Hack a day

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low-fi edition                        /___/

CP/M is a great OS, but sometimes you need something that a little more slimmed down

Getting an Apple ][ on the Internet

And playing Oregon Trail for a few hours, too

So you found an old Apple ][ and want to play some Oregon Trail, Odell Lake, or maybe even get it up on the Internet. Well, this is the guide for you. This isn't for the people with an Apple IIgs, IIc, IIc plus, or ///; you people are edge cases and I don't even have one of these machines. If you figure out a way to get one of these boxes on the Internet, email the Hackaday team and we'll update this guide.

First things first. Software.

This guide assumes you have at least:

An Apple II, II+, or IIe
At least one disk drive connected to your machine
A box of 5.25" floppys (check ebay)
Another computer made in the last 10 years
A 1/8" Male to Male audio cable

Step 1: Getting a PRODOS disk We're going to use ADTPro, an awesome utility that allows you to download Apple ][ disk images on any computer and transfer them to an Apple ][ using a simple audio cable. Yeah, that cassette port on your Apple ][ is about to become really useful.

I can't do a better job of going through the process of getting software onto an Apple ][ than the ADTPro guys, so just check out their audio bootstrapping page. That will walk you through the process of getting a somewhat-working system out of your Apple ][.

Once you can transfer disk images from your desktop over to the Apple ][, there's really nothing stopping you from playing any game you want. We suggest heading over to Virtual Apple ][ and grabbing a copy of Oregon Trail. Admit it, that's the only reason you dug that old machine out of the basement, anyway. There's also a good number of other games on Virtual Apple ][, so feel free to indulge yourself with Prince of Persia and other A][ classics.

Step 2: Getting it online Unfortunately, I don't have an Apple ][ Ethernet card, so this is where the tutorial ends. If any Apple ][ aficionado can write a tutorial for installing Contiki and getting an Apple ][ on the Internet, we'll be more than happy to post it. Send in your tutorial and we'll give you credit (and possibly a sticker).

[Ron Wilson] sent in this great tutorial on getting an Apple II online:

The Apple ][ Ethernet Card was actually for the //e and //gs, though in principle it could be used in an Apple ][+. It was a co-processor card (described here) that ran the AppleTalk over Ethernet protocols and emulated both a disk interface and serial printer interface while an enhanced versdion of ProDOS ran in the "main" CPU. The enhanced ProDOS was able to send IO requests for network "disks" to the card, whose own CPU would generater and send AppleShare file IO requests and process incoming replies, forwarding the actual data to ProDOS. For printing, the card emulated a serial card connected to a printer. Control Panel "applications" ran under ProDOS to allow the user the select network connected file services and printers. The card, for a short time after a reboot, would emulate an Apple ][ boot device similar to a Disk ][ card (actually more like one of the hard disk interface cards for the Apple ][).

An apparrantly still available ethernet card for the Apple ][ is the Uthernet card at http://www.a2retrosystems.com/ It is also a coprocessor card that runs the protocols on its own CPU. It supports the Contiki OS.

Since both of these were/are coprocessor solutions, another option might be to interface something like the Ethernet Shield (for the Arduino) to an Apple ][. If the Apple ][ is not powerful enough to work with the Ethernet Shield, should be easy enough to use either an Arduino, Arduino clone or a custom card with an ATMega as an interface processor.

Yet another option would be to use low speed SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol) to communicate with a SLIP capable router. Of course, this would require the Apple ]['s CPU to bare the full load of running the network protocols.

While it has been many years since I last programmed an Apple ][, I am willing to colaborate with others. (Hopefully my Apple //e will still work after all these years.)