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by Al Martin

Because of current banking regulations, I need to request that those of you who are renewing your subscriptions to please make your checks out to me personally. Do not write "The Road Apple" as the payee; instead, write "Al Martin" as the payee. Sorry for any inconvience, but my local banker is insistant on the change.
Thank you for your cooperation.


(Publisher's note: The following came from two different sources.)

Project Apple Storm
by E. Moore

In the first week of July, 1992, a cartel of Apple II users and developers, represented by the Bay Area Apple II Users Group, (BAAUG), arranged a meeting with members of the User Group Connection and the Apple II Engineering contingent at Apple Computer, Inc. The intended purpose of this gathering was singular. "To discuss the merits of the continued operation of BAAUG as an Apple II User Group."
The initial meeting, set for August, 1992, was postponed by Apple because of unforeseen developments preoccupying those expected to be in attendance. Another scheduled for early September, was also postponed and rescheduled to late September for the same reason. Yet again this meeting was postponed and was rescheduled for November 18th, again for the same reason. On November 16th, the meeting was once more postponed once more, for the same reason, and rescheduled for November 19th at 10:00AM.
Many of the BAAUG/A2 representatives had made prior arrangements and were forced to readjust their schedules to accommodate the original 11/18 meeting. (From as far away as Colorado and San Diego). Others, who were not contacted in time, made the long drive to the Campbell complex for the 11/18/92 meeting, and were at that time informed of the
rescheduled gathering. To conclude this poignant diatribe, three BAAUG members were an hour late to this appointment as a result of inaccurate directions volunteered by an Apple employee. Thus this author ends his "Harrumph!"

THE PLAYERS: Those in attendance were...
From Apple Computer, Inc.:
John Santoro, Apple II Engineering
Rye Livingston, Community Groups, User Group Connection
Ray Kaupp, Manager, User Groups and Associates
Representing the Apple II:
Tony Diaz, AllTech Electronics, San Diego
Mike Garvey, BAAUG Administrative Leader, GEnie Host
Kent Keltner, BAAUG Planning Leader
Joe Kohn, Contributing Editor, inCider/A+
Kent Keltner, BAAUG Planning Leader
Lunatic, GEnie Ambassador
Ernest Moore, BAAUG Leadership Coordinator
Joe Yandrofski, Sequential Systems, Lafayette, Colorado

Missing in action caused by the continual postponements:
Kenrick Mach, Paul Parkhurst, Margot Taylor and Ed Hernandez
Prodigiously Missing: Tim Swihart of ACI..!!!

This report was assembled from a 90-minute audio tape that recorded the proceedings from the back of the room and the authors recollection of voices, names and faces.
Although the wording may not be quotable, it is extremely accurate! When the voice cannot be directly associated with the individual that spoke the words, the speaker will be identified as either "APPLE" or "BAAUG". Commentary notes by the author are indicated with "( )"

MEETING BEGINS: (Finally)
Santoro: What would you like to walk out of here with?
Moore: Basically, straight shoot-from-the-hip answers regarding the status of the Apple II. We don't want to be subjected to the limitations of nondisclosure statements and the like because we have an obligation to our users. We'd also like to know what the Apple plans are for future and new Apple II users. We aren't here to prosecute or to be cross examined, we just want straight and honest answers.
Santoro: New Apple II Users or new Apple II Computers?
Moore: New Apple II Users!
Santoro: We're not coming out with a new Apple II cpu. (Being evasive here and dodging the question!)
Moore: That doesn't relate to new Apple II users, but is there a specific reason that Apple has for not releasing a new II cpu?
Santoro: We just can't rationalize it. This is a business decision that was reached at a corporate level far above our heads here! It's been termed as a high risk. Another Apple II would send a wrong message to consumers. We don't want them to think that we have two platforms and it's obvious that Apple supports the Macintosh. (Another of those critical statements!)
Moore: Let me guess. The office of the Apple CEO?
Lunatic: Is it true that there was a prototype of a new Apple II that was going to be released?
Santoro: I won't deny it! (Quickly and nervously shifted, then dodged the original again!) We get tons of letters from people that have had wonderful experiences with their Apple II's from a variety of sources. However, last month we sold 7 IIe's and 7 IIGS's nationwide. That's 14 Apple II's across the country. (14 Apple II's sold without a lick of advertisement.. not bad!)
Diaz: We sold 20 used Apple II systems last month alone!
Santoro: Yeah, USED Apple II's. You haven't seen an Apple IIe or IIGS in a dealership for a long time. This is a dealership decision. Apple can't dictate to the dealerships what they should keep in stock. People were buying Macs and weren't buying IIGS's. Also, it's expensive for us to make them. We do want to keep the IIGS viable and we want to continue building the bridge between the IIGS and the Mac. (Remember this statement later!)
Moore: There's an easy explanation for that. 18 months after the GS was released, dealerships were telling people that Apple wasn't making them anymore and that the Apple II had been discontinued.
Santoro: We can't tell dealerships what to say either!
Kohn: If Apple had a certain criteria that dealerships had to abide by, like requiring them to have all of the Apple cpu line on display, these false rumors wouldn't manifest themselves.
Santoro: I'll be the first to admit that the company hasn't done the best job of policing each and every dealership. (Spoken with an air of sarcasm!)
Livingston: A lot of things happened back in '86-'87 that may have been debatable, but this is '92 and almost '93 and we have to think of the future of the company.
Moore: Yes, and we are obligated to think of the future of this huge number of people that own Apple II's, who firmly believe Apple Computer, Inc. is giving them the proverbial shaft.
Kaupp: Are these people going to buy new Apple II's?
Moore: I won't ask you to validate that question. They already own Apple II's. Many of them more than one system. What the existing II user base wants is a solid show of support by Apple, be it in the form of a new cpu or a guy on tv with an Apple II as his choice for a home computer system.
Lunatic: A primary question that I have is, Apple has repeatedly professed support for the Apple II. If Apple, Inc. is still supporting it, why can't users get technical support and service from the Apple dealerships?
Santoro: What is support? What support are you looking for?
Moore: A user takes his II into a dealership to have it serviced and the service personnel doesn't recognize the machine. They want to know if the IIGS is a 286 or 386 compatible.
Santoro: So you're looking for service?
Moore: We're looking for support, from Apple, for the Apple II!
Garvey: I'm in a good position to elaborate more on this because I do it for a living. Most people don't care about servicing, maintenance and the like, they depend on me to do it for them. (Mike Garvey perpetually assumes the role of the service department at the dealerships at this point.) I must have a source from which to accommodate these things. (Reference to service and maintenance.) We're currently in what you may refer to as the third generation of computer users. The first consisted of semi-power users. The hackers and the like. The next was the class that used computers as a learning device and now, the average user has their computer as a tool. They use it just as if it were a hammer or a screwdriver.
Kohn: What we need is somewhere, or someone, to turn to for sales, service and support. Users need a definitive response when repairs to their systems are necessary. User Groups aren't the answer because most aren't qualified to provide service and/or repairs.
Diaz: At AllTech we're encountering even more of a problem. We have become one of the places to find Apple II stuff, but the dealers don't want to support us. They get paranoid when they look at their invoices and see all of the purchases made by AllTech Electronics. They ask us if we're re-selling things and they're afraid that Apple, Inc. will cut them off.
Garvey: There's a missing link between Apple and the end users that dealerships used to fill that isn't being filled anymore.
Santoro: Again you have to put yourselves in the shoes of the other person. Dealerships have to maintain a margin of profit. They want to sell the hottest computer and the Apple II isn't it. I've made a proposal that would fall under the PowerBook service type format but it has to be approved at a higher level.
Moore: There are two ends of the spectrum here. Over the years, the end user has come to look at the "Authorized Apple Dealership" as the extension of Apple, Inc. and this was by Apple's own design. When an end user wanted information about his computer, or wanted to buy a machine or parts, or get service and he contacted Apple, Inc., he was very gruffly told to go see his local authorized Apple Dealership. Now he takes his system to this dealership and they haven't the slightest idea as to what the machine is. The user is getting aggravated because his system has been in the shop for a week while the highly trained service department tries to determine if the problem with the IIGS is that it doesn't have an RLL/IDE card in it or they can't locate a chip that has a *.86 suffix. Meanwhile the user comes back muttering "What ta hell kind of company is this?"
Livingston: No, he comes back and thinks that the planet has changed on him. Things aren't the same as they used to be.
Moore: Nope! Now he finally gets his system back, fixed or unfixed and he's muttering to himself. He places an ad in the paper to sell his system and when that's done he buys a DOS machine because he can get support, buy software or have that system serviced anywhere.
Santoro: He comes back and thinks that this dealer doesn't do what he used to do and that's absolutely true. We want to keep our Apple II customers with the hopes that they continue to buy Apple machines. Dealerships don't want to
spend $500 a day for Apple II technical training for the 2 or 3 Apple II calls he's going to get in a month. So what's the most efficient way for Apple to deal with this problem?
Moore: That's easy, via the user group.
Livingston: We already do that. When someone calls up for service, we give them the name of the nearest dealership and also the name of the nearest user group.
Garvey: What Ernie is driving at is an extension of something that I wanted to get into a little bit later, but the reality of this is that the user cannot rely upon service from the dealerships. Apple has always sent their products to dealerships for distribution and now their also being sent to super stores and resellers. I look at the Sears catalog and I don't see any Apple II products there. Also, how do I get service for my system?
Santoro: We've just produced a new catalog that has all of the Apple products in it, except for the cpu's, and they can be purchased directly from us.
Moore: The catalog has Mac cpu's displayed in it and there's one page at the back of it with Apple II peripherals only.
Garvey: Does this means that I can call up Apple, give them my resellers license number and pick up my purchase?
Kohn: Why can't Apple II cpu's be distributed by these super stores along with the Powerbooks and etc?
Apple: Everyone views the Apple II as a single market machine. Dealerships regard it as strictly a K-12 computer. (Sound like brain washing?)
Moore: The K-12 crew doesn't even know what to do with their cpu's when they malfunction. They call ComputerLand and get the same story. By the way, how many Apple II's does Apple, Inc. recognize as being the computer of choice in the end users home?
APPLE: Actually it's a legal problem regarding contractual agreements with PowerBooks where the stores cannot do mail orders of Apple products. The big legal question was that if we went mail order with our cpu's, would that violate the contractual agreements with these retail outlets? (Evasive...eh!)
Kaupp: Wait! I thought we were talking about why the Apple II cpu wasn't in the catalog? We don't want to sell people II's, we want to take the installed base of II users and support them. (Critical statement there!)
Garvey: Along these lines of damage control, the dealership channel isn't working. So where do people have to turn? Online services, user groups? What I'd propose is to empower user groups as the go between to resell Apple parts and peripherals!
Moore: Here's a case in point example. I received a call from an individual that wanted to upgrade from an Apple IIe to a IIGS. Please bear in mind that he did *NOT* want a Mac. I could not give him an answer!
Apple: How would we go about giving user groups authority to resell cpu's and peripherals? Would we give user groups full dealer contracts? We'd have to make certain that everyone was trained and certified. Then we'd have to charge them the $5,000 to $10,000 startup fee required for dealerships.
BAAUG: It's hard to envision user groups selling cpu's, not so much peripherals though. Apple could require that dealerships purchase II cpu's on order!
Livingston: What do you want now, sales or support?
Moore: What...??? We want both sales AND support! You mention making certain that if user groups were given resell capability, they would have to be certified and trained. Take me to any ComputerLand and show me a certified and trained Apple II individual...! As for startup fees, why? The user group would order cpu's directly from Apple as needed and pay for them in advance.
Santoro: The company, for right or for wrong, has made a decision to not pursue a marketing scheme for selling the Apple II! (There we go again!)
Moore: That's what I can't understand. If Apple put the IIGS on tv and showed people it's capabilities, they would sell tons of them. For the life of me I don't understand it. There's this huge potential Apple II user base eager for
something like the IIGS, and Apple is simply ignoring this magnificent market and telling them we don't want to sell you an Apple II we want to sell you a Macintosh!
Santoro: I know exactly what you're talking about and going mail order is what has been proposed. Our competitive advantage is the Macintosh ease of use. We've taken that and expanded it and that's why Apple continues to grow. You
have to remember now that the gui was reverse engineered and ported over to the GS! (This is the head of the Apple II team talking here remember!)
Moore: The gui reverse engineered from the Mac to the GS... NOT!
Santoro: We just don't want to go after the competition with a 6502 or 816 vs a 386 or 486. We want to take the Mac, with a large supplier like Motorola and continue to grow. The choice was made and this was the business decision. (Again, this is the head of the II Continued Engineering Group speaking!)
Moore: Wait! We're getting blown out of proportion here. I'm not making reference to 6502 or 65816 technology vs Mac technology. That's a mismatch. If you compare Mac technology to Cray technology then you'd have a case for discontinuing the Mac. What I'm making reference to is the attitude that Apple has taken toward the Apple II. Apple has given the II user a (loud hand clap) slap in the face instead of extending a corporate hand and telling them, "We'll help you over the bridge!"
Santoro: I'll have to disagree with you on that. Do you know how many engineers were put on the Hypercard GS project? There were 20 to 50 engineers on that project over the life of it. It took three years to complete it and how many copies were sold? A few thousand at most. System 6 was a parallel project and cost us just as much. We've made the superdrive card, the ethernet card and the video overlay card, all to show the Apple II users that we still support them. (Hypercard was given away free with Macs and remains a lousy GS program. It also was a direct competitor with HyperStudio which was already established!)
Kohn: Something's wrong here and users are really confused. Apple is making all of these wonderful cards and peripherals, but they aren't showing it to anyone. No one knows that they exist. You need to tell people what you're doing and why you're doing it.
Santoro: That's a point well taken. OK, let me summarize this. What you deem as ongoing support from Apple is 3 things. 1 A source for cards and peripherals, etc. should my system break down. 2 Get me some software. Let me walk into Egghead and see Apple II software. 3 Service my program. Given these things, let people know about them.
Moore: Number 4, actively promote and market items 1,2, and 3.
Santoro: Here's what we've done on each of these items. We have a new Apple II software newsletter. We're doing the next version at this very moment. Previously it was available only through user groups, but now we're going to take an ad out in inCider/A+ and make it available to everyone, free of charge. No sales are involved in this we're giving developers a free plug. We're spending all this money just for the sake of letting Apple II users know we're still behind them.
Moore: Ah ha..! Heh, how goes Mac third party development these days? Actually John, that's exactly what we don't want. If Apple doesn't make money off of the II, it only serves to act as nails in the coffin and hasten the system's demise.
Santoro: Let me just finish telling you what we're doing. Service: Service is a big problem. You can't get it. All I can do is propose a PowerBook type of program. Especially for schools because they have 75% of all the Apple II's sold. Here's what I'll propose. A mail order service for Apple II's. You put your system in a box and sent it to Apple. Three days later you have your system back. We want to make peripherals available to the direct public. If we can manage to break even then that will make the company happy.
Moore: If you do this it's definitely a step in the right direction.
Santoro: Not *if*, we're doing it!
Kohn: From the viewpoint of inCider/A+, you'll probably be able to get the space for free. What about Apple dealers? Can the dealer be sent something so that if a user brings his system in to them and they can send it to Apple? They can also give a copy of the catalog to people that are interested.
Livingston: Yes, the catalog is working. We only sent about a million copies out and we've had very good response so far. People are anxious to get them.
Santoro: About 8 million Apple II's have been sold since 1977. Approximately 25% of those are in people's homes. So we now have an installed base of roughly 2 million Apple II users and 11 million Mac users that we want to get the catalog to.
Garvey: Could you take that to the next step and have a second printing?
Apple: (In unison) YES, yes yes!
Kaupp: We most assuredly will. We want the dealers especially to have them in stock. It would make their customers happy and also benefit them if they don't have to maintain low profit additional inventory stock. They want to sell Macs.
Lunatic: What I'd like to see would be for dealers to have a bunch of cards with an 800 number on it to give to Apple II people. When the user calls, he'd be able to get three things immediately. The software guide, the catalog and the Apple II guide, all from that one number. Then his call for service or maintenance would be handled.
Moore: John, you may know this. Rye, Ray, you may not. There's one primary reason for the Apple II enduring as long as it has. Throughout the history of Apple, it's been know as the friendly company. The company that was willing to touch base with the little people while IBM was the beast or the orge of the industry. IBMs belonged in the subterrain of huge corporations and were servers etc. Believe what you will, if Apple loses this image and tries to compete nose to nose with IBM in the corporate level, it will signal the end of Apple, Inc. as the home computer specialist. The current trend places Apple in the "Novation" mode if you know what I mean.
Santoro: Well your point is well taken but I don't think you'll see IBM taking in user group members for the PC Jr. and telling them about how they're going to continue support. I don't think you'll see Ford have a user group meeting about 1977 Ford Fairlane buyers. (PC Jr's run DOS 5.0 too!)
Moore: An Apple IIGS is not a Ford Fairlane and cannot be compared to one. Don't underestimate IBM. They've already stated that they intend to market the home computerist because there's a lot of "Dead Soldiers" on the field and that statement is aimed directly at the Apple II users and educators that Apple, Inc. has cast aside already. These people aren't buying Macs, they're switching platforms.
Diaz: What I trying to drive at, is there are other people out there in the market, affiliated with user groups or not, that would like to do things such as sell video overlay cards or super drives and the like.
APPLE: There are two great experiments with the catalog. One is the availability of cpu's in the catalog. Great experiment number two is third party products in the catalog. There's a small, and very select few, third party items in there.
Diaz: Apple did this third party thing with the Apple3 long ago also. The same identical thing and they sold everything with THEIR label on it. Then they discontinued the cpu. People want to look at the catalog and buy things. The dealerships don't want to be bothered with the Apple II or any of its peripherals. They would be happy to give II users an 800 number,a catalog and get them out of their stores. However, since I work in the mail order business, I know that the people who *answer* at the 800 number will not be able to give responses to technical questions about these items. Since the dealerships or superstore clerks can't do it either, this leaves the user groups as the next level for handling this task. We have a dealer that willing to sell us System6 and SCSI cards, but they get paranoid that someone here will step on them!
Garvey: That's the exact position that I'm in on the PC/Mac side of things. It's still a viable business and there's still a living that can be earned by reselling parts and providing service, maintenance, recommendations and consultation to end users; and then purchasing and installing these things. In the user group environment, they are more visible.
Moore: OK, there's another issue that I'm concerned about. I'm not Apple bashing and I don't want to appear as a critic, but there is another large cross section of users that think the Apple front office is infested with morons and dimwits.
APPLE: Yea Ernie, go ahead and tell us what you really think of us. (Jovial atmosphere!)
Moore: What these users are concerned about is the number of cpu's that Apple releases, praises, then abandons. Count the number of Macs over the past two or three years that are no longer in production.
Diaz: That's true. When someone buys a Mac, in the next month or two another is released and their system is obsolete.
Garvey: Are you getting negative feedback on the amount of new cpu's being introduced? I mean like the not-so-old cx's and ci's are all obsolete now.
Santoro: I don't think there's a company on the face of the planet that has gone further out of the way to insure compatibility. We haven't received any feedback to that effect. (Seems evasive again eh!)
Moore: Perhaps you haven't, believe me it exists and in appreciable quantity!
Kaupp: I'm in the best position to receive feedback like that, and the greatest issue at hand now is system software licensing. All of the feedback that I've received about products is "Keep Pushing!"
Garvey: With the Apple II, when did you start to get that kind of production feedback... '86-'87?
Santoro: The greatest dissent that we've received is from the man on the street with a family and he wants to get his kids into the computer age. He asks his kids what kind of computer they use in school and hears "Apple II." Next he goes to the dealer and asks for the best Apple II available. He gets a IIGS, takes it home, then he discovers that there's a limited software base because developers that are into that intricate type of programming are doing it for the Mac. (Something's wrong with that scenario. The man goes to the dealer and the dealer isn't selling Apple IIs at all... What's gone awry with that story?)
Garvey: I have at home a IIe, IIGS, Mac+ and a Mac SE. Using the SE is really digressing!
Santoro: I have to attend another meeting. Are there any final questions that you'd like to ask?
Moore: There is one question that I have. If Apple isn't going to market or promote the Apple II, why can't it be opted out to a third party developer or inaugurated into an affiliate company ala Claris?
Santoro: That's a point well taken. This has already been proposed to Sculley himself and the answer was that we don't want to let the Apple logo out of the company!
Moore: There has never been a Macintosh made with the name Apple associated with it!
Santoro: (Laughing) That's not a point of argument. (Entire room laughs)
Keltner: We're producing some archivial chronicles and I was wondering if we could have access to the original IIGS commercials? They were very impressive.
Santoro: I don't know where they are but if you find them and get them digitized, you're welcome to do it.
BAAUG: I think they're on Quicktime!
Santoro: In closing, the demand is so low right now for the IIGS, that it's going to be dropped from the price list very soon. The IIe is fine and will be continued. (There's a lot of mumbling throughout the room)
Lunatic: After System 6.0.1 and the Ethernet Card, will that be the last that we'll see from Apple for the GS and how long will it be before it's taken off of the price list?
Santoro: Probably before the end of the year. The Apple II Continued Engineering Group is going to remain intact through the next fiscal year and that's about a year from now as the fiscal year just started. Beyond that is up to the company. I don't see any hardware beyond the Ethernet card.
Garvey: Will there be any revisions to the Ethernet card because in reality, it's an EtherTalk card?
Santoro: We're looking at putting TCIP on it because we see the text based IIe's and IIc's in schools as being perfect for going into the Internet!
(After insignificant further chatter, the meeting ended!)

In reviewing of the information provided by Apple at this meeting, there are many items unveiled which prior to meeting were rumors only. Statements like, " We don't want users to think that we have two platforms ", made by the head of the Apple II Continued Engineering Team give cause for this reporter to peek between the lines and see the real picture.
In retrospecting the Apple II's history for the last 5 years, there are events that occurred which give cause for raised eyebrows.
a) Shortly after the IIGS was released, the IIc+ was released and it boasted a 4.5 mhz cpu compared to the state of the art GS which had a native speed of 2.5 mhz.
b) Approximately 10 months after the IIGS and IIc+ were released, dealers began telling customers that the Apple II had been discontinued by Apple, Inc. and was no longer in production. The IIc+ was dropped from the price list less than 1 year after it was announced.
c) 18 months after the GS was released, mysteriously software developers terminated GS projects they were working on. Many of them were near completion. Is, WHY a question or an answer?
d) A User Group Connection coordinator stated at the meeting, "We don't want to sell people Apple II's, we want to support the existing Apple II user base!" When asked, "Why isn't Apple, Inc. pushing for Apple II sales?", the Apple representatives never gave an answer either directly or indirectly. The standard comment of, "The 65xxx cpu is old technology!" was always offered as the response. Yet the 65xxx cpu is thriving in other cpu's!
Apple would have us believe that only 25% of all Apple II's sold since 1977 are in homes and the 75% balance are in schools. Using those figures, there have been approximately 1.37 million Apple II's sold to users as the computer of choice in their homes since 1977. I recall reading an article in the 1985 era, where 15 million Apple II's had been sold *then* and 40% were in peoples home as the computer of choice.
This reporter would like to know why a major corporation such as Apple Computer cannot support two product lines, being the Apple II and the Macintosh. This reporter would also like to know why a major corporation such as Apple, Inc., having a tremendous installed user base with the Apple II, would elect to proceed with a poorly planned program of elimination of that massive fertile market at the apex of it's popularity. Assuredly it was not done for the financial welfare of the company as sales of the IIGS were far beyond promising and the profit margin was lucrative.
Realizing that there is no logical answer to these many strange occurrences; and that the advent of them all began with the changeover in the high office, there is one solitary explanation that may be extracted. It may be summarized with a single word... " EGOTISM!" This reporter charges that the CEO of Apple Computer, Inc. has a fanatical craving to compete with the legend of the past CEO of Chrysler Motors. (Can't touch Lee, you rascal!) This twisted thinking mandates that the name *WOZNIAC* be expunged from the minds of the masses as that name automatically invokes images of the Apple II. (Can't touch Steve either, dude!) This twisted thinking also mandates that the name Macintosh be established as *THE* Apple computer. Yet the name Apple is never affiliated with the Macintosh, only the logo!
Now comes the anticipated closed chapter for the, umm, gentleman. At the meeting the head of the Apple II Continued Engineering Group disclosed that the IIGS would be taken off of the price list before the end of 1992, and that the IIe would remain because of the K-12 commitment. The reasoning for this action was that the assembly lines could be used to produce PowerBooks which are apparently in high demand.
This reporter poses this question to all who read these lines: Why can't a corporation as large as Apple Computer, Inc. think in terms of company growth and expansion, improve the capability of the 65816, market it with enthusiasm as other 65xxx based systems do and enjoy the success?
If you have not read the transcripts of the meeting, please do so. Read it all as it's not that long. Pass it on. There's only one way to stop the systematic murder of the Apple II, SUPPORT IT! Support it with testimonials; support it with word of mouth praise for the system to prospective first time buyers; support it by developing software and hardware for it; support it by demanding to see II cpu's and peripherals in Apple dealerships; support it by demanding that Apple, Inc. display Apple II's in their catalogs; support it by demanding that Apple, Inc. market it with enthusiasm. This is the only way to protect your investment. This is the only way to drive a stake through the heart of the one that Bram Stoker REALLY wrote his novel about!
I encourage responses to the transcripts of Project Apple Storm. With enough interest from the end user base, assuredly Project Apple Storm II will take place and this time with the voice of the masses behind us. Please spread the transcripts of PAS to each and every online service in existence. As was once most eloquently stated, "the Apple II isn't dead yet, but it appears that it's terminal." We're going to be the surgeons that bring the near dead to glorious and blissful life.

Contacts:
Future Net: User #1@#9
Oggnet: User #8@Valhalla
AOL: EPM BAAUG
GEnie: Contact Mike Garvey or Lunatic and ask them to forward responses to me.

o Apple wanted to do a IIGS Card for the Mac LC, and looked into it, but found that they couldn't make one for less than the cost of the Mac itself.
o Apple will not license the Apple II ROMs to a third party for three major reasons:
I. It is proprietary technology.
II. Apple is now has a competing product to the Apple II, the Mac LC.
III. The Apple logo must be licensed with the ROMs. Any action that a third party takes while using the Apple logo reflects on Apple Computer, Inc., whether good or bad. This is unacceptable.
o No new Apple II hardware is expected to be developed by Apple Computer, Inc. after the Apple II Ethernet card is released.
o System software tweaks such as printer drivers for new Apple printers are expected to continue. One large thrust will be continued network and printer compatibility.
o HyperCard GS and Apple IIGS System Software 6.0 were done partially to give Apple IIGS users "a taste of the Mac" in the hope that they would eventually migrate to that platform.
o Apple is actively investigating a PowerBook-style mail-in service plan for all Apple II users.
o The much-rumored "ROM 4" Apple IIGS was to have the following features: Built-in 40MB hard drive, built-in SuperDrive, 2 Meg RAM, System 6.0 tools in ROM, DMA SCSI port, HyperCard GS bundled with the machine. It would have retained the 2.8 Mhz processor speed of the previous versions of the IIGS.
o Part of the delay in the development and release of System 6.0 was because of the cancellation of the "ROM 4."
o A re-engineered Apple IIGS was investigated, solely to lower production costs (continued production could be justified for a longer time with lower costs) but it never even got past the idea stage.

Project Apple Storm - Apple Retaliates

I received a telephone call from an Apple employee (a few days ago), the name will remain anonymous as he would probably deny it anyway.
I was told that I was really in trouble because I had broken the law by releasing the transcripts of a private meeting. I was also told that the legal staff at ACI was looking into what action to take at this point. The caller felt that I had violated the sanctity of the hallowed halls of the meeting room and using his own words, "Things are really going on here as a result of your releasing that CRAP to the Internet and GEnie!"
The caller raved on about why didn't I let them, (Apple), review the transcripts prior to releasing them and that having a tape recorder present at the meeting was also a violation of the law. He continually stressed my not knowing how much trouble I was really in! He stated that the transcripts made it appear that the User Group Connection and John Santoro did not care about the Apple end users.
My response to him was that:
a). I made my intentions known when the meeting began by stating that we didn't want to be a part of non-disclosures as our intent was to make our users aware of the status of the Apple II.
b). I told him that the contents of the transcripts were exactly what took place at the meeting and that all remarks enclosed within the ()'s were editorial comments.
c). I informed him that as I interpreted the transcripts, the User Group Connection; and John Santoro; and Apple, Inc. in general, did not care about APPLE II END USERS other than the those in the K-12 areas.
The caller went on to accuse me of being an idiot in making reference to the egotism of the Apple CEO and that by my doing this, most people would envision me as a stupid individual to publically make such a statement.
In the mind of this reporter, that catagory must have struck a nerve somewhere in the Cupertino high office! I informed the caller that I felt that I had done the correct thing in reporting the condition of the Apple II to the public. I lashed him a little for making demeaning remarks about my person and told him to let the general public make their own conclusions about my intellectual level.
SUMMARY: It's somewhat gratifying to know that the transcripts produced a response from Apple. What could prove interesting would be for them to get their legal staff actively involved. Think of the glorious publicity that the Apple II would receive.


Super BASIC
by Dennis McClain-Furmanski

In the early days of the GS, the development team at Apple came up with a BASIC language based on AppleSoft, but designed to handle the extended capabilities of the GS. This GS BASIC was welcomed, although severely criticized for its limitations. As one would expect in a world where The Road Apple exists, Apple chose to drop support of the language in favor of expensive and arcane programming languages out of the reach and ability of most users. After all, the age of the Hacker had come and gone; we were now to be forced in the role of Users unless we could afford to pay for the privilege of being Developers.
Instead, the development team came out with other enhancements like newer System software, 640 mode graphics, etc. Those of us with long standing backgrounds in running the ][, including any level of programming in AppleSoft, were stuck with precisely the same capabilities we had with our IIe's and IIc's. And so things remained for some time.
In recent years, several developers have produced extensions to and replacements for Apple's BASIC, every one of them an improvement, and virtually all for a reasonable price. I've sampled many of these, and have always been pleased. But lately I've sampled yet another, and for the first time been truly excited.
Matt Wachowski of Holly, Michigan has released version 4.0 of his Super BASIC. It is a set of extensions to AppleSoft, using many ampersand augmented commands which call the various toolsets in the system to accomplish those things which the tools make so much easier.. (AppleSoft was originally designed so that the & sign could be used as a prefix to commands that one wished to add to BASIC, by causing the program to jump to the place in memory that the & referred to, this place holding the instructions that the command represented.)
Matt's program gives you the capability to draw directly in 320 or 640 mode graphics, not only lines, but boxes, circles, arcs and such, and with automatic fill-in for the solids. Colors can be either the normal pure colors provided, or "dithered" colors, giving you the ability to use up to 256 colors at a time.
There are commands for loading in super-hi-res pictures, using fades. Also, sound capabilities are provided, allowing you to include digitized sounds in your programs. Special graphics oriented commands allow you to do many of the functions found in paint programs, have up to 26 independently mobile shapes moving on the screen, and create powerful shape tables for your animations.
With some of the other additions provided by this program, you can access mouse control, GS system speed, the built in GS clock, and even mix text and graphics on the super-hi-res screen.
Not as easily done, but still available and documented, is the ability to create your own commands. These require the knowledge and use of 16 bit machine language programming, but with this you can extend the capabilities of BASIC to almost anything that you can write a program for the GS to run.
This program is surprisingly shareware. I say surprisingly because it is as good as any of the commercial programs of this type which have been or are now available. For $15.00, you get all the power I've covered here, and more. The startup section of the language includes several demos and games showing what can be done with the language. Just the games (one AND two player, arcade and educational) would have been worth the money. When you do send in your money, you receive even more extensions to the language, as well as any newer versions.
The documentation is clear and filled with examples, although it tends to sound a bit techie, and runs a total of 85 K when converted to AppleWorks file format (it comes as text and as AppleWorks GS format). All pertinent and useful, with no wasted space; one of those documents designed to be used rather than read.
I heartily recommend this program to everyone interested in accessing the capabilities of their GS under their own control. Although you might currently be able to get more control out of one of the GS specific Pascal or C packages, learning how would take much longer to learn. And if you have experience with AppleSoft already, you have all the experience needed to jump right into making this program work for you.
For this excellent piece of work, and for the support of the GS which it represents, Puckey sends a tip of the Road Apple hat to:

Matt Wachowski
4153 Belford Road
Holly, Mi 48442

=====

Subscription Info
by Al Martin

Because of current banking regulations, I need to request that those of you who are renewing your subscriptions to please make your checks out to me personally. Do not write "The Road Apple" as the payee; instead, write "Al Martin" as the payee. Sorry for any inconvenience, but my local banker is insistent on the change.
Thank you for your cooperation.


Applied Engineering Fumbles
From the Apple Echo
Edited by Al Martin

(Ed. note: During the AppleFests of years gone by, Applied Engineering had the most spectacular displays with lots of people, bells and whistles. The company was also the largest advertiser Apple II magazines. For some reason, I never bought one of their products and, as things have turned out, I'm happy with that decision. I don't know; there was just something about the company that bothered me at the time.)

From R.H. to E.H.
16-Jan-93 04:13PM
(quoting E.H.)
I'd be really interested in knowing what experience(s) you've had that have made you so vigorously anti-AE.
(R.H. replies)
AE Products I have owned:
# AE power supplies. Made in Taiwan to be the best in the world.
# TransWarp. Worked until I sold it, but my Zip Chip was a better product.
# Phasor. Died of busted trace: partly my fault, partly a design flaw (shouldn't put such thin wires so close to the card edge).
# RAMWorks 512K. Did work for me, but is currently causing strange problems for the fellow I sold it to.
# DataLink 1200. Died for no apparent reason.
# Sonic Blaster. Blew a chip for no apparent reason, lost channel A.
This is not why I consider AE a dishonorable company. When I had a problem with AE's ProDrive ramdisk software, my phone calls to tech support were met with:
1) Unanswered phones for long periods of time.
2) Busy signals for long periods of time -- immediately after 1). They took the phone off the hook.
3) Lies. They claimed that not only did I have the latest version of the software but that they hadn't updated it in some time. I found later that there were far later versions, which would explain why nobody else had reported a problem with the preserve-the-RAMdisk option in Beagle's AW Companion (it's a shame I didn't buy ProSel earlier; Glen Bredon's ramdisk driver was compatible). This is not why I consider AE a dishonorable company.
AE now charges $1.50 a minute for "support" of the above variety. This is not why I consider AE a dishonorable company.
AE is dishonorable for a combination of the above plus arrogance. The arrogance to assert that the charges were to prevent the tech lines being tied up by people calling up to chat about things other than AE product problems. The arrogance to dismiss problems as unequivocally "user related" when presented with direct evidence to the contrary (as recorded in A2-Central). The arrogance to charge premium prices for products and services that are no better than any others (and have short warranty periods to boot), fail to provide premium support, and then say "But where would you be without us?" to those who point this out.
AE is not getting any more of my money.

From H.T. to B.A.
22-Jan-93 08:56AM
(quoting B.A.)
If I were to exert my authority as emperor of the universe on AE I would allow them to keep the AE number but with certain restrictions: They would have to answer mail. They would be required to give quick and accurate responses to the paying customer, and any calls that result in a
RMA for a piece of equipment under warranty would be refunded to the customer. Until AE does do all the above I will have to agree that their degree of honor is somewhere between Al Capone and Richard Nixon.
(H.T. replies)
Sorry I still think that a 900# for tech or any support, for that matter, is a crock! If they intend to have a 900# then they should have it for all products the make not JUST THE APPLE II stuff. Besides if the main complaint is people calling to shoot the fat on AE's dime then just make it a plain jane phone number and let people pay regular LD charges to the phone company. But this charging me just because I own a Apple II and bought something from them is crap.

From S.S. to B.A.
23-Jan-93 09:52PM
(quoting B.A.)
I had the same feeling you did when they first came out with the 900-number policy until I spoke with Drew Vogan of CVTech and got the manufacturer's side of the story. He told me how many people simply call him up to essentially chew the fat or to ask questions that are easily read in the...
(S.S. replies)
That might happen with smaller companies like CVTech, but AE can't use that as an excuse; nobody calls up a major company like AE just to chew the fat! They call because they have a question and need support; whether it's a question whose answer lies in the manual or a more complex one, a company like AE is obligated to provide reasonable customer support. I could see if their products were super-cheap, then I guess they could justify having a 900 number, but their products have always been on the more expensive side!
(quoting B.A.)
...manual. However, be that as it may, there are 900-numbers and there are 900-numbers. My own experience is that AE is using it strictly as a cash cow. I...
(S.S. replies)
That's exactly what they're doing, and it is shameful! Take a company like Sega of America... you can probably imagine how many people buy one of their products, take it home, and due to lack of common knowledge of electronics, they are unable to set their system up. I know this happens, because Sega's tech support line is always flooded with calls (I had to call several times this month because of problems I was having with my Sega CD unit), and their line is an 800 number. And Sega's just one of hundreds of companies--whose phone lines are just as busy, if not busier, than AE's-- that provide free support. AE is so cheap, even their SALES line is not free, it's area code 214!! GOD, I hate AE!


Tech Stuff
by Dennis McClain-Furmanski

One of the more frequent problems to occur with the otherwise superbly trouble-free Apple systems is in the monitor. The green saturation problem I reported on earlier is one of the less frequent. More troublesome is a general darkening of the screen over time, as well as chronic fuzziness.
Luckily, these are usually both easily solved. Both problems are related to the high voltage transformer, that part which boosts the voltage to the CRT (or picture tube, for us older users of electronic wundermachina) to where it can toss the electrons from the "gun", all the way to the phosphors on the screen. Keep in mind that since we are dealing with this device, we are working with thousands of volts -- enough to seriously fry the unwary. Please exercise due caution, such as plastic handled, if not entirely plastic, tools. And for goodness sake, don't touch anything you're not entirely sure what it's for.
With the back off of your monitor, follow the large wire from the "bellybutton" on the top of the CRT, down to the large plastic device seated in the rear right (as you look at the back of the CRT). This large device is the high voltage transformer, also known as the "flyback".
Facing the rear, you'll see two stems. One is marked "focus". This is the adjustment for those monitors with fuzzy pictures. Only adjust this as much as necessary to bring the picture into sharp focus -- any more puts undue strain on the rest of the system.
The other stem will be marked "HI-V" or "bright" or something similar. This is the adjustment for pictures that have become too dark. Again, only turn it up as much as necessary, and make sure you've adjusted the brightness control on the side of the monitor to its center setting first.
Obviously, both of these need to be done with the back off and the monitor on. THIS IS A DANGEROUS SITUATION. I strongly urge you to prop a mirror in front of the screen, so you can see your adjustments take effect without having to stretch around to see the screen while your hands are out of sight inside the guts.
Now, that wasn't so hard, was it?
Unhappily, there are going to be a few of those whose machines will not give acceptable pictures no matter how much they're adjusted. If the full range of both of these (and do try adjusting both if one doesn't finish the job) doesn't help enough, you'll probably need a new flyback. As is their usual custom, Apple dealers will only replace the entire insides, not just the part that's defective. But, virtually any trained TV technician can do the job, and you can help them find the part. Armed with the numbers on the flyback, you can get a replacement from the following folks:

MCM Electronics
650 Congress Park Drive
Centerville, OH 45459-4072
(800) 543-4330

Flyback Mfg# Order # Price
--------------------------------------
Apple A9M308 FC1412E03 83-1035 $42.00
Apple MT 157-004B/C 83-1040 $22.50
Apple Mac 157-0026B 33-980 $33.80

Another frequent question encountered on the various online networks involves connecting old but still serviceable Disk II drives to daisy-chained drives such as the AppleDisk 3.5 or the newer AppleDisk 5.25. I've saved and used the following adapter instructions. Much less dangerous than monitor repairs, but also quite confusing to the casual wire-whacker. I suggest you employ the help of a more experienced cable hacker if you're not comfortable with the idea of twenty wires that must all be connected properly in a very tiny space.

Parts needed:

1 IDP 20 plug
1 DB 19 pin male connector
A length of 20 conductor ribbon cable

To build the adapter cable, get one IDP-20 socket, one DB-19 plug, and a piece of 20 conductor ribbon cable. The IDP 20 will have to be the female, with the holes for the 20 pins, and the DB-19 will be the male, with the pins protruding from inside the plug hood. Connect the connectors as shown.

IDP-20 pins DB-19 pins

1 GND-----------> 1 GND
2 PHASE 0-------> 11 PHASE A
3 GND-----------> 2 GND
4 PHASE 1-------> 12 PHASE B
5 GND-----------> 3 GND
6 PHASE 2-------> 13 PHASE C
7 GND-----------> 4 GND
8 PHASE 3-------> 14 PHASE D
9 -12 V---------> 5 -12V
10 WRITE REQ-----> 15 WRITE REQ
11 +5V-----------> 6 +5V
12 +5V-----------> 6 +5V
13 +12-----------> 7 +12V
14 DRIVE ENABLE--> 17 Drive 1 or 9 for drive 2 on GS
15 +12V----------> 7 +12V
16 READ DATA-----> 18 READ DATA
17 +12V----------> 8 +12V
18 WRITE DATA----> 19 WRITE DATA
19 +12V----------> 8 +12V
20 WRITE PROTECT-> 10 WRITE PROTECT
16 NOT CONNECTED

One reliable source I've found for male DB19 connectors is JDR Micro Devices 800-538-5000 or 408-866-6200.
I find it's easiest to connect the IDP connector to the ribbon cable first then soldering the various wires to the DB19. (Explains why I laid out the list the way I did doesn't it?).
Once the cable is made, connect the IDP connector to the twenty pin connector on your Disk II, taking care that pin 1 of the plug connects to pin 1 of the drive connector.
!!!!Failure to do this will destroy your motherboard!!!!
These cables can be tricky and tedious to make. Be very careful and check all connections thoroughly. It's easy to mix them up. It is usually best to have someone else check the cable for the proper connections, since they will usually catch mistakes you might miss. To be safe ohm out the connections or use a continuity tester.
I can accept no responsibility for incorrectly made cables.
Layout of IDP 20

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17
_____________====_____________
| o o o o o o o o o o |
| o o o o o o o o o o |
|______________________________|

2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 20

Pin one is marked with an arrow imprinted in the plastic on the side of the connector..

Layout of DB19

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
_______________________________
\ . . . . . . . . . . /
\ . . . . . . . . . /
\ _________________________ /

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

The pins are numbered on the plastic matrix that holds the pins or holes for the pins.


APPLE II HISTORY
Compiled and written by Steven Weyhrich
(C) Copyright 1991, Zonker Software
(PART 7 -- THE APPLE IIE)

PRELUDE: THE APPLE III PROJECT
As we continue our travels examining the history of the Apple II, let's fine tune the time-machine card on our souped-up Apple II to concentrate specifically on the next version of the II, the IIe. As before, just accelerate the microprocessor speed to 88 MHz, and watch out for the digital fire-trails! Destination: 1982.

Between the years 1979 and 1983, although no new versions of the Apple II were released, it enjoyed a broad popularity and annually increasing sales. The open architecture of the computer, with its fully described hardware and firmware function via the Reference Manual, made it appealing both to hardware and software hackers. Third-party companies designed cards to plug into the internal slots, and their function varied from making it possible to display and use 80-column text, to clocks and cards allowing the Apple II to control a variety of external devices. During this time there was also an explosion of new software written for this easily expandable machine, from the realm of business (VisiCalc and other spreadsheet clones), to utilities, to games of all types. Each month a host of new products would be available for those who wanted to find more things to do with their computer, and the Apple II was finding a place in the home, the classroom, and the office.
At Apple Computer, Inc., however, the Apple II was not viewed with the same degree of loyalty. By September 1979 the Apple II had continued to be a sales leader. However, few at Apple believed that the II could continue to be a best seller for more than another year or two. Since Apple Computer, Inc. was a business, and not just a vehicle for selling the Apple II computer, they began to enlarge the engineering department to begin designing new products.<1> These new design efforts had begun as far back as late 1978. Their first effort was an enhanced Apple II that used some custom chips, but that project was never finished. They also began work on a different, more powerful computer that would use several identical microprocessor chips sharing tasks. The main advantage would be speed, and the ability to do high precision calculations. This computer was code-named Lisa, and because it was such a revolutionary type of design, they knew it would take many years to come to actual production. Because of the power it was to have, Apple executives felt that Lisa was the future of the company.<2>,<14>
Because they knew that the Lisa project would take a long time to complete, and because the Apple II was perceived to have only a short remaining useful life as a product, they began a new computer project called the Apple III. Instead of building upon the Apple II as a basis for this new computer, they decided to start from scratch. Also, although Wozniak made most of the design decisions for the II, a committee at Apple decided what capabilities the Apple III should have. They decided that the Apple III was to be a business machine, and not have the home or arcade-game reputation that the II had. It was to have a full upper/lowercase keyboard and display, 80-column text, and a more comprehensive operating system. They also decided that since it would be a while before many application programs would be available for this new computer, it should be capable of running existing Apple II software. In some ways this handicapped the project, since it was then necessary to use the same microprocessor and disk drive hardware as was use in the Apple II.<3>
Apple executives also decided that with the introduction of the Apple III they wanted a clear separation between it and the Apple II in regards to marketing. They did not want ANY overlap between the two. The III would be an 80-column business machine and was predicted to have ninety percent of the market, while the Apple II would be a 40-column home and school machine and would have ten percent of the market. Apple's executives were confident that after the release of the Apple III, the Apple II would quickly lose its appeal.<4>
Because of their desire for a strong and distinct product separation, the Apple II emulation mode designed into the Apple III was very limited. The engineers actually ADDED hardware chips that prevented access to the III's more advanced features from Apple II emulation mode. Apple II emulation couldn't use 80 columns, and had access to only 48K memory and none of the better graphics modes. As a result, it wouldn't run some of the better Apple II business software, during a time when there wasn't much NEW business software for the Apple III.
The Apple III engineers were given a one year target date for completion. It was ready for release in the spring of 1980, but there were problems with both design and manufacturing. (It was the first time that Apple as a company tried to come out with a new product; the Apple II had been designed and built by Wozniak when he WAS the engineering department). The first Apple III computers were plagued with nearly 100% defects and had to be recalled for fixes. Although Apple took the unprecedented step of repairing all of the defective computers at no charge, they never recovered the momentum they lost with that first misstep, and the III did not become the success Apple needed it to be.<3>
Although all of the bugs and limitations of the Apple III were eventually overcome, and it became the computer of choice within Apple, it did not capture the market as they had hoped. At that point, they weren't sure exactly what to do with the II. They had purposely ignored and downplayed it for the four years since the II Plus was released, although without its continued strong sales they would not have lasted as a company. In a 1985 interview in Byte magazine, Steve Wozniak stated:
"When we came out with the Apple III, the engineering staff cancelled every Apple II engineering program that was ongoing, in expectation of the Apple III's success. Every single one was cancelled. We really perceived that the Apple II would not last six months. So the company was almost all Apple III people, and we worked for years after that to try and tell the world how good the Apple III was, because we KNEW [how good it was] ... If you looked at our advertising and R&D dollars, everything we did here was done first on the III, if it was business related. Then maybe we'd consider doing a sub-version on the II. To make sure there was a good boundary between the two machines, anything done on the II had to be done at a lower level than on the III. Only now are we discovering that good solutions can be implemented on the II ... We made sure the Apple II was not allowed to have a hard disk or more than 128K of memory. At a time when outside companies had very usable schemes for adding up to a megabyte of memory, we came out with a method of adding 64K to an Apple IIe, which was more difficult to use and somewhat limited. We refused to acknowledge any of the good 80-column cards that were in the outside world--only ours, which had a lot of problems."<4>

Wozniak went on in that interview to say that at one time he had written some fast disk routines for the Pascal system on the Apple II, and was criticized by the Apple III engineers. They didn't think that anything on the II should be allowed to run faster than on a III. That was the mindset of the entire company at the time.
Apple has been much maligned for the attention they gave the Apple III project, while suspending all further development on the Apple II. They pegged their chances for the business market in 1980 on the Apple III. Even Steve Wozniak had stated in another interview, "We'd have sold tons of [computers in the business market] if we'd have let the II evolve ... to become a business machine called the III instead of developing a separate, incompatible computer. We could have added the accessories to make it do the business functions that the outside world is going to IBM for."<3> Part of the problem was the immaturity of the entire microcomputer industry at the time. There had NEVER been a microcomputer that had sold well for more than a couple of years before it was replaced by a more powerful model, usually from another company. The Altair 8800 and IMSAI had fallen to the more popular and easier to use Apple II and TRS-80 and Commodore PET, as well as other new machines based on the Intel 8080 and 8088 processors. It is entirely understandable that Apple's attitude between 1978 and 1980 would be of panic and fear that they wouldn't get a new computer out in time to keep their market share and survive as a company. However, during the entire time when Apple was working on the III as a computer to carry the company through until Lisa would be ready, and during the entire time that the Apple II was ignored by its own company, it continued to quietly climb in sales. It is a credit to both the ingenuity of Wozniak in his original design, and to the users of the Apple II in THEIR ingenuity at finding new uses for the II, that its value increased and stimulated yet more new sales. The Apple II "beat" the odds of survival that historically were against it.

THE APPLE IIE: BEGINNINGS
When Apple saw that the sales on the Apple II were NOT going to dwindle away, they finally decided to take another look at it. The first new look at advancing the design of the II was with a project called "Diana" in 1980. Diana was intended primarily to be an Apple II that had fewer internal components, and would be less expensive to build. The project was later known as "LCA", which stood for "Low Cost Apple". Inside Apple this meant a lower cost of manufacturing, but outsiders who got wind of the project thought it meant a $350 Apple II. Because of that misconception, the final code name for the updated Apple II was "Super II", and lasted until its release.<5>

THE APPLE IIE: HARDWARE
Part of the IIe project grew out of the earlier work on custom integrated circuits for the Apple II. When they finally decided to go ahead and improve the design by adding new features, one of the original plans was to give the Apple II an 80-column text display and a full upper/lowercase keyboard. Walt Broedner at Apple did much of the original hardware planning, and was one of those at Apple who pushed for the upgrade in the first place. To help maintain compatibility with older 40-column software (which often addressed the screen directly for speed), he decided to make 80-columns work by mirroring the older 40 column text screen onto a 1K memory space parallel to it, with the even columns in main memory and the odd columns in this new "auxiliary" memory. To display 80-column text would require switching between the two memory banks. Broedner realized that with little extra effort he could do the same for the entire 64K memory space and get 128K of bank-switchable memory. They put this extra memory (the 1K "80-column card, or a 64K "extended 80-column card") in a special slot called the "auxiliary" slot that replaced slot 0 (the 16K Language Card was going to be a built-in feature). The 80-column firmware routines were mapped to slot 3, since that was a location commonly used by people who bought 80-column cards for their Apple II's, and was also the place where the Apple Pascal system expected to find an external terminal. The auxiliary slot also supplied some special video signals, and was used during manufacture for testing on the motherboard. The engineers that worked on the IIe tried hard to make sure that cards designed for the II and II Plus would work properly in the new computer. They even had to "tune" the timing on the IIe to be slightly OFF (to act more like the II Plus) because the Microsoft CP/M Softcard refused to function properly with the new hardware. A socket was included on the motherboard for attaching a numeric keypad, a feature that many business users had been adding (with difficulty) to the II Plus for years. The full keyboard they designed was very similar to the one found on the Apple III, including two unique keys that had first appeared with the III--one with a picture of an hollow apple ("open-apple") and the other with the same apple picture filled in ("solid-apple"). These keys were electrically connected to buttons 0 and 1 on the Apple paddles or joystick. They were available to software designers as modifier keys when pressed with another key; for example, open-apple-H could be programmed to call up a "help" screen. The newer electronics of the keyboard also made it easier to manufacture foreign language versions of the Apple IIe.<6>
Overall, Broedner and Peter Quinn (the design manager for the IIe and later the IIc projects) and their team managed to decrease the number of components on the motherboard from over one hundred to thirty-one, while adding to the capabilities of the computer by the equivalent of another hundred components.

THE APPLE IIE: FIRMWARE
Peter Quinn had to beg for someone to help write the firmware revisions to the Monitor and Applesoft for the IIe. He finally got Rich Auricchio, who had been a hacker on the Apple II almost from the beginning. Quinn said in a later interview, "You cannot get someone to write firmware for this machine unless he's been around for three or four years. You have to know how to get through the mine field [of unofficial but commonly used entry points]. He [Rick] was extremely good. He added in all the 80-column and Escape-key stuff." Quinn also got Bryan Stearns to work on the new Monitor.<6>,<7>
Changes were made in the ROMs to support the new bank-switching modes made necessary by having two parallel 64K banks of RAM memory. To have enough firmware space for these extra features, the engineers increased the size of the available ROM by making IT bank-switched. This space was taken from a location that had previously not been duplicated before--the memory locations used by cards in the slots on the motherboard. Ordinarily, if you use the Monitor to look at the slot 1 memory locations from $C100 through $C1FF, you get either random numbers (if the slot is empty), or the bytes that made up the controller program on that card. Any card could also have the space from $C800 through $CFFF available for extra ROM code if they needed it. If a card in a slot did a read or write to memory location $CFFF, the $C800-$CFFF ROM that belonged to that card would appear in that space in the Apple II memory. When another card was working, then ITS version of that space would appear. On the IIe, they made a special soft-switch that would switch OUT all the peripheral cards from the memory, and switch IN the new expanded ROM on the motherboard. The firmware in the new bank-switched ROM space was designed to avoid being needed by any card in a slot (to avoid conflicts), and much of it was dedicated to making the 80-column display (mapped to slot 3) work properly.
Also added were enhancements to the ESC routines used to do screen editing. In addition to the original ESC A, B, C, and D, and the ESC I, J, K, and M added with the Apple II Plus, Auricchio added the ability to make the ESC cursor moves work with the left and right arrow keys, and the new up and down arrow keys. The new IIe ROM also included a self-test that was activated by pressing both apple keys, the control key, and RESET simultaneously.<5>

THE APPLE IIE: SUCCESS
The new Apple IIe turned out to be quite profitable for Apple. Not only was it more functional than the II Plus for a similar price, but the cost to the dealers selling it was about three times the cost of manufacture. They had gotten their "Low Cost Apple", and by May of 1983 the Apple IIe was selling sixty to seventy thousand units a month, over twice the average sales of the II Plus. Christmas of 1983 saw the IIe continue to sell extremely well, partly resulting from the delayed availability of the new IBM PCjr. Even after the Apple IIc was released in 1984, IIe sales continued beyond those of the IIc, despite the IIc's built-in features.<8>

THE APPLE IIE: MODIFICATIONS
Early Apple IIe motherboard's were labelled as "Revision A". Engineers determined soon after its introduction that if the same use of parallel memory was applied to the hi-res graphics display as was done with the text display, they could create higher density graphics. These graphics, which they called "double hi-res", also had the capability of displaying a wider range of colors, similar to those available with the original Apple II lo-res graphics. The IIe motherboards with the necessary modifications to display these double hi-res graphics were labelled "Revision B", and a softswitch was assigned to turning on and off the new graphics mode.
Later versions of the IIe motherboards were again called "Revision A" (for some reason), although they HAD been modified for double hi-res graphics. The difference between the two "Revision A" boards was that the latter had most of the chips soldered to the motherboard. An original "Revision A" board that had been changed to an Enhanced IIe was not necessarily able to handle double hi-res, since the change to the Enhanced version involved only a four-chip change to the motherboard, but not the changes to make double hi-res possible.<9>

THE APPLE IIE: THE ENHANCED IIE
This version of the Apple IIe was introduced in March of 1985. It involved changes to make the IIe more closely compatible with the Apple IIc and II Plus. The upgrade consisted of four chips that were swapped in the motherboard: The 65c02 processor, with more assembly language opcodes, replaced the 6502; two more chips with Applesoft and Monitor ROM changes; and the fourth a character generator ROM that included graphics characters (first introduced on the IIc) called "MouseText". The Enhanced IIe ROM changes fixed most of the known problems with the IIe 80-column firmware, and made it possible to enter Applesoft and Monitor commands in lower-case. The older 80-column routines were slower than most software developers wanted, they disabled interrupts for too long a time, and there were problems in making Applesoft work properly with the 80-column routines. These problems were solved with the newer ROMs.
Monitor changes also included a return of the mini-assembler, absent since the days of Integer BASIC. It was activated by entering a "!" command in the Monitor, instead of a jump to a memory location as in the older Apple ][. Also added were an "S" command was added to make it possible to search memory for a byte sequence, and the ability to enter ASCII characters directly into memory. However, the "L" command to disassemble 6502 code still did not handle the new 65c02 opcodes as did the IIc disassembler. Interrupt handling was also improved. Applesoft was fixed to let commands such as GET, HTAB, TAB, SPC, and comma tabbing work properly in 80-column mode. The new MouseText characters caused a problem for some older programs at first, until they were upgraded; characters previously displayed as inverse upper-case would sometimes display as MouseText instead.<10>,<11>

THE APPLE IIE: THE PLATINUM IIE
This version of the IIe, introduced in January 1987, had a keyboard that was the same as the IIGS keyboard, but the RESET key was moved above the ESC and "1" keys (as on the IIc), and the power light was above the "/" on the included numeric keypad (the internal numeric keypad connector was left in place). The CLEAR key on the keypad generated the same character as the ESC key, but with a hardware modification it could generate a Ctrl-X as it did on the IIGS. The motherboard had 64K RAM in only two chips (instead of the previous eight), and one ROM chip instead of two. An "extended 80-column card" with 64K extra memory was included in all units sold, and was smaller than previous versions of that memory card.
No ROM changes were made. The old shift-key modification was installed, making it possible for programs to determine if the shift-key was being pressed. However, if using a game controller that actually used the third push-button (where the shift-key mod was internally connected), pressing shift and the third push-button simultaneously causes a short circuit that shuts down the power supply.<12>

THE APPLE IIE: EMULATION CARD ON MACINTOSH LC
In early 1991, Apple introduced a new version of the Apple IIe. This one was designed to be exactly like the 128K Platinum IIe, with the modification that it had a color Macintosh attached to it. This Apple IIe cost only $199, but the required Macintosh peripheral went for about $2,495, which makes the combination the most expensive Apple II ever made. Apple engineers managed to put the function of an entire IIe onto a card smaller than the old Disk II controller card. With version 2.0 of the Apple II interface software, more of the memory allocated to the Macintosh can be used by the IIe (strange way of designing an Apple II!). However, unlike all previous versions of the IIe, there are no hardware-based slots on the IIe card; instead, there are software-based slots that are allocated by moving icons that represent various peripherals into "slots" on the Mac screen. (Oh, yes; it runs some Mac software, too). To use 5.25 disks with this Apple IIe, there is a cable that attaches to the card. The cable splits into a game connector (for paddles or joystick operation) and a connector that accepts IIc and IIGS style 5.25 drives. The IIe card runs at a "normal" (1 MHz) speed and a "fast" (2 MHz) speed.<13> It has limitations, however. For a 1991 Apple II, it is limited in being unable to be accelerated beyond 2 MHz (a Zip Chip can run a standard IIe at 8 MHz), and the screen response seems slow, since it is using a software-based Mac text display instead of the hardware-based Apple II character ROM. As a Macintosh it lacks the power and speed of the newer Macintosh II models (which also run in color). But if having a Apple II and a Mac in one machine is important, this is the best way to do it.

NOTES
<1> Freiberger, Paul, and Swaine, Michael. "Fire In The Valley, Part I (Book Excerpt)", A+ Magazine, Jan 1985, p. 45-48.
<2> Freiberger, Paul, and Swaine, Michael. "Fire In The Valley, Part II (Book Excerpt)", A+ Magazine, Jan 1985, p. 46,51.
<3> Rubin, Charles. "The Life & Death & Life Of The Apple II", Personal Computing, Feb 1985, p. 72.
<4> Williams, Gregg, and Moore, Rob. "The Apple Story, Part 2: More History And The Apple III", Byte, Jan 1985, pp. 177-178.
<5> Tommervik, Al. "Apple IIe: The Difference", Softalk, Feb 1983, pp. 118-127, 142.
<6> Williams, Gregg. "'C' Is For Crunch", Byte, Dec 1984, pp. A75-A78, A121.
<7> Little, Gary. Inside The Apple //c, 1985, pp. 1-7.
<8> Rose, Frank. West Of Eden: The End Of Innocence At Apple Computer, 1989, pp. 98-99.
<9> Weishaar, Tom. "Ask Uncle DOS", Open-Apple, Dec 1986, p. 2.86.
<10> Weishaar, Tom. "A Song Continued", Open-Apple, Mar 1985, pp. 1.20-1.21.
<11> Weishaar, Tom. "Demoralized Apple II Division Announces Enhanced IIe...", Open-Apple, Apr 1985, pp. 1.25-1.27.
<12> Weishaar, Tom. "Apple Introduces An Updated IIe", Open-Apple, Jan 1987, p. 3.1.
<13> Doms, Dennis. "The Apple II as Mac peripheral", Open-Apple, Jul 1991, pp. 7.43-7.44.
<14> This was an early version of the Lisa project. When the 68000 microprocessor became available from Motorola, it was decided to use that as a single processor for the Lisa. Also, after Steve Jobs paid a visit to the Xerox lab and saw the Xerox Star computer with its icon interface and mouse pointing device, he pushed strongly for the Lisa to work in that way.

=====

Subscription Info
by Al Martin

Because of current banking regulations, I need to request that those of you who are renewing your subscriptions to please make your checks out to me personally. Do not write "The Road Apple" as the payee; instead, write "Al Martin" as the payee. Sorry for any inconvenience, but my local banker is insistent on the change.
Thank you for your cooperation.


From the Apple Echo
by Al Martin

InTrec Software announces an upgrade for ProTerm users. ProTerm 3.1 is now being shipped and owners can upgrade for prices varying from $30.00 to $40.00 depending upon which version they currently own.
The new version has many improvements and features much too numerous to print here. The point is, if you are currently using ProTerm, the upgrade should be of great interest to you.
You may call, write or contact InTrec at:

InTrec Software, Inc.
3035 E Topaz Cir
Phoenix, AZ 85028-4423
(Formerly InSync Software, Inc.)
Voice 602/992-1345
BBS 602/992-9789
FAX 602/992-0232
CIS 75300,735
Delphi InTrec
GEnie InTrec
AOL InTrec
AppleLink InTrec


AW 3.0 Patch
by Robert Hardman

The AppleWorks 3.0 textfile reader has two problems.
First, it converts all control characters except Tab and Return to "#"s.
"#" is a common character and so cannot be globally replaced without checking that it doesn't occur except as a control-character flag.
Second, AW 3.0 accepts the Del character.
This means you can get a file full of Del blotches. You'll have no way to get rid of them except by hand, since AppleWorks won't accept the Delete key as a character.
Lo! I have created an AppleWorks patch that deals neatly with both problems.
My code differs from the original in that it will IGNORE all Del characters and all control characters other than Tab and Return.
Get into BASIC, set the appropriate prefix (to your NON-ORIGINAL copy of AW 3.0) and type:

]BLOAD SEG.AW,A$300,L$21,B$68D3

This loads the section of AppleWorks that interprets textfiles.

Type:
]MTR
*300L
to get into the monitor and list the relevant code. You should see something like this:
00/0300: 29 7F AND #7F
00/0302: C9 20 CMP #20
00/0304: B0 15 BCS 031B {+15}
00/0306: C9 0D CMP #0D
00/0308: D0 03 BNE 030D {+03}
00/030A: 4C 5A 48 JMP 485A
00/030D: C9 09 CMP #09
00/030F: F0 04 BEQ 0315 {+04}
00/0311: A9 23 LDA #23
00/0313: D0 06 BNE 031B {+06}
00/0315: A9 80 LDA #80
00/0317: 85 B7 STA B7
00/0319: A9 16 LDA #16
00/031B: AE 18 47 LDX 4718
00/031E: 9D 01 7B STA 7B01,X

...followed by a few more lines that aren't part of what you loaded.
The code at 300 to 314 strips the high bit of the character, checks for Tabs and Returns, and tells AppleWorks to call all other control characters a "#". The code at 315 to 31A handles Tabs. 31B to 320 is the bit that actually stores the character to some internal buffer or other.
If the code you see doesn't match the code listed above, in the hex section at least, you can't continue because your AppleWorks doesn't work the way mine does.
If it DOES match, type [note the 302]:
*302:C9 0D D0 03 4C 5A 48 C9 7F F0 E5 C9 20 B0 0A C9 09 D0 DD
*300L
this lists my new code and should look like this:
00/0300: 29 7F AND #7F
00/0302: C9 0D CMP #0D
00/0304: D0 03 BNE 0309 {+03}
00/0306: 4C 5A 48 JMP 485A
00/0309: C9 7F CMP #7F
00/030B: F0 E5 BEQ 02F2 {-1B}
00/030D: C9 20 CMP #20
00/030F: B0 0A BCS 031B {+0A}
00/0311: C9 09 CMP #09
00/0313: D0 DD BNE 02F2 {-23}
00/0315: A9 80 LDA #80
00/0317: 85 B7 STA B7
00/0319: A9 16 LDA #16
00/031B: AE 18 47 LDX 4718
00/031E: 9D 01 7B STA 7B01,X

If it doesn't, at least in the hex department, you can't continue. Maybe you mistyped or my listing is garbled.
If it does, AND you feel secure -- remember, this is a PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK situation -- type:
*BSAVE SEG.AW,A$300,L$21,B$68D3

Your AppleWorks is now updated.
Naturally I deny any responsibility in the event your hard drive implodes or anything else.
Incidentally, if you happen to have a IIgs you can perform this patch on the fly. Install the Visit Monitor CDA and run AW. When you are ready to press return to load the textfile, drop into the monitor. The code hangs out at $47AA, but ONLY when you're performing this operation; the
rest of the time it's something else (dynamic segment swapping, whee!). You'll have to repeat it every time you do
it of course, since it won't be saved to disk, but if you just want to see if it works...


APPLE II HISTORY
Compiled and written by Steven Weyhrich (C) Copyright 1991, Zonker Software

(Part 8 -- The Apple IIc)

Prelude: Steve Jobs and Macintosh
Rewind back to 1982, before the Apple IIe was introduced, and adjust the tuning on our Flux Capacitor-enhanced peripheral card. Before dealing specifically with the smallest Apple II, the IIc, it would help to take an aside and look at some other events happening at Apple Computers, Inc. at this time that affected its development.
If you recall, the Lisa project was designated as the computer that was considered to be the future of Apple. From a series of parallel processors and a "bit slicing" architecture, to a focus on the Motorola 68000 microprocessor as the controller of this advanced computer, the project had been progressing very slowly. It was begun back in 1979 with the same focus as any other Apple product: "Both [Apple III and Lisa] had been conceived of as nifty pieces of hardware rather than as products to appeal to a specific market: At Apple you designed a box and people bought it because it was neat, not because any thought had been given to what it would do for them."<1> However, a significant change occurred in 1979 when Xerox bought a large chunk of Apple stock. In return for being allowed this stock purchase, Xerox allowed some of their research ideas to be used in designing an office computer. After Steve Jobs visited the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in 1979 and saw the user-interface on their Alto computer--icons, graphics-based text characters, overlapping windows, and a pointing device called a "mouse"--the Lisa took on a distinct personality that made it possible to become the ultra-computer Apple needed. This was important, since by 1981 Apple executives were getting sweaty palms worrying about the future. The Apple III was clearly NOT taking the business world by storm.
Unfortunately for Jobs, who was excited about using the Xerox technology in designing a new computer, he was excluded from the Lisa project. After the problems associated with the introduction of the Apple III, a reorganization in 1980 moved the Apple II and III into one division, and the Lisa into another. Lisa was put under the control of John Couch, and Jobs was not allowed to participate. Since Lisa had been taken away, Jobs in 1981 began to assemble a team to "out-Lisa the Lisa" by creating a smaller, less expensive computer that would do the same thing. Jef Raskin, the engineer who helped design it, called it Macintosh.
While the Macintosh developed as a pirate project with a smaller team and less money than Lisa, the concept of an "appliance" computer also emerged. Instead of those messy slots and a lid that popped off (which made the Apple II so popular with the hacker community), Jobs' team was sold on the idea that all necessary features should simply be built-in and the case sealed. It would be something that you just plugged in, turned on, and started using. With the Xerox Alto mouse/icon/window interface it would not only be easy to set up and turn on, but also easy to use.

The Apple IIc: Beginnings
What was happening with the Apple II during this time? The efforts to make it less expensive to build were progressing, and the Apple IIe was in the formative stages. In the summer of 1981 someone proposed a portable Apple II, a book-sized computer. It wasn't until Steve Jobs became interested in it as engineering challenge, well after Macintosh was under way, that anything came of the idea:

"...one day late in '82, Paul Dali showed him (Jobs) a photograph of a Toshiba portable and they started fooling around with the idea of an Apple II that would look like the Toshiba but come with a built-in disk drive. They took out a IIe circuit board and a disk drive and a keyboard and played with them until they arrived at a promising configuration --- keyboard in front, disk drive in back, circuit board in between. What got Jobs excited about this idea was the engineering difficulty of squeezing it all into a package not much bigger than a notebook. And a machine so small wouldn't have the expandability that characterized all the other II's. Like Macintosh, it could be taken out of the box, plugged in, and put to work --- no extra parts to buy, no cables to figure out. It was the II reinvented as an appliance."<2>

As with all Apple projects, the IIc went by various code names during its development, for the sake of internal communications and to keep outsiders from knowing what was going on. The various names used included VLC (Very Low Cost), Yoda, ET, IIb (for "Book"), and Teddy (which stood for "Testing Every Day"). Also, following a long standing tradition at Apple, some of the code names assigned to the project at various times were names of children of people at Apple: Chels, Jason, Lolly, Sherry, and Zelda. These names persist in the source code for the firmware for the IIc as later printed in the technical reference manual; the serial port driver is called a "Lolly" driver.<3>
During the time the IIc was under development, Apple was working on a change in the look of their products. They planned a more European styling, and a color scheme called "Snow White". The IIc would be the first product with the new appearance and color.

The Apple IIc: Hardware
As mentioned earlier, the IIc had its origins while the IIe project was going on. When Steve Jobs became involved, he felt they should continue with the open IIe as they had planned, but do this other Apple II as a product "focused" to a specific group of customers, primarily new users. Originally he had planned a closed Apple II that had a built-in mouse port, one serial port, and some other features. What they ended up with at that point was just a computer and a keyboard. Walt Broedner, the engineer who pushed for the Apple IIe to be produced, used some of their previous work with custom IC's for the disk controller and combined both projects together to make the IIc.<4>
Although he was told it was not be possible, Jobs strongly pushed for the mouse in this closed Apple II to be compatible with the Macintosh mouse--and they managed to make it work.<2> Regarding the plans for a single serial port, however, Apple's marketing people pointed out to Jobs that many people were going to want both a printer AND a modem, so they added a second port to the original design. They decided to use serial ports on the IIc instead of parallel ports for a couple of reasons. First, the socket for a serial port is smaller than a parallel port, and it would fit better onto a small box like the IIc. Also, Apple's general direction at the time was to get consistency in its hardware, and they had decided to make everything they made use a serial interface.<4>
They began work on the Apple IIc in earnest right after the IIe was finished. Because they were trying to squeeze an Apple IIe with 128K, 80 column routines, two serial cards, disk controller, and a mouse card into an 11 by 12-inch case, the design challenges were greater than with the IIe (recall that this was what appealed to Steve Jobs). The size of the case was determined by the decision to make it able to fit into a standard-sized briefcase.<4>
Apple also had the international market in mind when they designed the IIc. A special chip containing the keyboard map could easily be changed depending on the country where the computer would be sold, to make it consistent with regional keyboard differences. The external pushbutton would switch between the two different keyboards, between a UK and German layout, for example. In the U.S. version of the IIc it switched from a standard Sholes keyboard (also known as "QWERTY") to a Dvorak keyboard (which allows faster touch typing). The decision for the foreign keyboards came first; the added bonus for American versions of getting Dvorak came as an extra bonus, to save having two different cases (one for US and one for foreign versions).<4>
One problem in creating such a compact computer was dealing with heat production. Apple engineers wanted it to be able to function in environmental temperatures up to 40 degrees Celsius (about 104 degrees Fahrenheit). One article published at the time of its introduction mentioned jokingly that the designers wanted to make the IIc capable of doing a long disk sort (sorting data in a disk file) while on the beach in Florida in the summer! Their major obstacle was the heat generated by the internal 5.25 disk drive. They tried some special low power drives (which would have been much more expensive), but they didn't overcome the heat problem even with them. Eventually they tried a complicated venting scheme that was designed by drilling holes into a case and putting it into an oven to let them measure internal temperatures. The engineers were surprised when they found that the normal power disk drive worked and generated less overall heat within the case than the special low power drive did. The only explanation they could come up with was that the normal power drive generated enough heat to cause it to rise, which pulled cool air in through the vents by convection.<4>

The Apple IIc: Firmware
Since they used the newer 65c02 chip, which ran cooler and had 27 additional commands that could be used by assembly language programs, Apple's programmers had some new power to use in firmware design. Such power was needed to squeeze in all the firmware code for the IIe, plus code for the disk controller, serial cards, mouse card, and 80 column card into 16K of ROM space.
The firmware for the IIc was written by Ernie Beernink, Rich Williams, and James Huston. They designed it to look (to a software application program) exactly like a IIe with an Apple Super Serial Card in slots 1 and 2, an 80-column card in slot 3, a mouse in slot 4, and a Disk II in slot 6 (though there were NO slots in hardware). Since these first IIc's had nothing emulated in slot 5, the firmware authors immortalized themselves by making a "ghost" peripheral appear to be present in that slot. Entering this Applesoft program:

100 IN#5 : INPUT A$ : PRINT A$

and running it would print the names of the authors. (They used a decoding scheme to extract the names, character by character, so a simple ASCII scan of the ROM would not show their little trick). This "feature" had to be removed in later revisions of the IIc ROM, because an actual disk device was added then to slot 5.<4>,<5>
What about the unassigned slot 7? Here they put a small piece of code to allow booting from the external 5.25 drive by typing "PR#7" from Applesoft.
The programmers fixed some known bugs in the IIe ROMs, and added 32 graphics characters they called MouseText. To make MouseText fit they removed the ability to use flashing characters (when in 80 column mode) and replaced those characters with MouseText. Apple veteran Bruce Tognazzini designed the MouseText characters, which included a picture of a running man (perhaps to suggest "running" a program). He later sent a letter to Call-A.P.P.L.E. magazine to warn programmers that the Running Man characters (assigned to "F" and "G") had been determined to be unnecessary and would probably be replaced eventually. (This did eventually happen, but not with the IIc).
Beernick, Williams, and Huston also made some minor changes to the Applesoft part of the ROM. They fixed things so Applesoft commands could be entered in lowercase (and translated into uppercase). They removed the Applesoft commands that were specific to the obsolete cassette interface (which was absent in the IIc) and made Applesoft more compatible with 80 columns.<4>,<6> They did NOT go so far as to make any major changes in Applesoft to use the newer 65c02 commands and therefore fix known bugs or add features to this seven year old language. Their reluctance stemmed from the fact that historically many BASIC programs had made use of undocumented assembly language entry points in Applesoft, and any changes they would make here made it more likely that older programs would crash unexpectedly.<4>

The Apple IIc: Product Introduction
Apple's introduction of the new IIc came at an "event" at the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco on April 24th, 1984. It was entitled "Apple II Forever", and was described as "part revival meeting, part sermon, part roundtable discussion, part pagan rite, and part county fair". Apple's objectives here were to introduce the Apple IIc, describe how it fit into the company's marketing strategy, show off new software that was made to work with the new computer, and emphasize that Apple was still firmly behind the Apple II line of computers. (Steve Jobs also took some of the time to report on the sales of the Macintosh in its first 100 days).<7>
One of the interesting things they did at the "Apple II Forever" event was the actual introduction of the IIc. Giant video screens were used to show previews of Apple's TV commercials for the IIc, as well as slides and images of the speakers, including Wozniak, Jobs, and Apple's new president, John Sculley. Sculley spoke of "sharing power", and then demonstrated that in a unique way: "After holding up the tiny IIc for everyone to see and eliciting a response that they'd like to see it better, Sculley ordered the house lights on. As the light burst forth, nearly every fifth person in the audience stood up, waving high a IIc. As startled dealers cheered uproariously, the Apple plants passed the IIcs to them. Within seconds of its introduction, more than a thousand Apple dealers had a production-line IIc in their hands."<7>
When Jobs gave his report on the Mac, it revealed some interesting statistics. He told them that the first industry standard was the Apple II, which sold fifty thousand machines in two and a half years. The second standard was the IBM PC, which sold the same amount in eight months. Macintosh had done sold its fifty thousand machines only 74 days after its introduction. Although sales would not be nearly as good, Apple took orders that day for fifty thousand Apple IIc's in just over seven HOURS.
At the "Apple II Forever" event, they also had a general software exhibition and a setup called the Apple II Museum. This contained Apple memorabilia, and included Woz's original Apple I, and a reproduction of Steve Jobs' garage where it was built. Although not on the schedule, "Apple II Forever" included an early-afternoon earthquake centered south of San Jose that measured 6.2 on the Richter scale.

The Apple IIc: Success?
Their original goal had been to sell the IIc for $995. As productions costs turned out, they found that they couldn't hit that price, so they came up with $1,295, balancing the decision with the number of people who were predicted to buy the optional Monitor IIc or an external Disk IIc drive.
The only problem was that although the IIc was a technological breakthrough in miniaturization, customers at that time didn't value smallness. They viewed something that was too small as also being cheap and lacking power. Although the Apple IIc was equivalent to a IIe loaded with extra memory, a disk drive, two serial cards, and a mouse card, most customers seemed to want the more expandable IIe. Apple marketing went to much effort to make the IIc attractive, but it didn't sell as well as the IIe. Just as IBM overestimated the market when producing its PCjr (which eventually failed and was discontinued), so did Apple when producing the IIc (and the original Macintosh).<7>

The Apple IIc: Overcoming Limitations
Although the IIc did not have any slots for plugging in peripheral cards that had traditionally been used in the Apple II, the ports that were built-in had the capability to do much of what the slots had often been used for. The serial ports were compatible with any serial device; this included common ones such as printers and modems, and uncommon ones like security controllers, clocks, and speech synthesizers. Some third party companies also supplied serial-to-parallel converters for IIc owners who wanted to use parallel printers made by Epson, Okidata, and C. Itoh that were popular elsewhere in the computer world.
There was, of course, the AppleMouse IIc sold by Apple. It plugged into the game port on the IIc. Also available were two types of touch tablets: The Power Pad (Chalkboard) and Koala Pad (Koala Technologies), though the latter sold best. The Koala pad would appear to a program to be the same as a joystick, but could not emulate the mouse.<8>
The disk port on the original IIc was only designed to control an external 5.25 disk drive. Apple sold the Disk IIc for $329, and other companies later sold similar drives for less. Despite this firmware limitation, Quark Engineering released a 10 MB Winchester hard drive called the QC10 that would work with this disk port, and was the first hard disk available for the IIc.<8>
The video port worked with a standard monitor, but had access to all video signals. Included with the original IIc was an RF modulator that allowed it to be connected to a standard television (for color games). An RGB adapter box attached to the video port would allow a true RGB monitor to be attached, giving color and sharp, readable 80 column text on the same monitor. Apple also sold a flat-panel liquid crystal display for the IIc that attached to this video port. It was capable of 80 columns by 24 lines, as well as double hi-res graphics. Apple's price was about $600, but it looked somewhat "squashed" vertically, and did not sell well. Another company marketed a better flat panel liquid crystal display called the C-Vue.
With a battery attached to the 12V input, and a liquid crystal display, the IIc could be made into a truly portable computer.<8>

The Apple IIc: Enhancements
The earliest change made available for the IIc was a motherboard swap that fixed a hardware bug causing some non-Apple modems to fail if used at 1200 baud. This modification was made only if the owner could show they needed the change (that is, they owned a 1200 baud modem that wouldn't work).
The first significant upgrade available for Apple IIc owners was also available as a free upgrade for previous owners. Changes were made to the disk port firmware to accommodate the new 800K UniDisk 3.5. Using Apple's Protocol Converter scheme (later called "Smartport"), this new IIc could handle four 3.5 disk drives, or three 3.5 disk drives and one 5.25 drive.
With the UniDisk 3.5 upgrade, the internal 16K ROM was increased in size to a 32K ROM that was bank-switched to make space for the extra code necessary to implement the Smartport. Also added were additional serial port commands to improve compatibility with the older Super Serial Card. The Mini-Assembler, absent from the Apple II ROMs since the days of the original Integer BASIC Apple II, was added back in, with support for the extra commands provided by the newer 65c02 processor (the disassembler had always supported those new commands). The STEP and TRACE Monitor commands made a comeback, having also been a casualty of the 1979 Autostart ROM for the Apple II Plus. Lastly, the new IIc ROMs included a built-in diagnostic program to do limited testing of the computer for internal failures, and had improved handling of interrupts.<9>
The next Apple IIc upgrade was known as the Memory Expansion Apple IIc. This came as a response to requests for the ability to add extra memory to the IIc. Applied Engineering had already produced a Z-80 coprocessor for the IIc (to allow access to CP/M software), and an expanded memory card, up to 1 MB, which would either act as a RAMdisk for ordinary ProDOS applications, or as extra memory for the AppleWorks desktop (through a special patching program). Seeing the popularity of this, Apple released this third version of the IIc ROMs and motherboard, this time with a RAM expansion slot included. The Apple IIc Memory Expansion Card could take up to 1 MB of RAM, in 256K increments. The firmware in the new ROMs made it work as a RAMdisk automatically recognized by ProDOS and following the Smartport protocol that had been designed for the UniDisk 3.5. Apple even included code in the new ROM to patch DOS 3.3 so it could be used as a RAMdisk with that system (400K maximum size), and did the same with Pascal v1.3. Also, because this firmware was in the motherboard ROM, ANY company could make memory cards to attach to this version of the IIc.
Other changes made in this version of the IIc ROM included moving the mouse firmware from slot 4 to slot 7, and putting the RAMdisk firmware into slot 4. Also fixed was a bug that caused a write-protected 3.5 disk to be incorrectly identified with early versions of the UniDisk 3.5.<9>,<10>
Since code as complex as ROM firmware rarely makes it out the door without at least one bug, Apple had to make one final improvement to the IIc ROM. The Revised Memory Expansion Apple IIc (ROM version 4) included changes which made it easier to identify if no RAM chips had been installed on the memory card. A problem with keyboard buffering was also fixed. Lastly, this version of the ROM resolved an obscure bug in the slot 2 firmware that was supposed to allow the IIc to function as a simple terminal (with a modem attached to that port). The previous version of the IIc ROM had been assembled with a couple of wrong addresses in the code, and the terminal mode produced garbage. Few people used this feature, so it was not noticeable to most users, and the corrected ROM chip was therefore not as quickly available as the original Memory Expansion upgrade.

Notes
<1> Rose, Frank. West of Eden: The End of Innocence at Apple Computer, 1989, p. 48.
<2> Rose, Frank. ibid, pp. 110-112.
<3> Hogan, Thom. "Apple: The First Ten Years", A+ magizine, Jan 1987, p. 45.
<4> Williams, Gregg. "'C' Is For Crunch", Byte, Dec 1984, pp. A75-A78, A121.
<5> Little, Gary. Inside the Apple IIc, 1985, pp. 1-7.
<6> Weishaar, Tom. "Miscellanea", Open-Apple, Aug 1985, pp. 1.61.
<7> Durkee, David. "Marketalk Reviews", Softtalk, Jun 1984, p. 120.
<8> Baum, Peter. "Expanding The Unexpandable IIc", SOFTALK, Jun 1984, pp. 95-97.
<9> -----. "Preface: The Apple IIc Family", Apple IIc Technical Reference Manual, 1984, 1986, pp. xxiii-xxv.
<10> -----. Apple IIc Memory Expansion Card Owner's Guide, 1986, pp. 2-4.


Tales from the underground, or I am an Apple II Freedom Fighter

by Tony Gonzalez

Today, being an Apple II user takes work. Heavy work. There are many reasons. But there is great joy in being an Apple II user, joys which no other computer can give you.
Having an Apple II is like being in a hated minority; kind of like being in the military and wearing earrings. Ever tried to go into a computer store and ask for software, only to have the employees laugh in your face? That has happened to me many times, with friends. And not tiny mom and pop stores. I'm talking the big and bloated chains like Crud-USA and Orbhead. We're talking a serious attitude problem on the part of the owners and employees. If you want to see an example of how people can be brainwashed into rudeness and stupidity, try and reason with these misguided lemmings.
Lemmings is the word for that type. They have no clue as to the ease and joy a computer can be for them, the fun they miss. They prattle on endlessly with large numbers, thinking they are actually having an advantage. They look down their nose at anything that can work better with lower number stats. Most of them have never seen an Apple II in action. One of my sadistic joys in life is to show these bozos my 7 MHz GS with 4 megs and a whole slew of peripherals, and watch them freak out. They start asking how fast is my 486, what kind of SVGA card I'm using, and I get this wolfish little smile and tell them it's all built into my Apple II GS! Now, that is a bit of fun you can have that no IBM or Mac can offer.
Do you get mailers from Mac or IBM companies that have inferior databse programs that actually THINK you have one of the garbage machines? Take a tip from me and some friends: If they have one of those free mailer envelopes inside, tear up all the garbage they sent, and stuff it in there. Write freedom fighter messages all over the envelope. (Apple II forever! IBM sucks! Apple II version or nothing!) This technique is guaranteed to brighten up your day.
Record some Synthlab music, or any GS music. go into a pinhead store. Ask them for a music demo on one of their machines. Laugh in their face. Play the tape. Show them the REAL glory of the Apple II. Leave them with their jaws on the floor. Ah, sweet revenge. Use these patented techniques and many more to brighten your day, and let them know that you are a proud and happy Apple II user, something which they cannot attain.
In terms of marketplace, the Apple II does not exist. Our new market is by mailorder and through the loyal efforts of loving Apple II users banded together to support the best computers on earth. We create our own support. Remember that line, dear friends. To take on the spirit of JFK: "Ask not what your Apple II can do for you. Ask what you can do for your Apple II." Our support is only as strong as what WE put into it. Write a song. compose a story. Draw a picture. Program that silly and mindless game idea you thought of in a fit of serious giggles that one night. The Apple II lets your creativity go free and fly over the world, showering happiness to other Apple II users. What other computer can you find such ridiculously fun games, such as Smurf BarBCue, One Armed Battle, Plunder, Space Whiskey, and The Flip Side of Karateka? (if you never heard of THAT game, get out the classic Karateka on your Apple II. Now, stick the disk in upside down. You will be playing Karateka, but the picture will be upside down!)
Your Apple II can be your trusted companion in business. Lots of good business databases and programs. AppleWorks is one program which has proven itself over the years, for example. And it won't let you down. If you get an IBM, you will be wandering into a jungle of mismatched everything. Discover how much fun it is to call a computer store, just to install a disk drive. How when you run one program, 3 others begin to become non-compatible. The key word is productivity here. The silly morons actually THINK they are being productive by endlessly tinkering with their CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT, all in the name of making the stupid thing run flawlessly. Who needs that hassle? Not me, that's for sure.
Please don't think I'm in a vacuum about these high ended moronic devices. A friend gave me a 386 for free. When I can get the stupid thing running right, I will be using it to feed MIDI song files and things over serial cable. The more I try and get it running right, the more I love my GS. (and no, I cannot sell or give it away, that's part of the #%^$& deal, but I CAN and WILL make it serve my GS. I can tolerate it in that mode). My brother has a CX with Rocket and a bunch of things. I'm still getting far more mileage out of my GS than any Mac abuser or IBM pinhead I can think of.
I was tickled pink a month ago when I heard of a startling and wonderful use of the Apple II. I am a rollercoaster fanatic, and I talk with designers. I had discovered that one rollercoaster, which is considered one of the best rides ever made, was designed on an Apple II... in BASIC, no less! (The complex mathematics required for designing rollercoasters is so much that the designer switched to the Apple II after wearing out a calculator. The Apple II did not wear out. Make a note of it). And no, I won't keep you in the dark. The name of the rollercoaster is Thunder Run in Kentucky Kingdom, Kentucky. The employees may not know the name of the designer. And I don't want him to get a flood of hate or love mail, since he's busy working on a ride for this summer. But ride Thunder Run, knowing that the great design of the ride was accomplished using an Apple II.
How about arcade games? anyone remember Defender, Sinistar, Robotron, Joust? Absolutely classic arcade games which packed more fun to the square pixel than the digitized over-bloated memory hogs of today? I had been inside the program chips to Sinistar, and was tickled pink to find DOS3.3 inside the ROMs!. (and Sinistar was no ordinary game, since it used some innovative artificial intelligence routines on a primitive scale). There were probably many other good games done using the Apple II, but TRY and find a company to admit to it anymore. They must be afraid of a machine which has a heart and soul...
Today, most of the pinheaded lemmings claim the Apple II is a dinosaur and belongs in the past. WHY? The Apple II is still a fantastic workhorse, still capable of getting the job done. and it does it more reliably. Would these brainless wonders claim that a restored antique car in great running condition is a piece of crap? They used to build them better in those days, people. and the workmanship shows. They go "oooh" and "aaah" and wish in their heart they had one. Well, we have a classic antique, guys. It runs beautifully in today's day and age of cheap brainless clones. And if the lemmings would realize the great craftsmanship and get out of their snotty mode, they would appreciate the true value of the Apple II.
Anyhow, back again. How can you contribute to your Apple II pool of software? port gifs over from lower platforms? transfer sound sample? rewrite programs on your Apple II? Design hardware cards and license them? Anything you CAN do contributes to the WHOLE Apple II world. We are your brothers. We will work together to make the whole brainwashed world realize that the best computer system in the world has been right under their noses all the time...


Product Review
TrueType Font Information Center
by Al Martin

Copyrighted by L. R. "Doc" Reineke and marketed by M. D. Hunt Co. of Anaheim, California, TrueType Font Information Center is a notebook binder with the descriptions and samples of more than 600 font styles available for the Apple II line of computers. For those of you who are "font happy" types, (pun intended) this would be of great interest. The index alone sells for $17.95, including the binder, $13.95 without.
Each font is named as it would appear as a file on disk and also given the full name of the individual fonts spelled out. There is a general information field which will indicate if the font is available in caps, caps only, caps and numbers, caps only extended keyboard, full keyboard, symbols, upper and lower case, etc.
The fonts described are available in a series of 39 disks and the particular disk in which a certain font is located is noted. There is an example of each font printed in 26-point type. It is a very complete catalog.
Each disk of fonts is priced at $3.50 and the more disks you order, the cheaper each one is. The full set of 39 3.5" disks with all 600+ fonts is 97.50 plus $4.00 shipping and handling. Each disk has over a dozen different fonts and they are not packed, but ready for immediate use.
For further information or ordering, contact:

M. D. Hunt Company
1006 S. Philadelphia
Anaheim, CA 92805
(714) 956-5363

=====

Subscription Info
by Al Martin

Because of current banking regulations, I need to request that those of you who are renewing your subscriptions to please make your checks out to me personally. Do not write "The Road Apple" as the payee; instead, write "Al Martin" as the payee. Sorry for any inconvenience, but my local banker is insistent on the change.
Thank you for your cooperation.


inCider Quits
by Al Martin

inCider/A+ is no more. The 1993 July issue was the last one and its subscription list has been sold to Quality Computers and it is said that inCider/A+ subscribers will receive II Alive until their subscriptions run out.
The obituary list of Apple II publications grows longer --- Call A.P.P.L.E., A+, Nibble and now inCider/A+ not to mention the club newsletters and others.
The day after the announcement came in over the Apple II Echo, I called Cindy Field, Contributing Editor to inCider/A+ and a good Apple II friend to The Road Apple. We chatted a good while about the situation and she said it was interesting that in that last issue she had written an article about new Apple II products. Her article was cut by a page and a half. With that attitude at the front office, it's little wonder that inCider/A+ is gone. More's the pity.
As an aside, if and when The Road Apple publishes its final copy, rest assured that the subscription list, past and present, will not be sold, period. You loyal readers have been good to The Road Apple and I shall never prostitute your good names.


Sculley Gone as CEO
by Al Martin

John Sculley has been replaced by company president and chief operating officer Michael Spindler as CEO of Apple, Inc. This follows the second quarter report that profits were down by 17% from last year. Sculley still keeps his position of Board Chairman and stated that he "...plans to focus on new business opportunities for Apple (Inc.)."
Hambrecht & Guist analyst Bruce Lupatkin stated that Sculley "...has been detached and 'does not show any interest in being involved in the day-to-day business.'" to which The Road Apple responds, "What's new?" We also speculate that Sculley may be in a funk since he was not appointed to a desired ambassadorship from the Clinton administration after publicly sucking up to Hillary during the State of the Union speech. Fear not, John, we understand that the Bosnia job is still vacant.
Upon reflection none of this was unpredicted; Sculley has shown detachment and almost down right contempt for the core group that financed Apple, Inc. in the 80s --- the owners of Apple II and GS computers and thereby lost the support of 5 million+ loyal consumers. Dropping the Apple II line will most likely go down as one of the stupidest decisions in modern corporate history. It would make about as much sense as General Motors dropping the Chevrolet and other lines and offering only Buicks. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
In addition to Spindler being the new CEO, The Road Apple understands that Puette and J. C. Gasse are out, period. That's some comfort to II owners as neither did us any favors. This all most likely is too little, too late.
Speculation among the II owners centers around the dim flicker that maybe Apple, Inc. will turn back to the II and breathe life into the comatose line. We don't think so for the following reasons:
- The II owners have been burned once and that is enough; Apple, Inc. is just not trusted. Trust is hard won, easily lost and almost impossible to restore.
- The heavy hitters in software development have moved on to other areas.
- Apple, Inc. has thrown all its eggs into the Macintosh basket and a reversal of direction would be a public relations mess equal to the Watergate whitewash. Corporations do not like to dine upon crow nor wipe egg from its collective face no matter the justification.
- A good number of II owners have moved to the MS-DOS world with its heavy investment in new software and many have sold off their II hardware and software. To begin again with the II line is more than they could afford.
So where does this leave the average die-hard Apple II owner? Right where he is now --- still having a ball with his "obsolete" equipment and churning out productive work day in and day out and getting by with a little help from his friends.
Another muse has been that Apple, Inc. might consider selling off its Apple II rights to another company. Not bloody likely. It's much better in Apple, Inc.'s view to bury the Macintosh competition, not dust if off and send it into the world. Speculation was raised that perhaps Quality Computers could do the job.
It is the position of The Road Apple that any one or any company would be in line ahead of Quality Computers for the Apple II rights, even Applied Engineering. It is the personal experience of myself and a number of close Apple II friends who draw a lot of water in the Apple II pond that association with that company through a top officer has been less than satisfactory, much less. 'Nuff said.
In any event, now that Sculley is no longer in the spotlight, The Road Apple still would like to have some specific questions answered directly and honestly. These questions have been posed many times in the past have been dodged, side-stepped, obfuscated, ignored, confused and smothered in, well, road apples. Those who would or could give straight answers were either under a gag order or threatened with their job. The top officers, including Sculley, danced around the answer like the slickest politician ever to come down the line.
The Road Apple hereby issues a public challenge to John Sculley to now answer the following questions fully, completely, honestly and in clear, straight forward language that we can all understand without the usual mealy-mouthed legal corporate doublespeak which translates into "shut up and sit down." John, for once, do the right thing and be honest with us, please.
1. What is the real reason why the IIGS was (a) underdeveloped with low initial RAM and slow speed, (b) dropped from the national marketing campaign, and (c) never displayed and promoted by local Apple dealers?
2. Why did Apple, Inc. refuse to develop a true portable II or GS?
3. Why did Apple, Inc. turn its back on the 5 million+ Apple II owners in terms of product development, support and upgrades?
4. Why did Apple, Inc. produce a Mac that would run Apple II software but not GS software?
5. Why did Apple, Inc. not develop a GS with Duet (Mac software comptatability) ability?
6. If Apple, Inc. was making a profit with the three lines of the IIe, the IIc and the GS, then why abandon them in favor of just the Mac? And, why not follow the lead of other successful multi-line self-competiting corporations and offer the public more than one computer? (Note: Four of my family members drive four different competiting autos from the same company --- General Motors. What's the matter with that?)
Finally, what John Sculley and Apple, Inc. forgot were the 5 principles in the economics of the computer world as stated in the June 14th, 1993 issue of Fortune magazine. And they didn't forget just one or two of them. They have managed to forget all five of them.
"You can't say it often enough: Don't lose touch with the customer.
"Even in the high-tech industry, management skills are more important than technology.
"Today's successes often obscure the first signs of tomorrow's failure.
"The company with the highest unit volume almost always wins.
"The place to find unit volume is the bottom of the market, where low prices create new customers."


APPLE II HISTORY
Compiled and written by Steven Weyhrich
(C) Copyright 1991, Zonker Software

(Part 9 -- Disk Evolution / The Apple IIc Plus)

Advances in Apple II Disk Storage
Since Steve Wozniak's Disk II floppy drive changed the Apple II from a hobbyist toy to a serious home and business computer in the late 1970's, the progress of disk storage has been slow for the Apple II series. In 1978, the year the Disk II was released, Mike Scott (Apple's president) and Randy Wigginton were asked at a user group meeting whether they were going to go to the larger capacity eight-inch floppy drives (which had been around before the 5.25 floppy drives). They answered that no, the Apple II was not going in that direction, but felt it might get a hard disk by 1979 or 1980, and possibly earlier than that a double sided, double density 5.25 disk with 500K per disk.<1> Of course, this never did happen; as we saw in part 7 of this historical overview, the Apple III project began to overtake the hearts and minds of Apple executives by 1979, and anything newer, bigger, or better was reserved for that machine. As a result, DOS 3.2 and 3.3 was hard-coded to work specifically with the Disk II and its 143K of available storage, and never enhanced to easily access larger capacity drives. (Later, when we examine the evolution of Apple II DOS, we will see that it was possible from the beginning for DOS 3.2 and 3.3 to access up to 400K per disk in its catalog structure; however, the low-level disk access routines built-in to DOS were ONLY for the Disk II).
So what changes DID occur in Apple II disk storage? Between 1978, when Apple released their original Shugart 5.25 inch floppy drives, and 1984, nothing much changed. Third party company produced patches that modified DOS 3.2 (and later DOS 3.3) to work with larger drives; from eight-inch floppy drives to hard disks (a whole 10 megabytes for only $5,350 from Corvus!<2>) to other various short-lived innovations, all made to try to end the "floppy shuffle". (One of the more interesting ones put five floppy disks into a cartridge, and through software made them appear to the computer as one large disk drive). Eventually Apple decided that the aging Disk II mechanism needed a face lift, and they introduced in the DuoDisk in May of 1984. This was essentially two Disk II drives in a single cabinet, with a special controller card. The drive mechanism was improved to better read half-tracks on disks (which some copy-protected software used), and at $795 was priced to be less expensive than buying two of the older Disk II drives with a controller card.<3> The most important advantage of this new design was an elimination of the "fried disk drive" problem that happened constantly with the older design. The old Disk II controller had two connectors, one for each Disk II drive that could be connected. The problem was the in the design of the connector; like the game paddle plugs for the original Apple II and II Plus, the plugs for the Disk II drives were simply a series of pins that had to be properly aligned for the drive to function (similar to the delicate pins on a computer chip). If you tried to attach the plug in such a way as to accidentally shift the pins over by one, it would burn out the motor on the disk drive, requiring a trip for repairs to the local Apple dealer. The new DuoDisk design made connection of the disk mechanism to the controller fool-proof.
With the release of the Apple IIc in April 1984 came an external Disk II drive that was designed to plug into the new disk port in the back of the IIc, and was the same color and design as the IIc case. The Disk IIc was specific to the Apple IIc and could not be used with any older version Apple II, since it used a new, unique connector. However, since it was more expensive than a used Disk II drive, many users found out how to make a conversion cable to connect the older drive to the disk port; some even went the other direction and found ways to connect the new drive to the older Disk II controller cards for the II Plus and IIe.
The next small evolutionary step in disk storage technology for the Apple II was introduced in June 1985, with the release of the UniDisk 5.25. This drive was designed with the same appearance as the DuoDisk, but was a single 5.25 drive. It was also designed to allow one drive to be "daisy-chained" to another (one disk could plug into the back of another, forming a "chain"), instead of the older method of connecting each drive separately to the disk controller card. Its beige color was designed to match the original Apple IIe.<4>,<5>
The last version of the Disk II was called the Apple 5.25 drive. It was identical to the UniDisk 5.25 drive, except for its case, which was designed in the platinum color to match the Apple IIGS and the platinum IIe. The connector it used allowed it to also be connected in a daisy-chain fashion.<5>

Now a Word from our Sponsor: Basics of Disk Storage
Let's diverge for a moment from discussing speci