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apple oneThe Apple Computer 1, originally released as the Apple Computer and known later as the Apple I or Apple-1, is an 8-bit desktop computer released by the Apple Computer Company (now Apple Inc.) in 1976. It was designed by Steve Wozniak. The idea of selling the computer came from Wozniak's friend and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. The Apple I was Apple's first product, and to finance its creation, Wozniak sold his HP-65 calculator for $500 and Jobs sold a second hand VW Microbus,  for a few hundred dollars (Wozniak later said that Jobs planned instead to use his bicycle to get around). Wozniak demonstrated the first prototype in July 1976 at the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto, California.

Production was discontinued on September 30, 1977, after the June 10, 1977 introduction of its successor, the Apple II, which Byte magazine referred to as part of the "1977 Trinity" of personal computing (along with the PET 2001 from Commodore Business Machines and the TRS-80 Model I from Tandy Corporation).

apple I TI

Finally my version of APPLE I with all the possible Texas Instruments chips!

 

 

 


Wikipedia APPLE 1 


PSA DNA certified autograph !!!

 

Screenshot 20221217 063807 com.ebay.mobile

Screenshot 20221217 063827 com.ebay.mobile

 One of the things purchased in the American market is this photo, signed by Steve Wozniak and certified by PSA/DNA.

 

  

 


 This is one of the dreams, for us retrocomputer enthusiasts, sooner or later I'll assemble it!

 

IMG 20230407 180224IMG 20230407 180230IMG 20230407 180217Let's start with setting up a monitor for the Apple I

 

 

pcb lcpcb lc this is the pcb we use for assembly

 

 

Some considerations on the computer. Looking at the long side PCB, you will see numbers at the bottom, ranging from 1 to 18, the same goes for the left side, you will see letters ranging from A to D.The combination of the letters on the left and the numbers on the bottom form a nearly perfect grid on the PCB, this is widely used in documentation among hobbyists to identify chips or circuit parts.

In principle it can be divided into three parts, at the top right there is the power supply with the three large Blue capacitors, at the bottom all the components including the references A1 to A18 and B1 to B18, the computer with the micro, ram, prom, etc... Above all the components included by references C1 to C18 and D1 to D18, the video or terminal part. This section works independently, because in effect it is like a copy of a terminal or teletype. These terminals, or teleprinters, take ASCII characters and print them on the screen, or print them on paper.bitmap

Then the computer part (bottom part) takes the ASCII characters one at a time and sends them to the video (top part), to be displayed. The heart of the video comes down to the character ROM at position D2, which contains the BIT patterns for 64 characters. These are the only characters that APPLE 1 can display. The screen is 40 columns wide x 24 rows, for a total of 960 characters.

  

apple1 solo terminale

In this phase you can see the complete pcb of the components relating only to the video terminal part. The problems encountered were, a faulty LM323 (it went into protection when I inserted more than 5 chips), a faulty SN74174 (it blocked the reset), the faulty video output transistor (Chinese).

 

acc apple 1

 reset apple 1Here you can see how I fed the pcb the reset, of the video part, all random characters, then I gave a +5 volt on pin 13 of the keyboard.

 

 
apple1_completo.jpgtastiera  cloneNow it's time to insert all the remaining components, and connect a compatible keyboard. At this stage I only encountered a bad ram and a 7400 with a bent pin.

 

 

apple1_prog_test.jpgTo do a little test, enter these lines of hexadecimal code:

0: A9 0 AA 20 EF FF E8 8A 4C 2 0 return

Type 0.A return in this way the memory locations with the hexadecimal values will be displayed

Type R return ( R means run the program)


Let's play with P-Lab Claudio's WiFi modem and Francesco's BBS

 wifi 01For configuration, follow the instructions on the P-Lab websitewifi 00

 

 

wifi 02

 Insert the modem after configuring it for your WiFi network. Type the command C100R after resetting the computer. Check the connection to the previously configured wifi network. Type ATE1R command to get echo of typing.

 

 

wifi 06Typing the command ATDT BBS.RETROCAMPUS.BBS:6502 will start the connection to Francesco's BBS.

 

 

wifi 05

wifi 03

wifi 04

Fiddling with the BBS menus.

 

 

wifi 09wifi 11wifi 13 wifi 10wifi 07wifi 08wifi 12

 

 

We too have our own page on Francesco's BBS

 

wifi 15

wifi 14To connect to our page type ATDT BBS.RETROCAMPUS.COM:9005

 

 


 FB IMG 1693723026926IMG 20230831 203019Here are some photos of the 2nd edition dedicated to Texas Instruments in the city of Rieti during the world chilli pepper fair, you can find the photos in the gallery!