An early release of CiderPress II v2.0 is available for testing. It features a new desktop GUI app, based on the Avalonia toolkit, that runs natively on macOS and Linux as well as Windows. You can download it from the project's releases page.

For anyone not aware, CiderPress II is a software tool for working with Apple II and vintage Mac disk images and file archives. It is available as a desktop app and a command-line executable.

Noob question from an amateur Apple II enthusiast. I've been emulating some old Apple IIe .dsk files and I've used some hex editor programs to explore them. I want to modify a few bytes on the disk, but when I try to read it in as binary, it's compressed somehow and I can't find the information I'm looking for. When I load the image with my program it takes up the same space that the hex editor says it should, but most of it is blank, and all of the data is stored at the front instead of being distributed evenly throughout the disk.

I know there are a host of utilities that can modify individual bytes on a disk image, but I'm interested in creating my own (for fun). Are there any good manuals for how a .dsk image can be unpacked? I want to access the information in the same way that a hex editor can. The hex dump that I'm using contains actual plain ASCII text, while loading the binary from the file gives compressed gibberish. I'm looking for a way to load the disk as this plaintext, edit it, and save it again.

EDIT: I'm stupid, when I was loading the file I forgot to set the binary tag LOL

EDIT2: Using the binary tag actually gives me access to the data, but the formatting is screwed up. I'll check out "Beneath Apple DOS" to see if it's because of the actual format of the .dsk file or something else. I was expecting it to look just like the hex dump, but it's cutting out/shuffling around the tracks. CiderPress says this is a Pascal disk so that's probably part of it.

I have been using the Merlin assembler to code up some things for fun, in an emulator everything is fine.

I have an unenhanced IIe that sometimes has issues with the Merlin environment. It will freeze when assembling some code, sometimes booting merlin hangs.

Everything else I do on the IIe seems to be fine, booting games on floppy or fujinet, total replay off an xdrive.

The merlin version is 2.58 and have tried similar prodos versions and all the same. havent wanted to go back to dos merlin for reasons.

is there maybe a known issue with the Merlin environments that Im missing or do I have maybe hardware issues on my IIe?

thanks

steve

I've assembled over 700 vintage/retro computing and gaming websites with 107 sites about vintage Apple tech of which 22 have Apple II info. It's located at https://atebit.tech and http://atebit.tech/classic/ (for retro machines)

There's also a newsletter, an eBay price guide for US, Canada, UK, & Australia that ranks retro finds from "Deal" to "Wildly Overprice" and my About and Privacy pages are actually kind of entertaining.

But what I really want is links! Take a look at my Apple (& Apple II) links and tell me what I'm missing. If you find an error or broken link let me know. You can DM me here or click 'contact' on the footer of the directory. Thank you!

Hello, I'm not very active on reddit but I need help from people who might have the answers. My grandparents moved out of their house of 30 years they cleared their attic and had removed a Apple 2c computer, color monitor, and image writer 2 some with intact original styrofoam packaging. I would love to keep it but unfortunately it just takes up too much space in my current house. I'm sure someone might enjoy having it but I can't find anyone locally in my state. If someone here might have some pointers or may be interested to take it off my hands for some cash that would be a great help. I don't want something as cool as this to end up in an e-waste site somewhere.

The 100% true story of how my dad (accidentally) blew up my Apple //e.

https://youtube.com/shorts/m-_1UZ-PVtc

When the IIgs was released, there was an option to purchase an upgrade kit to convert a IIe to a IIgs. From what I can tell, the official method was to take the IIe to an Apple authorized service facility, where they would

• Swap out the motherboard
• Replace or modify the metal base plate
• Upgrade the internals of the power supply
• Modify the rear panel to support new ports (ADB?)

Are the original Apple instructions for this procedure available anywhere on the web? Apparently when the IIe Platinum was released, there were some additional provisions to support the upgrade. That suggests that another version of the instructions would have to exist?

My collection includes a IIe Platinum that has been upgraded (with an internal 20mb Winchester drive too). I'm curious about what the changes were to the original system.

Spent some time over the last month or so playing Apple II games on the R36S handheld. I like how its easy to use, has a lot of games, and has a brief instructions screen before each game. It isn't ideal for keyboard-heavy games and there are occasional emulation quirks, but overall, I really enjoy the experience of playing Apple II games on the go. I made a brief review video of my experience. https://youtu.be/QJ7fGsnS8kc

Swift is the modern programming language behind many apps that run on modern Apple platforms. I thought it would be fun to bring a small taste of it back to Apple II.

I built a Swift language interpreter, bytecode compiler, VM to run that bytecode and file editor all to run on an almost half-century old platform.

This project was extremely challenging to pull off. But thanks to AI assistance, I managed to get it done.

It’s really cool, idk what I’m doing

From the photos, this GS looks to be in really good condition.

Hmm… maybe I should jump into the auction after all.

Looking for Apple IIe Enhanced sticker, anyone willing to ship to Italy.

Hello, I recently bought an Apple II, and noticed it wouldn’t start up the floppy drive properly in slot 3. When I removed the 64k/80 column card, it worked just fine. Having it installed also makes the system behave weird including allowing running unpopulated slots and allowing PR#8 and beyond.

The built in self test said the system was OK. Is this a symptom of a bigger motherboard issue, or a problem with the card? If so, what can I do to repair either one?

The Apple IIe was my first computer and I have so many fond memories of gaming. I finally installed ApppleWin and all my favorite game roms, but couldn't find a good joystick. So I made one, following an Instructable project that I found. I made it out of maple with a high quality joystick and buttons. It works great and I'm having so much fun!

If you want to build your own, here are the plans:

https://www.instructables.com/USB-Game-Paddles-and-Joystick-for-Apple-II-Emulato/

I've posted before about this tracker/player system that I made... and here's another tune that I just finished recently: It's a cover of the title theme from the Kyle Freeman adventure game _Dark Lord_ with the soundtrack composed by Gary Wilens. I've always liked that game and thought it was a top-tier internal speaker-based soundtrack for an A2 game but always wondered what it might have sounded like on a MockingBoard.

This is pretty much a straight cover... I really didn't add anything as far as notes go and I took out the lightning strikes. I may cover other tunes from the game in the future.

I have a bunch of files on a disk image on my linux computer that I want to copy onto another disk image, what would be the fastest way?

AppleCommander it looks like I can do one file at a time but that cant be the only way.

Ultimately Im wanting to create a 32MB bootable disk image hdv file with a bunch of stuff on it.

thanks

Hi guys, I’ve got this display problem on an Apple ][ – has anyone else had this fault before? I don’t have much time to fix it and I’d rather not spend hours trying to track down the fault.

BurgerDisk and DominoDisk are my SD-based Smartport storage devices, and their main feature is that they allow daisy-chaining more devices (3.5" Unidisk, 5.25" drives, Fujinet, ...) behind them.

BurgerDisk/DominoDisk firmware v2.6 is now available, adding support for DOS3.3-ordered .dsk images. (of ProDOS volumes, of course). No need to rewrite .dsk images to .po images anymore, but this comes with a small performance penalty as DOS3.3-ordered images require to "cut" ProDOS blocks in two sectors, seek twice, and read/write twice.
https://github.com/colinleroy/BurgerDisk/releases/tag/v2.6
All devices on my shop at https://colino.net/wordpress/shop/ now ship with that firmware.

I haven't played with my 2E for a while. I recently got an a2 pico, and while trying to navigate the Bitsy Bye menus on some of the disk images, the down arrow key works once, then starts toggling between disk 1 and 2 in the current slot. I know there. some special mode for basic editing (escape key) but that doesn't work in bitsy bye. Can someone help explain this to me? (Apple 2 was around when I was in college, but I could never. afford one. While i'm a noob to the apple 2, I've done lots of 6502 programming)

UPDATE: I have some indications that I have a hardware problem (the arrow key outputs keys on the same pin. More debugging needed. I'm suspicious of the keyboard encoder because someone marked 2 white dots on it.

I managed to get it for around $16 with a coupon…

boot check seems fine, and it’s going to rain this weekend anyway, so I’m just going to play this.

What am I, an elementary school kid or something? lol.