Newbie to Apple II Needs Assistance

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Newbie to Apple II Needs Assistance

I'm a complete newbie to the Apple II. I've never owned one (and I still don't). Besides using the Apple II in typing class and LOGO in Middle School (about twenty-five years ago), I have no experience with the Apple II (unless you count the games of Conan and Spy Hunter that we played when we should have been typing).

I have an interest in using emulation to use BASIC to type in and run a few programs. In particular I want to try-out some programs in a book from a 1982 book called "Microcomputer Graphics" by Roy E. Myers. I hope to use this forum to ask some simple questions. Let me begin with my most basic three questions:

1) I use a PC running Windows XP. What is generally considered the simplest Apple II emulator? I don't need fancy functions, just disk drive support, BASIC 48K and the ability to adjust the speed of the Apple II. I want the ability to SAVE and LOAD programs (which I think any emulator should support). Another important consideration is that I want to be able to bump-up the emulation speed of the emulator because some of these math intensive programs in the book can take 40 minutes to complete "drawing" a picture at regular Apple II speed (which I THINK is 1MHz, right?).

2) I don't have any experience with Apple DOS. About the only thing that I can remember is that I have to type Catalog to get a directory listing. Where can I find the Apple DOS User Manual (if that's what its even called)? I just want to be able to do very simple tasks like load, save copy and execute BASIC programs.

3) The book that I want to use, "Microcomputer Graphics," has plenty of programs in it, but the book presumes that I have an Apple BASIC Reference Manual. What would be the best one to use?

I have plenty of experience with Commodore 64 and Atari 8-Bit BASIC, so this isn't ALL entirely new to me. That is, I'm not new to 8-Bit computers, just the Apple II.

Thanks for your help in advance.

Adam

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Re: Newbie to Apple II Needs Assistance

Welcome to the Apple II world Adam,

Here are some hints.

1) I personaly use AppleWin. It supports all the features you need (and even more !).
2) You can find the Dos Manual in a lot of places on the Web. Here for example.
3) You can find different versions of the Applesoft BASIC manuals here. The more recent is the first (A Touch of Applesoft BASIC) but you can also read the Apple II BASIC Programming Manual.

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Re: Newbie to Apple II Needs Assistance

1) I use a PC running Windows XP. What is generally considered the simplest Apple II emulator? I don't need fancy functions, just disk drive support, BASIC 48K and the ability to adjust the speed of the Apple II. I want the ability to SAVE and LOAD programs (which I think any emulator should support). Another important consideration is that I want to be able to bump-up the emulation speed of the emulator because some of these math intensive programs in the book can take 40 minutes to complete "drawing" a picture at regular Apple II speed (which I THINK is 1MHz, right?).

AppleWin is what you're looking for:
http://applewin.berlios.de

2) I don't have any experience with Apple DOS. About the only thing that I can remember is that I have to type Catalog to get a directory listing. Where can I find the Apple DOS User Manual (if that's what its even called)? I just want to be able to do very simple tasks like load, save copy and execute BASIC programs.

This is a pretty good DOS 3.3 reference:
http://www.landsnail.com/a2ref3.htm

3) The book that I want to use, "Microcomputer Graphics," has plenty of programs in it, but the book presumes that I have an Apple BASIC Reference Manual. What would be the best one to use?

I'm not sure what they're assuming, but a manual is here:
http://www.1000bit.it/support/manuali/apple/as2bprm.pdf

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Re: Newbie to Apple II Needs Assistance

If BASIC programming is your only goal, you can also try this online emulator:

http://www.calormen.com/applesoft/

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Re: Newbie to Apple II Needs Assistance

Since the online emulator was so simple to try-out, I typed-in the very first example in the book that draws random dots to represent stars in space:

10 HOME : HGR : HCOLOR= 3
20 FOR I = 1 TO 100
30 X = RND (1) * 279:Y = RND (1) * 191
40 HPLOT X,Y
50 NEXT I

I had this program "running" within about three minutes of reading the reply to my posting. Pretty fast turn-around! I hadn't even thought of using an online emulator, but this is a neat idea. The emulator does have some limitations which I think will conflict with later programs in the book, but it will probably work just to mess around with at first. In the end, I'll probably end up using AppleWin.

Thanks to everyone for the help, links and suggestions (and for the quick replies!).

Adam

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Re: Newbie to Apple II Needs Assistance

I've now tried out AppleWin emulating an Apple IIe and I have no trouble with it. I'm a bit confused though about two things:

1) Are the Apple IIe ROMs built into the AppleWin emulator? Meaning I don't need to use separate ROM images?

2) The book that I'm using requires Applesoft BASIC, not the original BASIC. From what I've read this version of BASIC is built into the AppleIIe. But if I'm not using a true Apple IIe ROM image, so is it 100% compatible?

Adam

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Re: Newbie to Apple II Needs Assistance

Hi Adam,
Welcome!

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Re: Newbie to Apple II Needs Assistance

I've now tried out AppleWin emulating an Apple IIe and I have no trouble with it. I'm a bit confused though about two things:

1) Are the Apple IIe ROMs built into the AppleWin emulator? Meaning I don't need to use separate ROM images?

2) The book that I'm using requires Applesoft BASIC, not the original BASIC. From what I've read this version of BASIC is built into the AppleIIe. But if I'm not using a true Apple IIe ROM image, so is it 100% compatible?

Adam

1) Absolutely. FYI, you can choose the Apple model in the configuration (see the drop down list "Model" on the Configuration tab).
2) Applesoft is embedded in the II+ and //e ROMs (this is why you get the ] prompt). On the II, you only have Integer BASIC in ROM (hence the > prompt).
The Integer BASIC can be loaded in RAM on the //e and II+. On the II, you need a ROM card to switch between the Integer and Applesoft BASICs.

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