The Apple ][ is one of the most iconic vintage computers of all time. But since Wozniak’s monster lasted all the way until 1993 (1995 if you could the IIe card, which I won’t count until I get one), it can be easy to forget that in 1977, it was a video extravaganza. The competitors– even much bigger and established companies like Commodore and Tandy– generally only had text modes, let alone pixel-addressable graphics, and they certainly didn’t have sixteen colors. (Gray and grey are different colors, right?)
↫ Nicole Branagan
If there’s ever anything you wanted to know about how graphics work on the Apple II, this is the place to go. It’s an incredibly detailed and illustrated explanation of how the machine renders and displays graphics, and an excellent piece of writing to boot. I’m a little jealous.
This very nice compendium comes just as I’m restoring my Apple II s (Rev1 and rev 7).
Fixed power supply (busted capacitors), defective logic & RAM chips.
More difficult, remaining issues: some memory bits flip and transient display when machine runs hot.
Jim Sather’s “Understanding the Apple ][” is my bible, exhaustive and quirky too!
These were the last computers where one could understand _everything_, from logic gates to software.
No nostalgia here, vintage computing is relaxing for me…