[@bittertruth6575]

Thank you my man. This is top tier content. I love the way the videos starts off simple and gets more complex as it goes on as you slowly reveal your 'mad scientist' side. I especially love how you keep bring out all the stuff gradually. It must cost you a great deal financially as well as in time to script/plan all these videos to make them so educational and informative.

[@hey_imriver]

I'm sorry, but as a software developer, watching you go through all this trouble to acquire and install an old printer, making sure to set every little thing correctly, just to print a "SYNTAX ERROR IN 20" when trying to print something useful for the first time was pure comedy

[@ellipticalsoul]

The Print Shop goes way harder than you would expect

[@tschak909]

To send DOS commands, you must print a control-D, which causes COUT to intercept it as a DOS command. so: 20 PRINT CHR$(4);"CATALOG" will do what you want.

[@shawnfromportland]

2:00 3 straight minutes about how much you enjoy reading 80s tech manuals. i simply can't get this content anywhere else 🔥

[@TheSulross]

Have manuals from my mid 80s Tandy Model 200 and they are a kind of special joy - nothing like that era of manuals with any modern computing products

[@DavidWonn]

23:32 I am not certain if this works on a ][+, but on a ][e, you can embed Apple DOS commands into BASIC like this: ]20 PRINT "^DCATALOG" where you type Control+D instead of the ^D above. It won't display on screen as you type it, and you won't visibly see when you LIST, but it is there. It effectively allows the following string to be executed as if it were a command.

[@jakint0sh]

Hoo boy… this is hilarious and a little painful to watch as somebody who knows WAY too much about Apple IIs. So basically what you’re doing when you run “PR#1” is running the code in the expansion ROM on the super serial card, which changes the hook that the basic/monitor ROM calls to print a character to point to the super serial card’s code instead of a routine that resides in the monitor ROM that prints to the screen normally. Doing PR#0 resets this hook. This is also how the 80-column cards work, and on an Apple IIe you do PR#3 to enter 80-col mode, and PR#0 to reset back to 40 columns. All in all, I don’t blame you for not knowing, and I think it’s cool to see you try to learn how to use the machine authentically. I love what you do, keep up the good work!

[@DerekLippold]

That’s really the best vintage printer I’ve seen. The dot matrix I had when I was a kid was much slower and didn’t load as well. More than once it picked up the paper it had already printed and ran it through again until it jammed. It was hard to keep it in the track properly.

[@fredWaxBeans11111]

VERY Groovy! Being able to do this in 1977 would feel like Star Trek technology come to life

[@Mrshoujo]

At the DeVry I went to in the mid 1980s, students shared around a cracked copy of Print Shop which I ended up copying & sharing with a grade school class who later sent me a thank you card they printed with it. 😊 The easiest & quickest way to copy an Apple ][ disk was a program called Disk Muncher. Also you can INIT a disk with any program name. Doesn't have to be HELLO. Let us know when you start looking into Shape Tables, the Apple version of Sprites. Signs & Greeting Cards were the most used features for Print Shop. I used to create custom graphic icons for friends & print stuff.

[@OffstagePfaffa]

Hey TechTangents, let me teach an ancient Apple ][ spell of the most obscure variety. Many knew this back in the day but did not understand how it work: ]PR#1 (Select Card in slot 1 for I/O) (Interrupt) (You will then see a "?" prompt) i (Enter interactive mode) Now everything that appears on screen will also be printed, this was almost always used to create print outs of the disk catalog which was cut down to size and taped to the sleeve. I am pretty sure this is all documented somewhere in the manuals, but I never found it.

[@OffstagePfaffa]

BTW Fun fact, there is a Easter Egg in the first Iron Man movie Stark uses a similar method to boot the MK 1 suit, they swapped one step with a F# key

[@BollingHolt]

This inspires me to go back and look at a project I started but never finished successfully back in 2018, trying to hook up a genuine Apple 300 baud modem to my IIe. I never could get any clear answers back then on my KZbin videos as to why I couldn't make it work. When I stumbled across that jumper block and found it still set to terminal mode, I thought for sure that would do the trick, but no, it did not. I've more experience with older Apples now, and maybe six years (damn, where does time go!) later, I'll have some more experience. Awesome video!

[@JD-xt8cj]

I remember when I was in middle school, the teacher had me leading the class for a few minutes while she stepped out. I was trying to demonstrate one of her programs using “RUN” and “BRUN”, to no avail… then I tried “INITIALIZE” on it and erased the teachers diskette. Oops!

[@AdamKlein77]

That's when you type "home" and say "I don't know what happened! Weirdest thing!"

[@robertatkinson6864]

“INITIALIZE” would have given you a Syntax Error. The proper Apple DOS 3.3 command would have been "INIT", or "INIT HELLO" if you wanted it to run the HELLO program at boot up.

[@RudysRetroIntel]

Having had and still have an Apple II, I use the serial card for the modem and a parallel card for my Epson FX100 printer. Since you have a serial printer, you could use the 2nd card for a modem:) Thanks for sharing

[@QuintusCunctator]

In a time where there was no Google, no Stack Exchange and (god forbid) no ChatGpt to ask questions to, reading a manual was really the intended way to learn how to operate a PC or a program. And it has two plusses over the alternatives: 1. It gives an overview of a "system" and its capabilities, not only a vertical slice of knowledge 2. It usually conveys the intent, or even the philosophy, of the author. So, while "RTFM" is a crass interjection, it is also a very valuable suggestion. Long live the manuals!

[@lemonherb1]

My first computer was a ][+ clone, so this brings back some memories. I remember my favourite BASIC shortcut was typing a question mark instead of PRINT. The ImageWriter II was a colour printer. I used to print alot of greeting cards on PrintShop GS from my Apple IIGS in colour all the time. Sadly those old ribbons don't stand the test of time. The way the ribbon is advanced is with friction on a couple of foam wheels which disintegrate over time

[@philipstephens5960]

To add some extra clarification about DOS commands. Applesoft BASIC does not implement these commands, they are part of DOS 3.3 that is loaded from the floppy disk into RAM. But the character input and output subroutines in ROM provide vectors in RAM that can be overridden, which is what the IN# and PR# commands do (they redirect input and output to the ROM on the card inserted into the specified slot). When you boot from a DOS 3.3 disk, DOS also hooks itself into these vectors, which allows it to have first crack at parsing whatever you type at the Applesoft prompt when a program isn't running. However, during running of an Applesoft program, DOS will only respond to commands being printed via the PRINT statement, and only if you precede the command with a carriage return and CTRL-D character. It won't respond to commands typed when an INPUT statement is executed. This is to ensure that Applesoft programs will run normally, while still providing a way to execute DOS commands, which as I've already said are not part of Applesoft BASIC, hence the reason why typing 20 CATALOG did not work. Applesoft BASIC simply doesn't recognize CATALOG as a valid statement.

[@jkeelsnc]

There was something honest and direct about Apple DOS. For a command line based system it was pretty darn easy to use. I grew up with it in school.

[@artofnoise5013]

One benefit of your printout explainer is that it brought me here.

[@der.Schtefan]

That jumper block is actually quite cool. Most other serial solutions would require you to use a crossed cable (what old people would call a "LapLink" cable), or a crossover adapter. This one is a free adapter on the card. I remember the towers of adapters I had to use in the old days when all I had is opposite gendered, wrongly crossed cables, of the wrong width.

[@rager1969]

You don't need to put an END statement at the end of your program unless you have GOTO and/or GOSUB code (usually placed at the end of the program listing) in which case you would likely want your main block of code to end before reaching that (sequentially). Also, if you type PR#1 at the Applesoft prompt, all text that would go to the monitor will go to the printer - anything you type, any output of a command, and the text output of any BASIC program you run. So, you could type PR#1, then CATALOG and have that go to the printer. When done, type PR#0 to go back to outputting to the monitor.

[@paulyearley1084]

Having been in elementary school in the 80s, Apple //es were everywhere, and I had no idea that the printer setup was so convoluted. This is absolutely wild.

[@FTWflow]

I had the same printer as a kid and would use The Print Shop to print banners on my Apple IIc so I am getting a kick. This is a huge trip down memory lane for me.

[@Ice_Karma]

7:38 ... and from that, a friend of mine derived his IRC nickname!

[@oliverw.douglas285]

Radio Shack at one time sold a RS-232 Mini Tester, which helped identify ports on computers & peripherals, to determine DTE vs. DCE.

[@Drew-Dastardly]

I never understood the reasoning behind RS-232 with 1980's computers that were never going to deal with 1930's teletypes. Yet they integrated +/- 15V or 12V signalling with a 25 pin connector. The BBC Micro got it right with 5 pins RS-423, RX, TX, CTS, RTS and GND.

[@oliverw.douglas285]

@@Drew-Dastardly A throwback to current-loop based asynchronous communications over twisted pairs. Used aboard ships in the U.S Navy through the early 1970's. I think they had a radio interface. In the 1980's the U.S. Coast Guard was still using Teletypes that connected back to Washington D.C., for sending orders to the various Stations/Bases, across the U.S. (domestically), via a leased telephone circuit. And still in-use, albeit in a limited capacity, at various phone companies, for local control Terminals. I wonder if there is an adapter, that goes from USB to Current Loop? :p

[@spudd-fl8dh]

My 1990s computer lab teacher taught us to make 10 copies of floppy when you bought software and put them in a closet.

[@GodmanchesterGoblin]

Great video! Loved the Jeff Minter reference too. 😊

[@messyfool]

Loving this full resolution!!

[@jondorthebrinkinator]

Woo, Imagewriter I! My family had one back in the day, though ours was hooked up to a Mac 128K later upgraded to a beige Plus.

[@rager1969]

I imagine you aware of ADTPro, but just in case, it runs on Windows/Mac/Linux and on the Apple II to write disk images. I swear, it's almost like magic and it transfers/writes disks fairly quickly on the Apple II side. Using a serial connection, you can write a .dsk (and other formats) stored on the PC to a disk in the Apple II drive. It's seriously cool and you even build the first bootable Apple disk by typing in some machine code on the Apple II and run it to initiate a transfer of the ADTPro program from the PC to the Apple II's memory and execute it. Then, save it to disk on the Apple II. Going forward, you boot into that disk to transfer the disk images from the PC and write to disk.

[@OsoDeAnteojos]

Man, I would love to find one of those to use on my Apple II Plus. Great video, please keep them coming!

[@digitalarchaeologist5102]

Octothorpe? You learn something new every day

[@ZagnutBar]

You've come a long way since I was screaming CATALOG at you in the comments. Great video :). So glad to see someone new discovering my childhood computer.

[@ZagnutBar]

We had a color printer. The ribbon cartridge was about twice as thick as the one you used in the Imagewriter and had rainbow bands of color on the same ribbon. The print head knew how to combine colors by pressing the correct color to the page. A standard black and white printer couldn't have done this.

[@minty_Joe]

Shelby, if you get a chance, take a continuity tester to that jumper block on the Super Serial card just to see what connects where. I'm assuming it's just a termination block, but I could be wrong.

[@ksenolog]

Can there be somewhere video of printing in real time be uploaded? It looked really pleasing. Thanks for video!

[@59withqsb12]

Hey Shelby, love these old trips down memory lane, the Apple ][ was the first computer I ever laid hands on. I see everyone else has told you about CHR$(4) - I was yelling at the screen before I remembered I could leave a comment lol. So instead I'll recommend copy ii plus (styled as COPY ][ PLUS) to you instead, a utility I remember from back in the day for copying those pesky Apple ][ disks.

[@cabbitkisser2620]

i used print shop back in 1986 in school on the apple 2. i was 13 at the time.

[@testingchannel5440]

Back in early 90s, all 9-pin and 24-pin dot matrix printers from Epson have removable continuous paper feeder. I am surprised that you haven't encounter one.

[@Ojisan642]

22:00 real OGs know, it’s spelled “Apple ][“ 😉 Love the video, nice job!

[@minombredepila1580]

Awesome video, Shelby !!

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

That is the exact first computer setup I ever used as a Freshman in high school.

[@gravewalkerz7787]

ADT Pro was the only way i was able to get my Laser 128 working with out additional hardware i was amazed with its agility to load itself to the Laser 128 over the serial port with just a few commands.

[@PassifloraCerulea]

TT-DOS? You wrote your own DOS?! You're a wizard^Wreal hacker, Shelby!

[@20windfisch11]

31:56 now I know where Bernstein Zirkel ripped their logo from for that 3D Sokoban clone on Amiga called Dragon Cave using the assets from Dungeon Master.

[@jeromethiel4323]

Everybody knows the PR# commands. How many know about the IN# command? I know at least some people will know what these actually do, but they are basically print and input hooks. So when you print or input a character, it would go to the specified slot memory area and execute the code found there. So PR#6 boots the floppy if slot 6 is where your disk controller card is located. But IN#6 also does the same thing! What DOS does when it's done loading, is redirect the print and input hooks to be what they should be for normal operation. Which is why you need a "ctrl D" character for DOS commands, because DOS intercepts the character print routine to itself and looks for that ASCII code to know you are trying to do a DOS command, before passing it back to whatever. This is in no way comprehensive, and i may have gotten some details wrong, but this is basic Apple ][ functionality, and why certain things work the way they do.

[@elbiggus]

It's been 35+ years since I last touched an Apple // but if memory serves you need to press *Esc D* before typing any DOS commands in a BASIC program. (Maybe Ctrl+D? Something like that anyway.)

[@jakint0sh]

Yep it’s Ctrl+D

[@WilliamHostman]

Ctrl, not esc. Most printers, however, had escape sequences...

[@UFO_researcher]

This reminds me of DragonBall Z, where it takes forever for the tiniest amount of action. Very exhausting.

[@AB-Prince]

I've always prefered paper/printed manuals. I don't know exactly what it is, but reading text off of paper is night and day easier than reading off of a screen.

[@vmisev]

ImageWriter is rebranded C. Itoh 8510, an absolute heavy-duty tank!

[@KAPTKipper]

ADTPro is a great for making a disk. You can boot from the cassette port! then copy a disk image from the the serial port on to a floppy. Handy since not everyone might get a system disk with their Apple II or have a greasewesel.

[@osgeld]

we need to find you a thunderscan, that will blow your mind

[@michaelsasse8427]

Al Gore invented "super serial". 😂 This brought back some print ship memories. We take the ability to print graphics for granted anymore, but it was a big thing.

[@rivards1]

If you want to execute a DOS command like "CATALOG" from a BASIC program, you have to proceed it CTRL-D. You can do this by either "PRINT CHR$(4);"CATALOG" or PRINT "(type an invisible ctrl-D here)CATALOG"

[@jakint0sh]

Was just going to mention that! DOS 3.3 is screwy in its own special ways, and this is why I prefer ProDOS :)

[@slightlyevolved]

Imagewriter II did indeed do color printing, the OG was black only.

[@DavidLeeKersey]

Our first real computer was an APPLE ][ e my parents went all out. 80 column card, the duo disk drive, and a pair of super serial cards so we could have a printer (Imagewriter II) and a 2400 baud modem.

[@JenniferinIllinois]

An Apple II, aot matrix printer and Print Shop. Does it get any more retro? 😁

[@darkwinter7395]

Serial? Well, that's just Super! 😉

[@johnsimon8457]

33:03 I had an apple scribe and thermal transfer printers were the noisiest hottest slowest goddamn things ever. Five years later the melted wax that comprised the ink completely fell off the page. I was 8 and I was given EXTREMELY GENEROUS hand-me-down //c but that printer was crap. A little funny how the printer head isn't able to print in both directions, so it wastes a lot of time just zipping back. Early 80's baby!

[@c1ph3rpunk]

I haven’t tried it in my ][+, but the A2DVI, both the HDMI and VGA flavors, has really been my go to lately. There were other cards that had jumpers to set either DTE or DCE mode, not a ton, but others. Why? That same jumper block was used on other things, not just the SSC.

[@IlIlIlIlIxxlIlIlIlIl]

If you turn the Print Shop disk over and boot the other side, there should be a graphics demo.

[@WilliamHostman]

The BASIC interpreter is in ROM, the INIT command only installs the DOS commands shim onto the disk. DOS commands cannot be accessed directly by the Applesoft interpreter; instead, you need a string containing a ctrl-d and the command; print the string to execute the command.

[@dexter2433]

this is my original os and was quite simple at the time

[@toronado455]

This was my first computer. Though I never had a printer for it.

[@arendsjustin]

Now you can play the original Oregon Trail

[@gkoyt]

The hires version that everyone waxes nostalgic about, or the text version you had to type “BANG”in order to shoot?

[@Nukle0n]

29:12 there appears to be a severe shielding issue on your RF cable, or maybe it's somewhere inside the Apple II, bad caps maybe? That box is way too crooked.

[@dave4shmups]

I remember many games of The Oregon Trail being played on the Apple IIe computers in my elementary school. I’ve never seen the original Image Writer before this video, so that was cool! The Image Writer II was fast and loud. What version of Linux are you using?

[@wesley00042]

The Atari 8-bit version had the same changes to the directory and it had the side effect of preventing Atari DOS from being able to touch the files.

[@Witchlord]

You guys. I'm not joking. I'm being super serial right now...

[@ApoplecticDialectics]

My middle school hallways were festooned with Print Shopped signs for events, student clubs, and notices. This program was in such ubiquitous use, and got on my nerves so much, that in a moment of madness I ripped the blade off of the paper cutter in the art room and went on a rampage in the hallways, eventually wearing the skin of various peers in a suburban holocaust of savagery and unspeakable crimes against nature itself. It was only one of two times I lost my composure in this manner, the second being when a human subtraction in my college dorm couldn't stop quoting from Monty Python and the Holy Grail and I set him alight in the tunnels. "Ni!" you immolated lesser-than. Stop screaming. Tis a mere flesh wound. In any case, the amount of ink used by exactly two programs in my middle school - The Print Shop, and The Bank Street Writer (the word processor of the age), could drown a small country. And it is for this that I shall wash up on the shoals of the Styx, permitted no entry and forced to wander the anterooms of the underworld as a howling wraith, condemned for eternity to ponder my sins against users of The Print Shop.

[@cheeseparis1]

12:38 "Here's the firmware..." Oh yes, in this era we didn't need to download a new firmware release while installing a new peripheral

[@darkwinter7395]

I do feel that something was lost when we stopped using fan-fold paper. I used to see banners all over the place, now - almost never.

[@jeremymtc]

Back when printers weren't designed with malice afore-thought.

[@IkarusKommt]

Proprietary band cartriges and printwheels do disagree.

[@jonathankleinow2073]

This made me think of the giant Print Shop banner that Best Brains received after Season 2 of MST3K debuted that read, "I HATE TOM SERVO'S NEW VOICE!"

[@skunkmyrddyn]

I have a rather specific question. Since you mentioned scanning manuals. I have a large set of rather unique manuals that I'd like to scan, but they're thousands of pages. Do you have a suggestion as to a good way to scan manuals? Especially without cutting the spines off (these are in pretty mint condition)

[@TechTangents]

They aren't super cheap, but the CZUR book scanners are a very fast and damage free way to scan books. I've reviewed a couple models they have, the latest was this one: kzbin.info/www/bejne/o32XY4uoi9B7obs The quality isn't as good as a flatbed, but the speed is miles ahead of other options.

[@wmrg1057]

Love the sign. My sentiments exactly!

[@michaelfingers7726]

Its sad that a printer from the 1970s-80s has features that impact printers today don't have: proper auto feed and manual adjustment of the feed

[@tschak909]

Disks created by the INIT command have their DOS loaded at a fixed location in memory. These are slave disks. Master disks are created by the CREATE MASTER program, and have a relocator which relocates DOS to the top of available memory. This means that a slave DOS disk created in a 48K machine, can't be loaded on a 32K machine.

[@wearwolf2500]

Now look into how the Apple ][ does its colour

[@GYTCommnts]

Just wondering here... 🤔 Wouldn't be possible to make a disk "without a Mac" through emulation (with pass-through capabilities)? Edit: I mean before the software now available for Linux. I was thinking if that software that only runs on Macs would be possible to use through emulation of a Mac.

[@jsalsman]

Sometimes I wish I could cause transcript printing to turn on and off inside terminal shell windows. It's easy enough to do with e.g. typescript or copy/paste and lpr or whatever, and usually a silly waste of paper, but I miss the vibe of the whole modality. It feels like tearing a receipt off of a cash register.

[@steveg5122]

i liked our //c for printing schoolwork in the mid 90s

[@SireSquish]

What drive did you attach to the greaseweasle? Was it the apple 2 drive or another one? I have old apple 2e disks that I would like to image with my greaseweasle.

[@TechTangents]

It was a Tandon TM100-2A, the normal floppy drive from an IBM PC. The fluxengine software has a command for testing a floppy drive you can look into, "fluxengine analyse driveresponse". One of my other 40 track drives failed to write some Apple II disks and didn't have as good a response range as the Tandon when I tested them.

[@rick420buzz]

I always thought the Apple II was pretty good for a computer that came out the same year as Star Wars.

[@doodlebrainedd]

Hey! I have a question, what ever happened to the Windows 98 & XP PC's you bulit?

[@sanityormadness]

He still has them. Go back and look at his DRM Digital Decay video from a few months back, both appear in there (the XP one more extensively)

[@crunchyfrog555]

Oh God some of those early computing manuals were dreadful. I am lucky in that I still have all my old computers and consoles, and go back to them regularly. But back in the day it was a pain in the arse. Manuals like the ZX Spectrum one or the BBC Micro were pretty damned good. Especially if you also got the Advanced User Guide for the Beeb. But other computers had just dreadful manuals - the C64 one was pretty crap. These tended to cover either really basic stuff and left a lot of question unanswered or in some cases were just plain wrong - I think the original Oric-1 manual was a mess. And of course, what made things worse was that we had no internet and no other reference. The best we could hope is to find either friends who had better info or go to big fairs or something to find books or programmers to talk to.

[@andrewdunbar828]

I thought the Apple II BASIC manual was pretty good. I learned to program from it. The ZX Spectrum manual was extremely helpful when I was learning Z80 machine code.

[@crunchyfrog555]

@@andrewdunbar828 Yeah the Apple one is pretty damned good. It just evoked a memory for me about how bad some of them were.

[@criggie]

Imma buy a grease weasel.....

[@schnitzelsamy]

Cool

[@Pedro8k]

Great video just one thing don't leave floppy disks on top of a crt style monitor it could affect the disk and give errors another thing that software can do long banners on tractor paper

[@Freedom4Ever420]

I pour water on my discs to make them sloppy discs.

[@jakint0sh]

why nO DON’t DO THAT

[@xlibun]

Oop, you didn't filer out the high-pitched CRT whine.

[@bob0507]

Also noticed that. Definitely not the most pleasing at higher speaker volumes.

[@SenileOtaku]

I'm too old to hear it.