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Filed under: Cult of Mac, Odds and ends

Visua Mobile's old Apples collection

A couple of months ago I wound up in Paris and received a surprising direct message via Twitter from a young employee at Visua Mobile. Having nothing better to do in the City of Light, I wound up at their offices. I'm often suspect when a "mobile" development company rings me about their iPhone stable. Just like my tea, I prefer my developers steeped in Apple. Well, Visua Mobile is certainly made up of Apple fans. Just check out the gallery of their offices to see what I mean.

Visua's raison d'etre would be iPhone apps. To my astonishment, none have been runaway hits. They are beautifully designed and generally work well (some 3.0 bugs crept up). Visua gained some noteriety around their app, Fracture, that would make the iPhone screen appear broken when pressed. But they make a host of already-approved apps, including Celebrity, which features a special magazine cover just for TUAW fans.

Gallery: VIsua Mobile

Filed under: Accessories, Apple, Blast From the Past, TUAW Bookshelf

TUAW Bookshelf: Apple II Reference Manual

TUAW BOOKSHELF

Apple was kind enough to include a veritable encyclopedia of information with my Apple ][. Inside the big, red manual, you'll find complete step-by-step instructions for setting up the machine, adjusting a tape recorder for optimal use, plenty of programs to get you started, and a handy reference for the hardware inside.

I found the manual easy to read, although given the constraints of typing programs by hand using a typewriter, some code was printed using a dot matrix printer. Mr. Wozniak includes excellent code to help you build your own programs, however, and code for interfacing with the likes of a teletype, should you need printed output. There are critical routines for floating point calculations, which I'm sure some will appreciate.

Apple introduces a little design philosophy in the manual, which is a welcome break from the volumes used to learn the 5100, for example. Rumors on our sister site Engadget say Tandy is working on a consumer machine with BASIC and a human-readable manual as well, but I'll believe that when I see it. Anyway, the Apple ][ manual has some sample code for making actual audio tones using the built-in speaker (a novel idea, by the way). Why use audio in a program? Here's the design philosophy I found interesting:

"Computers can perform marvelous feats of mathematical computation at well beyond the speed capable of most human minds. They are fast, cold and accurate; man on the other hand is slower, has emotion, and makes errors. These differences create problems when the two interact with one another. So to reduce this problem humanizing of the computer is needed. Humanizing means incorporating within the computer procedures that aid in a computer's usage. One such technique is the addition of a tone subroutine."
It's like they want to make the computer more *personal*, somehow.

Once you've seen how to make graphics, sounds and even interaction and I/O in code, the manual wraps up with a thorough examination of the included hardware. This is a hobbyists' machine, after all. The schematics and diagrams will have you fully understanding how the computer addresses memory and controls video, plus many other miracles I can't believe they crammed into such a small package.

This valuable red book of data comes free with your Apple ][, but I wouldn't part with it! You'll find yourself referring to it time and again. Check out the photostat gallery below for a few sample pages.

Filed under: Cult of Mac, Odds and ends, Retro Mac, Apple History

Vintage Apple books and software

vintage apple books and software galleryMad props to my parents for keeping our basement an Apple museum! Aside from a pristine Apple //c (with monochrome monitor), vintage Apple ][ ,and Mac SE/30 (with a color monitor card) they kept most if not all of our Mac and Apple programming books from my youth. A few games even survived, although my addiction to Wasteland forced my dad to ship several of the more fun games to my French cousins. So I took some quick pics and made a vintage Apple books and software gallery. Enjoy the trip down memory lane-- and if any of the authors of these books are around, let us know in the comments.

Some of my favorites:

For some reason my copy of Racter is MIA.

Filed under: Software, Widget Watch, Retro Mac

Widget Watch: Apple][Go

My grammar school memories are filled with many happy hours spent in the computer lab staring at a green monochromatic Apple ][e with dual floppy drives. I can't tell you how many times I died of dysentery, or where the heck Carmen Sandiego was but I had a great time. Now, my misspent youth is only a keystroke away, waiting in the Dashboard. Apple][Go puts the power of an Apple ][ onto your modern day Mac.

Now, the needed ROMs and disk images are not public domain, so make sure you have the proper rights to use them and then meet me in 1985.

Tip of the Day

To get an instant map to any address, just go to your Address Book and right click on the address field of any one of your contacts and select "Map Of." The address will then be revealed in Google Maps on Safari. You can do the same if a data detector determines there is an address in an e-mail in Mail.


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