A new version of the Apple2 FPGA core is out for MiSTer FPGA:
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Apple-II_MiSTer

This is a significant upgrade bringing many useful features; if you have a MiSTer, SuperStation, or similar, give it a try and let me know what you think!

Special thanks goes to AlanSWX, Kitrinx, Rikkles, and Jsmolina for their help and code contributions to several components!

Hardware

• .woz file support (in addition of the existing .dsk, .nib, .po, .do and .hdv handling)
• accurate NTSC color decoding (in addition to the existing RGB modes)
• custom palette option for RGB (create your own!)
• floppy disk sound simulation and drive lights
• CP/M card, Clock Card, and Saturn RAM expansion
• Mockingboard and Mouse II support

Quality-of-Life / Usability

• Save States! Four slots to save your game to SD card (filename is per disk)
• On-screen keyboard (with transparency options, and can be moved up or down the screen)
• Joystick-2-key functionality with loadable custom profiles (so you can customize per game)
• Option to recenter the joystick X axis and relative analog joystick mode (does not recenter)

Advanced options

• Eight video presets plus optional NTSC vertical comb filter (e.g. gray floor in Karateka)
• Customizable video ROM (load your own) for non-English keyboard layouts
• 6502 and 65C02 CPU selection
• Configurable slots to setup the machine for games or productivity (Z80 Softcard, Saturn)

Hi r/apple2, about 6 years ago I received my uncle’s modded Apple IIe, and now we’re looking to pass it along as I never quite got around to it and I’d rather it not collect any more dust. To start, my uncle was the original owner and he kept everything. The computer itself is in the original shipping box with the packing materials, and just about every piece of hardware has the manual. Tons of floppies/diskettes, even the original packing list and warranty cards.

Firstly, if there’s anything at all in this collection that has not been archived/digitized yet in some way, I would love to help make that happen.

I have no idea where to even start with trying to come up with a price, or even how I’d ship it as there is quite a bit. So, any advice would be greatly appreciated, and if anyone wants to make an offer feel free. I will put the list of software, and what hardware is installed in a comment.

In the mid 1980's, Infocom released Zork 1, then later Zork 2, and Zork 3, for AP][+ (48K). What's impressive is, the app used roughly 85kb, with a hard cap of 64kb, and again a physical limit of 48kb.

They did so by almost magic, hardcoding additional data on the floppy, which was then periodically accessed as the adventure progressed.

I had a concept of what seems on the surface, impossible. What if... after 40 years, the 5 bit Z-code used to write Zork might be improved upon, further reducing the size so that the entire game (each) might be loaded once into memory, with no further access to the floppy? This would no doubt speed up game play, and reduce wear and tear both on the floppy and the drive (though it would affect an emulated drive so much).

Why? Because... it's hard to do? It's hard to... do better than Infocom did some 40 years ago! That alone feels like a challenge.

So I pinged Gemini for an hour (my 6502 Hex coding went the way of the dodo perhaps....35+ years ago). Gemini started of a a naysayer, but after posing several workarounds and concepts "she" and I agreed on a "maybe" concept (though painfully beyond what remains of my memory of coding) :

PROJECT PROPOSAL: Single-Load, Zero-Disk-Access Zork Trilogy for Base 48KB Apple II+

Objective:

To create standalone, executable application binaries for Zork I, II, and III that load entirely into the memory of an unexpanded, stock 48KB Apple II+ computer. Once initial boot loading is complete, the application will run exclusively from RAM, requiring absolutely zero floppy disk access or drive polling during gameplay.

The Constraints & Challenge:

• Target Hardware: Base Apple II+ with exactly 48KB of physical RAM.

• No Expansions: No 16K Language Card, no 80-column cards, no modern RAM expansions, and no solid-state hardware drive emulators.

• The Problem: A standard uncompressed Zork file is ~92KB, and a standard Disk Operating System (DOS) or Z-Machine Interpreter eats up precious RAM, leaving only ~28KB of usable space.

Proposed Architectural Solution:

1. Zero-DOS Monolithic Booter: Use a fast-loader like ProntoDOS only at initial boot to stream a unified 44KB application binary into RAM. Once loaded, the application completely purges the DOS footprint from memory to reclaim ~10KB of space, giving the game engine a full 44KB layout to sit resident.

2. Deconstruction of the Z-Machine: Discard Infocom’s cross-platform Z-Machine virtual machine. Translate the open-source ZIL (Zork Implementation Language) logic files natively into highly optimized, lightweight 6502 assembly macro-instructions (reducing the core logic interpreter engine to under 1KB).

3. Word-Based Markov Graph Compression (Dual-Tier Text Engine): Instead of storing characters or utilizing heavy bit-stream algorithms that create 1 MHz CPU decompression lag, tokenize the text. Build a fixed, global dictionary of all unique vocabulary words. Room descriptions are stored as arrays of 1-to-2-byte word IDs.

4. On-the-Fly Screen Blitting: The native 6502 interpreter reads the byte ID arrays from the text map, instantly looks up the words in the resident dictionary, and streams characters directly to the Apple II screen buffer ($0400). It never holds uncompressed text strings in RAM, keeping the memory footprint perfectly flat.

Mathematical Feasibility Summary:

By flattening the object tree into a 2KB global state bitmask, tokenizing the text into word-ID streams, and evicting the OS, a game like Zork I shrinks from 92KB down to an active layout under 44KB. This achieves a completely silent, high-speed interactive fiction experience running purely on native 1979 silicon.

Darth Vader Black Apple II - Low Serial - Auction started at $99!

Excellent condition - plus some cool add on's!

Hi all,

I've been working on an Apple IIe emulator as a hobby project and it has reached the point where I'd like other people to try it and tell me what breaks. I used AI assistance (Claude) while building it.

What it does:

- Enhanced IIe: 65C02, 128K, 40/80 columns, lo-res, hi-res, double lo-res and double hi-res with NTSC artifact colour

- Apple Monitor II look: curved glass, scanlines and glow, in colour or green phosphor. The curvature is adjustable, and you can switch the whole effect off

- Two Disk II drives with pictures, activity lights and recorded drive sounds (motor and head, each with its own volume). Click a drive to insert or eject, or drop a disk image on it. Reads and writes .dsk/.do/.po/.nib

- Microsoft SoftCard (Z80) in slot 5, so CP/M works

- AppleMouse card in slot 4 (works with Apple II DeskTop)

- Paddles/joystick through the mouse or a game controller

- Save states

On accuracy: the 65C02 passes Klaus Dormann's functional tests and the Z80 passes ZEXDOC and ZEXALL. The Disk II is emulated at the nibble level but it is not cycle-exact, so I expect copy-protected disks to fail. No .woz support yet.

It's C++20 and SDL2, MIT licensed, and small enough to read in an evening if you're curious how any of it works.

Downloads for macOS (universal), Linux and Windows are on the releases page:

https://github.com/sscanf/apple2e-emulator

The Windows build is the least tested, so reports from there are especially welcome. Which software should I try next that is likely to break it?

LOOK AROUND. EXPLORE. CREATE. YOUR ADVENTURE BEGINS HERE!

Happy National Adventure Day!

What better way to celebrate than by creating your own adventure?

Remember the magic of classic text adventures like Zork, Adventure, and the legendary Scott Adams games? Those unforgettable experiences where imagination was your graphics card, every command mattered, and danger lurked around every corner?

Well, it's time to bring that magic back!

Introducing Text Adventure Studio, a modern, browser-based platform for creating your own classic-style interactive fiction and text adventure games.

Explore Text Adventure Studio on National Adventure Day: https://textadventurestudio.com/National-Adventure-Day

Build Your Own Adventure

• Design mysterious worlds filled with rooms, objects, puzzles, and secrets.
• Create interactive stories with classic text adventure mechanics.
• Build adventures inspired by the golden age of computing.
• Play your creations directly in your browser.
• Export your adventures for retro platforms, including the Apple II and Commodore 64!

Whether you're a longtime adventure-gaming enthusiast or discovering interactive fiction for the first time, Text Adventure Studio lets you become the storyteller, puzzle master, and world builder.

Your imagination. Your world. Your adventure.

#NationalAdventureDay #TextAdventureStudio #InteractiveFiction #RetroGaming #AppleII #Commodore64

Recovering a 40 year old Apple II floppy collection when a single disk capture isn't enough.

I've been working on recovering an old collection of Apple II floppy disks, and I ran into a problem: sometimes a single disk image just isn't good enough to recover the original data.

My solution was to build a custom repair tool that combines multiple captures of the same disk, uses majority consensus to vote out bad bits, and attempts to reconstruct data that would otherwise be lost.

I'm documenting the entire process in a series of about 12 blog posts, covering the tools I built, the recovery techniques, and what I learned along the way.

Here's the first installment: https://norsewanderer.com/blog/BlogDSK1.html

I'm curious how others here have approached recovering aging Apple II disks. Have you experimented with multiple captures, bit-level comparisons, or other techniques to recover disks that won't read reliably?

And if you're interested in seeing some of the history this work helps preserve, I've also brought my old Apple II-era BBS, Norse Wanderer, back to life on the web:

https://norsewanderer.com/

Prepare ye to plunder!

Years ago, I think it must have been around 1985 or so, there was a type in program for the Apple IIin a magazine. You are a jet that moves from left to right on the screen and wraps around, popping a balloon that falls from the top of the screen.

The graphics are rudimentary, a small line is your jet, and the balloon is just a rectangle.

It's joystick controlled. If you go too slowly, your jet will stall and fall downward.

For what it was, just 10-20 lines or so, it was quite cool.

I searched with google, and while it can't seem to find it, it helpfully offers to write some Applesoft code.

Does anyone remember this game? and the magazine where it's from?

edit: Before I posted this I thought I'd give archive another try and I finally found it! It's called Intruder and was published in inCider Nov 83, page 140

https://archive.org/details/inCider_83-11/page/n139/mode/2up

So I typed it in, pasted into mame and seems to run pretty well:

edit: found a couple of typos line 8 the ROT had a zero instead of an O and it needed an SC=0 and line 2010 had HCOLOR with zeroes instead of Os.

fixed text below:

0 REM INTRUDER BY ALAN FULLMER FROM INCIDER MAGAZINE 11/83 PAGE 140

1 GOSUB 1000: REM INTRODUCTION

2 HOME : VTAB 23: PRINT "SCORE : 0";:HTAB 20: PRINT "HIGH SCORE:0":HS = 0

4 FOR I = 24576 TO 24582: READ A: POKE I, A: NEXT : POKE 232,0 : POKE 233,96

6 DATA 1,0,4,0,53,39,0

8 Y = 80:Y1 = Y:X1 = 10 : Y1 = 10: SCALE= 2: ROT= 0 : SC=0

10 HGR :SK = 1: GOSUB 400

12 X = 10:DX = 139:DY = 2:OX = DX

15 REM ** START OF LOOP **

20 Q = PDL (0) / 20 + E:X = X + Q

30 IF Q > 2 THEN AZ = 0: GOTO 34

32 AZ = 100:WQ = PEEK ( - 16336) :Y = Y + 6

34 IF X < 3 THEN X = 276

36 IF X > 276 THEN X = 3

38 IF Y < 10 THEN Y = 10

40 HCOLOR= 0: HPLOT X1 - 2,Y1 TO X1 + 2,Y1 + E1

50 HCOLOR=3 : HPLOT X-2, Y TO X+2,Y+E:X1=X:Y1=Y:E1=E

55 IF Y>150 THEN 2000

60 DY = DY + SK: IF DY > 152 THEN X1 = DX:Y1 = 152: GOTO 2000

70 HCOLOR= 0: DRAW 1 AT OX,OY

80 HCOLOR= 3: DRAW 1 AT DX,DY:OY = DY

90 IF ABS ((X + 2) - DX) < 5 AND ABS ((Y + E) - (DY + 2)) < 4 THEN 500

100 E = PDL (1 ) / 20 - 6

110 IF AZ = 100 THEN 20

120 Y = Y + E: GOTO 20

400 HCOLOR= 3: REM * LANDSCAPE *

410 HPLOT 0,150

420 FOR YT = 3 TO 279 STEP 3

430 V = ( RND (1 ) * 5) - 2

440 HPLOT TO YT,(152 + V): NEXT

450 RETURN

500 HCOLOR= 0: DRAW 1 AT OX,OY

510 FOR TR = 2 TO 10: SCALE= TR - 1 :HCOLOR= 0: DRAW 1 AT DX , DY

520 HCOLOR= 3: SCALE= TR : DRAW 1 AT DX,DY:WQ = PEEK ( - 16336): NEXT

530 SC = SC + 10: HCOLOR= 0: DRAW 1 AT DX,DY:DX = RND(1) * 250:DY=2

540 SCALE= 2 :OX = DX

550 VTAB 23: PRINT "SCORE :"; SC : SK = SK + .25

560 GOTO 20

1000 HOME : VTAB 24

1010 HTAB 14: PRINT "INTRUDER"

1020 FOR X = 1 TO 12: PRINT

1030 FOR C = 1 TO 100: NEXT : NEXT

1040 POKE 34,11

1050 VTAB 24: HTAB 10: PRINT "BY: ALAN FULLMER"

1060 FOR X = 1 TO 10: PRINT

1070 FOR C = 1 TO 100: NEXT : NEXT

1080 FOR X = 1 TO 1000: NEXT

1090 TEXT : RETURN

2000 FOR V = 1 TO 50

2010 HCOLOR= 2

2020 X = ( RND ( 1 ) * 130 ) + 130

2030 Y = ( RND ( 1 ) * 80) + 80

2040 HPLOT X1 ,Y1 TO X,Y

2050 RE = PEEK ( - 16336)

2060 NEXT

2070 VTAB 22: INPUT "PLAY AGAIN(Y/N) ?";A$

2080 IF A$ = "N" THEN END

2090 HOME : VTAB 23: PRINT "SCORE:0 ";

2100 IF HS > SC THEN HTAB 20: PRINT "HIGH SCORE: ";HS: GOTO 8

2110 HS = SC: HTAB 20: PRINT "HIGH SCORE:"; HS : GOTO 8

As far as I know, the power supply works but the computer doesn’t beep or output video

Apple fan here without expertise on Apple ][. I hope someone can help identify my late dad’s Apple ][ (not II plus, IIgs, IIe, etc.) and give me some advice on what to do with it. It has been in a garage (low-ish humidity) in a cardboard box for 30+ years, since he powered it down circa 1985. He and I both loved this thing.

It looks pretty good to me from the outside. Here are some photos, and a list of what I see (when I opened the top): - Motherboard reading 820-0044-01 - CPU “6502” - Serial number A2S1-22824 - Hitachi ROMs - Slot 0 - Apple Language Card - Slot 1 - Printer card? - Slot 6 - Disk II - Letters on keyboard appears slightly yellowed (not pure white) - Power cable (probably original)

UPDATE: Plugged it in, turned it on. It works perfectly but some keys are a bit stuck -- I cleaned under some keycaps and voila! Will be listing it and its accessories on eBay for pickup in Northern or Southern California.

If any upgrades were made to it, my dad was not the type to have done that himself, preferring to take electronics to a professional/authorized repair person.

I also have - Two Disk II drives still connected to the card (Model A2M0003, serial numbers: ) - A long printer cable (no printer in sight) - Manuals in Very Good/Excellent condition: Apple II Reference Manual January 1978 (“Red Book”); Apple ][ Basic Programming Manual; Apple II The DOS Manual; Apple II Language Card Installation and Operation Manual; Elementary, My Dear Apple Education Series. - Floppy disks, some with apparent mold on the labels but the disk itself looks clean to me: DOS 3.3 System Master (with black Apple logo and “16” inside it), 2 copies of DOS 3.3 System Master (one of which may be damaged), DOS 3.3. BASICS (with black Apple logo and “16” inside it), AppleWriter ][ C2B0010 Master, Elementary, My Dear Apple Education Series (with black Apple logo and “16” inside it) - A monitor that I have not removed from its box (but I don’t think it’s Apple-made)

This is a personally significant/sentimental machine to me but maybe nothing special in the scheme of things. Just curious what anyone on here has to say.

Thanks for any and all thoughts.

And secondarily, if anyone has a service manual for disassembling the drive I’d appreciate that

My Apple2 is a QCal compatible computers that was distributed by a Canadian company in the 80s.  I can't run ProDOS on it. The reason this is an issue now is that I bought a ADTPro disk but it doesn't work. Seems I need ADTPro on a floppy but with the newer ProDOS 2.4.3 that has a workaround for QCal computers. Anyone run into this issue?

ProDOS by apple looks for a specific memory location in ROM.

This game made made a profound impression on me when I was 12 years old. Now, some 40-something years later, I have revisited it, ported it to the web and added some quality of life improvements. I hope other people get to enjoy it as much as I did and continue to do . https://plicerin.github.io/space-vikings-port/

I’ve recently acquired an Apple IIgs setup. It’s been great messing around with and trying everything out that it came with, the only issue I’ve had so far is that the monitor loses focus after warming up (10-15\~ min.). I’ve done a full recap (except for one cap under the flyback shroud. I’ll attach a photo) and have the checked the focus wire for corrosion. I’ve already maxed out the focus pot and it’s still blurry. I was wondering if anyone had any experience or extra input on what I could be missing or if it’s just shot from old age? I’ve read through other forums about using compressed air and cooling certain parts but I’m worried that with trying that I’ll damage components. Any help is appreciated, thank you.

Edit: also after recapping when powering the monitor on it lets out a small whine just before displaying.

This is a USB-C power supply that lets you power the IIC with a phone charger, eliminating the bulky original adapter.

On one of my Windows 10 computers, Applewin no longer loads and boots a disk the first time I double click a .dsk image. It just opens applewin. Then I have to double click again. Once applewin is open, I can double click other images and they load and boot. On another computer with the same setup, it still works.

I am using AppleWin-x64 version 1.31.0.0. But I also tried the 32 bit version and also tried the latest 1.32.0.0 release with no change.

I went through a bunch of troubleshooting with Chat GPT. I checked registry settings and they seem the same on both computers. I ran applewin as admin, manually chose open with for disk images and set AppleWin-x64, etc. Adding the -d in the registry before the "%1" makes it work the first time. But then if I double click another, I get an error message then another instance of applewin opens and boots, instead of just keeping one instance opened.

Using -d with command line also works. So it seems for some reason that applewin is not opening fast enough the first time so it's not receiving the disk image to load and boot. But once open, it works.

Does anyone have any other suggestions on how to fix this?

Thank you very much.

If you've not already started the Forgotten Room Adventure series you should... Because Jacobs' next adventure will take you on a wild ride...

Download The Forgotten Room while you wait for Dead Signal as seen above:

https://vintageapplecomputers.com/products/digital-product

So I replaced all electrolytic caps on the main board of my ROM01 iiGS. Inside the LR38 revision PSU (verified by capacitor list on console5) one of the large RIFA capacitors was blown.

Until I can either recap the PSU, ordered the wrong kit, I removed the two large RIFAs and the two small ones by gently bending them back or sliding my cutters underneath and snipping the legs.

When everything was back together, I’d get a quick on and off repeating of the computer, power LED, and audible pop from speakers.

I have checked the logic board with PSU disconnected by probing the power connector with my meter in diode mode. I’m NOT an electrician by any means. Negative probe on pin 1 i got these readings with no beeps from pin 4 to pin 7: 306,1086,889,and 660.

I see no capacitors at all that are reversed in polarity. I plugged a small fan from a Pentium 4 heating into the 5v of the PSU and turned it on and the PSU runs the fan perfectly and voltages were all within range.

Any ideas on what to check next? I plan to remove the PSU board from the housing again when I get home in the morning to see if I see anything damaged or a missing ground or anything.