August 30, 2007

About two and a half years ago I decided it would be fun to share my personal "Byte Cellar" with everyone out there and took a series of photos of my (highly retro) basement computer room and stitched them together into a panoramic image as well as a QuickTime VR 360-degree movie. It seems to have intrigued a number of folks out there. Since then the room has changed a bit, and I decided the other day to create an update version.

I present to my readers the current "Byte Cellar" as I experience it daily. No, all the machines are never on at the same time unless I'm making a QTVR movie of the place and yes, I do use all of the machines pictured, if not at the same time or even in the same month or year. It's a happy place to dwell, though.

I hope you like it.

August 17, 2007

Apple recently shocked the experts and rolled out an amazing looking keyboard with the new iMacs that is thin, thin, thin! Like, insane thin. It's almost frightening to behold (while remaining sexy, sexy, sexy). I've been daily pestering the three Apple Stores in my area - "are they in yet?!" Finally they arrived, well, the wired version anyway. Yesterday I grabbed one.

This is a thin keyboard.

As I was enjoying some time down in the computer room last night, fingering the sleek, new addition, I rolled across the room (in a chair, mind you) to fiddle a bit with my Lisa 2, which has gotten some recent use as I attempt to set it up to work with a newly acquired ImageWriter II printer (but that's for another post, another day). It occurred to me as I stroked those 23 year old keys that, while Apple's thinnest keyboard by far is sitting across the room attached to my Mac Pro, I was typing on the most bulky, detached keyboard our friends in Cupertino ever produced. The interesting contrast had me lunging for my camera in a flash.

I have taken a few photos of the new keyboard sitting next to the aforementioned (rather bulky) Lisa 2 keyboard, as well as my Mac Plus keyboard, Apple IIgs keyboard (the first ADB keyboard and my long-time favorite Apple 'board), and the elusive, diminutive Newton keyboard. I hope you find the comparisons of interest.

UPDATE [8.17.2007]: On the suggestion of an article commenter, I've added a photo of the Apple Keyboard along side the NeXT ADB keyboard from my NeXTstation Turbo color workstation. It was foolish of me to have omitted such an obvious shot.

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August 15, 2007

It was with the purchase of my second computer, an Apple //c back in 1984, that I first received a set of Apple stickers. Apple has long bundled an Apple logo sticker with its major products, so users can show their religion wherever they deem fit. I think I stuck my first one onto the side of the great 13" Montgomery Ward TV monitor ("monitor" since it had a rare composite input on the back!) that served as a color display. They used to feature the classic 6-color Apple logo with the text "apple computer" rendered in the Motter Tektura font, below. That changed to "Apple Computer" rendered in Apple Garamond sometime close to the release of the Macintosh in 1984. With the 1999 change of logo to the current, solid, white Apple, the stickers dropped the text entirely, in favor of the more minimal look, which is still with us today.

I've had a white Apple in my car's rear window since 1999 (luckily, no one ever attempted to steal it), but it wasn't until yesterday afternoon that I took the Apple sticker thing to a whole new level.

"I am a geek. This is my car."

Yes, I pulled out the hair dryer, heated the lettering on my trunk to soften the glue, ripped 'em off one by one, de-gunked the remaining goo (with the help of considerable elbow grease), washed the area and waxed it, and applied one of the so beautiful icons of technology, style, and lust. The white Apple.

So how do you like it? And where are your stickers stuck?

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August 11, 2007

Earlier this evening I was reading posts at the 68kMLA Forums when I stumbled upon one of the most interesting retro computing projects I've ever encountered. I am speaking of the BlueFlash board, a combination Bluetooth / Disk Controller / Disk Image Archive card for the Apple II.

This amazing piece of hardware allows data (such as disk images) to be transferred from a host machine to an Apple II via Bluetooth (wirelessly) and executed as if running from an actual Apple Disk ][ 5.25" floppy drive. Vinchysky, the clever man behind this project who began the BlueFlash effort three years ago, achieved this by fully implementing Woz's ingenious Disk ][ controller card in a Xilinx FPGA, driven by an on-board, 57MHz ARM7 processor. Communications are achieved by way of a standard PC bluetooth dongle plugged into the board's single USB connector. Disk images can be executed from a flash card inserted in the board's compact flash slot, or from the board's 512K of SRAM (acting as dual drives) after direct transfer via Bluetooth from a host computer.

The BlueFlash board is not shipping just yet, but should be soon. This feature-packed expansion card retails for $160 (for board + Bluetooth USB dongle) with an extra dongle for host PC going for an additional $10. I have an Apple IIgs with hard card, but assuming this works well with a IIgs, I'll certainly take one off of Vinchysky's hands in short order.

An amazing effort and an amazing piece of hardware that certainly goes a long way towards fulfilling that old mantra: "Apple II Forever."

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August 6, 2007

The moment I caught my first glimpse of the NeXT Cube and its revolutionary operating system, NEXTSTEP, I was spellbound. Never had a computing system been even vaguely as elegant as what lay before me back in 1989 on the pages of Bruce F. Webster's The NeXT Book, a highly illustrated delve into the inner workings of NeXT's new hardware and software. (As it turns out, The NeXT Book would be my only exposure to NeXT for years - if, despite my lust, the book itself at $22.95 was too expensive to buy, the $6,500 Cube was rather beyond possibility.)

I finally became a NEXTSTEP user in 1994 with the purchase of a 66MHz 486 workstation specifically fabricated to run NEXTSTEP for Intel. It ran the full developer version of NEXTSTEP for Intel v3.2 which retailed for $5,999 ($299 with student discount)! But sadly, within a year I was running Windows (where elegance has no home) on that box thanks to the dearth of mainstream apps available for NEXTSTEP. My prayers were answered, however, several years later with Apple's announcement that it intended to acquire NeXT and NeXT's subsequent takeover of Apple. OPENSTEP (basically NeXT's latest version of NEXTSTEP) was to become the basis for the Mac OS. I ran right out and bought a Mac.

As it turns out, I used that Mac for a couple of years before Mac OS X finally debuted, but on March 24, 2001, Mac OS X v1.0 arrived. NEXTSTEP gave rise to OPENSTEP, which was transformed into Rhapsody, which evolved into Mac OS X. With mainstream apps and everything! I run Mac OS X on three Macs presently and have been using it as my primary OS for over six years now. I know exactly where elegance lives.

And it's not just me. Apple, presently owning about 5% of the PC marketshare, shipped 1,764,000 Macs this past quarter alone. There are millions and millions of people out there running what could be described as the latest version of NEXTSTEP. I find that so great!

Here's another thing that's kind of crazy to think about, and is what prompted me to make this post. As I type this, there is an Apple computer featuring advanced graphics and sound, wireless data capabilities of several varieties, a web browser able to view even "Web 2.0" sites, a digital camera, a revolutionary touch-based user interface, running OS X (the modern evolution of NEXTSTEP, mind you), sitting in the front-right pocket of my jeans. Yes, it is the iPhone of which I speak and unless you happen to be dead, you've heard of it. And it is astounding...and elegant.

I find the aforementioned to be an interesting sequence to contemplate. I hope you have, as well. I did eventually get my hands on actual NeXT hardware, by the by: a refurbished NeXTstation Turbo Color system acquired for $250 back in 2000. A few years ago I jumped at the chance to pick up an HP 9000 "Gecko," which also runs NEXTSTEP, for $20 and had it up and running in no time. I've had some rather recent fun getting OPENSTEP running on my MacBook Pro and Mac Pro, as well. And I did finally get my own copy of Webster's great book. I found it on eBay and won the auction a few years ago at $99.

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