

The thing I remember most about the Apple ][ was the sound of the disk drive - colinprince
http://diveintomark.org/archives/2006/08/22/c600g

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joezydeco
Aha! He forgot 6^P as the original way to boot the disk. Newbie.

The funny thing about the Apple ][ disk was that homing sequence itself. It
was aligning the head to track 0 by SLAMMING it against a metal backstop.
Primitive, but took very few opcodes to make it happen, especially since the
apple disk format had no encoding in the tracks to tell the head where it was.

One of my first forays into 6502 assembly was copying that home routine off
the card and changing the delay between pulses to the servo. You could
actually make music with that metal backstop if you made the delay small
enough.

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zandorg
I once found out on a BBC Master (which we borrowed from school) you can
control the relay that controls the tape interface. A relay clicks on or off.
So we had a BASIC program which clicked it at random, and it made a lovely
clattering noise.

Can't emulate that!

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nitrogen
This needs to have a recording of the Apple II disk drive at the beginning of
the video.

~~~
neilk
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQoA9Ul-YS0>

You might think the scraping sound the floppy drive makes is due to it being
in an attic for 15 years. No. They always sounded like that.

The program that runs (from the bootable floppy in the drive) is an
introduction to Apple computers. Note how the whole thing is designed to relax
the user by showing the Apple's similarity to a typewriter.

~~~
aw3c2
Actually that video makes it sound worse. The "real" sound has a lot more
dynamics and details in it. I love it, it was my first computer.

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alanthonyc
The beep comes first though! "Beep" + whrrrr + chackachacka...

I'm driving up to my parents' place in a few weeks so I can pick up my old
Apple //e from their garage.

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malkia
When my drive got busted, I went to the monitor (CALL -151 was it?) and typed
in assembly something that me and a buddy of mine come - basically changing
the speed of the disk, based on the key you pressed - something like a piano.

But the sound was important. Normal DOS directory track was number 11, so it
sounded one way, while the cool stuff sounded differently - games, apps, etc.

It was awesome time, back then, before teh internet...

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zcat
Taipan. Yes, that was the game that started me on Apple ][. I started
programming after discovering Beagle Bros. Oh the pokes and the peeks.

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teeja
The thing I remember most about Apple ][ is the friendly manual and the
shiny,shiny hardware. Wide open, waiting for you to do your mods with a
smile... the Woz way.

