Apple II licensing ideas needed


by 		Filed under Musings;
12 comments.

It’s rare, if not unprecedented, for me to write a blog post that doesn’t offer information but instead requests it. Yet here I am, asking for advice from Apple II Bits readers.

This past summer, I pointed at Steve Wozniak’s license plate and hoped it was actually his, since it read "APPLEII". Even if that was a theatrical conceit, there are other Apple II fans who wear their hearts on their sleeves — or, more accurately, their cars.

I’d like to join that elite and order myself a custom plate that clearly represents the Apple II and its community. Massachusetts offers vanity plates, but under strict conditions: "All vanity plates must begin with two letters. The plate can be no more than six characters, or a maximum of five characters for motorcycle plates. Vanity plates cannot have letters and numbers intermixed." That rules out several possibilities:

• APPLEII
• A2
• APL2GS
• APLIIGS
• GSROM01
• 6502 		• MOS6502
• APL2BITS
• GAMEBITS
• OPENAPPLE
• JUICEDGS
• WOZNIAK

The obvious alternative is APPLE2 — but the online registry indicates that "’APPLE2‘ is not available." Neither are "WOZ", "APPLE", or "JUICED". So what else would work? Nothing I’ve found to be both legitimate and available is either obvious or appealing:

• KFEST
• IIGS
• APL2
• APLIIE 		• APLEII
• ROM01
• JGS
• OPAPPL

Maybe you will be creative in ways I am not and think if something original. So please, leave a comment: What Massachusetts license plate would you like to see an Apple II Bits blogger, Juiced.GS editor, Open Apple podcast co-host, and KansasFest organizer sport?

  1. Birder says: September 29th, 2011 5:21 PM

    APPLER
    APLFAN
    HGR2

  2. Ken Gagne says: September 29th, 2011 5:23 PM

    Thanks, Birder! The first two are available. I’ll add them to the list of candidates.

  3. bhtooefr says: September 29th, 2011 7:23 PM

    PRODOS
    DOS33
    DISKII
    APLSFT
    INTEGR
    JUCDGS
    If your car is European, UROPLS
    If your car is Japanese, JPLUS
    PR6

    Running low on ideas, now, though. Annoyingly, six character restriction gets in the way of a lot of the good ones, as does the two characters restriction – A2S0048 would be great. Hmm, I might see if Ohio allows that one…

  4. Steven Weyhrich says: September 29th, 2011 7:25 PM

    JSR FC58
    3D0G

  5. Ken Gagne says: September 29th, 2011 7:29 PM

    Thanks, Eric! With the exception of "JPLUS", all those suggestions are both valid and available.

    Steve: unfortunately, "JSR FC58" is one character too long, and "3D0G" starts with a number.

  6. Dan Mc says: September 29th, 2011 7:33 PM

    ProDOS
    DOS 33
    BRUN
    CTRL G
    RESET
    PEEK
    POKE
    II GS
    ONE MHZ
    ONE28K
    SIXT4K
    RAMWKS
    NIBBLE
    AT COL
    4T COL

  7. Ken Gagne says: September 29th, 2011 7:38 PM

    Thanks for such a great quantity of suggestions, Dan! "ONE28K", "SIXT4K", and "4T COL" are invalid; "NIBBLE" is unavailable; and "IIGS" was in the original post. The rest are all valid and available!

  8. bhtooefr says: September 30th, 2011 8:30 AM

    IWM
    SC030 (stick a thin vertical strip of vinyl over top of the S, turn it into a dollar sign, and you’ve got a memory address for clicking the Apple II speaker.)

    A bit more generic:
    ATEBIT
    SXTNBT (could get rejected due to “SX”)
    SY6502 (although some early Apple IIs did use MOS, not Synertek)

  9. Egan says: September 30th, 2011 11:03 AM

    IIUSER
    IIUSE
    IIORDY (2 or die)
    IIIDIE (2 or die, yeah hard to get unless a C programmer)
    IIDIE4 (2 die for)
    GOTDOS
    GOT II
    GET II
    GOT GS
    GET GS
    HACKII
    APPLEI
    APPLE1
    APPLE3

  10. bhtooefr says: September 30th, 2011 1:40 PM

    IILOUD.

    Oh, wait, that’s for Sean Fahey. Never mind.

  11. codemechanic says: October 2nd, 2011 12:21 PM

    AAPLII
    AAPL2
    TOBITS

  12. codemechanic says: October 2nd, 2011 12:23 PM

    10BITS (which is two bits in binary – 99.99% of the world will think ten bits however)