25 Aug
2002
25 Aug
'02
5:10 a.m.
On Sun, 25 Aug 2002, Tony Duell wrote:
Well, maybe remembering what slot your sound card went into taxes your
memory capacity, Tony, but I never had a problem with it. Plus, how many
times do you ever have to take the motherboard out of your Apple for any
reason? In all the years I had mine, I never had to. Anything I wanted
access to I could get to from popping the lid.
Why are you needlessly dragging this argument out?
"'Officially'"? It *was* available. And as I clearly state above,
every
Apple ][ shipped with one. There was one for the Apple //e but you had to
purchase it separately. It was an item you could order through any
bookstore as far as I know. Maybe the bookstores in the UK were
deliberately witholding it from you.
And just how often do you intend to install a serial
card? I've taken my
M3 and M4 totally apart _once_ (this included removing the serial card,
and refitting it later). It's not something I intend doing very often...
Granted, but that doesn't negate the fact that it's a shit design. Also,
when I was using my Apple ][ in my younger days, I would regularly swap
out different cards that had different functions. So having a nice,
convenient, friendly way to do this was nice.
Now, if you
need to remove the motherboard from an Apple ][, you remove
the 7-8 screws on the bottom, lift the cover off, and now the entire
motherboard is exposed. Maybe 5-6 screws hold the motherboard in place.
Plus : Removing all the add-on cards, remembering which slots they go
into, where the jumpers/kludgeboards go for things like 80 column cards,
PAL encoder, sound card, etc. Hello? Apple
included full technical specs and schematics with every
Apple ][ sold. It wasn't until the Apple //e that they got greedy and
made you buy a separate volume for that, but it was still available.
It may have been 'officially' available, but it was next-to-impossible to
get the //e technical manual in the UK. I managed to get one about 4
years ago, after I'd been seriously looking for many years. I've never
seen a //c technical manaul, although I believe it existed. Contrast that with what happened when I got my CoCos
and M100. Walked
into the local Tandy shop, picked up a technical manual off the shelf.
And it was a lot cheaper than the //e technical manaul (but no less
complete IMHO).
Congratulations.
I have never seen an Atari 400 or 800 schematic. I am
told there was a
manual published that contained it, but I tried for many weeks to get it
(again, many years ago), and gave up in the end. It certainly didn't
come with the machine, and the main Atari dealers in London had never
heard of it.
De Re Atari was the definitive Atari reference manual with schematics and
everything. Most everyone who ever owned an Atari 800 knew about it. It
was readily available. Again, maybe the UK dealers were conspiring
against you.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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