index.xml (2979B)
1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?> 2 <rss version="2.0" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"> 3 <channel> 4 <title>Retro on Chris Bracken</title> 5 <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/tags/retro/</link> 6 <description>Recent content in Retro on Chris Bracken</description> 7 <generator>Hugo -- gohugo.io</generator> 8 <language>en</language> 9 <managingEditor>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</managingEditor> 10 <webMaster>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</webMaster> 11 <lastBuildDate>Wed, 06 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://chris.bracken.jp/tags/retro/index.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /> 12 <item> 13 <title>PR#6</title> 14 <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2007/06/pr6/</link> 15 <pubDate>Wed, 06 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate> 16 <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author> 17 <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2007/06/pr6/</guid> 18 <description><p>According to <a href="http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/06/0028246">Slashdot</a>, this month the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II">Apple 19 II</a> turns 30. It was in production for 18 of those 30 years, 20 which likely makes it the longest-selling personal computer of all time. It was 21 the computer I wrote my first program on, and spent countless hours banging in 22 and editing code from <em>Compute</em> magazine—including page after page of raw hex 23 code when a program included graphics.</p> 24 <p>In tribute, I ran a Google search on PR#6 to see what turned up. For those who 25 don&rsquo;t know or don&rsquo;t remember, PR#6 was the command that kicked off the 26 bootloader code for slot 6, the drive controller. The search turned up two 27 relevant links: an <a href="http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=197&amp;coll=ap">Apple TechTip</a> on a simple copy-protection scheme, 28 and a fantastic <a href="http://diveintomark.org/archives/2006/08/22/c600g">blog entry</a> that covers a bit about the Apple 29 ][&rsquo;s boot process, which brings back a lot of memories of old Shugart drives, 30 including the terrifying sound of a track 0 seek – a process wherein the drive 31 head was moved across the disk very quickly until it physically couldn&rsquo;t go any 32 further, resulting in a loud alarm-like buzz from the drive when it hit the 33 limit of its reach.</p> 34 <p>Anyway, in celebration of the Apple ][&rsquo;s 30th birthday, I recommend grabbing 35 your nearest <a href="https://www.scullinsteel.com/apple2/#dos33master">emulator</a>, and banging in a <code>call -151</code> for old time&rsquo;s 36 sake.</p> 37 <figure><img src="https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2007-06-06-happy_birthday.png" 38 alt="AppleSoft BASIC program"> 39 </figure> 40 41 </description> 42 </item> 43 44 </channel> 45 </rss>