Ben Heck’s Apple-1
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Back in 2008, engineer and hardware hacker Ben Heckendorn made headlines in the Apple II world when he built an Apple IIGS in a laptop form factor. Although his first computer was an Atari 800, not an Apple II, the same wistfulness applies to many of Ben Heck’s projects. In an interview for Juiced.GS and Computerworld, he told me:
People go to the junkyard, get an old car, and fix it up. There’s really no point to that, but people do it because they like the car. Computers are a lot like old cars. "I grew up with this, my dad drove me around in this" — it’s the same thing with old computers: I programmed my first program on this old computer, it’s such a great memory, now I can remember it… expensively. I think that’s what it is, almost a car culture with computers. It’s a different object, but the same kind of nostalgia.
Heck insisted the interview be conducted over the phone, not email, so as to better capture his personality. Other media outlets have since recognized that same spark and have given Heck his own web series, The Ben Heck Show, in which he builds and tears down a variety of unusual hardware in zany style.
In his latest project, Heck returns to that IIGS laptop’s roots and tackles designing his own Apple-1 clone. Instead of buying a Replica 1 from Briel Computers, he assembles and builds his own components from DreamBoard. Over three episodes and 56 minutes that aired Nov 7–21, he demonstrates how anyone with the proper equipment and soldering skill can build their own original Apple.
Heck ends by providing his Apple-1 something the original never had: a case. Keeping in mind the aesthetic of 1977, he designed a wooden frame for his machine.
Grandpa? Is that you?
As someone who’d never soldered before Vince Briel showed me how at KansasFest 2009, Heck’s tutorial is beyond my ken. But among today’s retrocomputing enthusiasts, I’m unusual in my lack of hardware familiarity, and I suspect many hardcore fans will enjoy not his step-by-step instructions and energetic delivery.
(Hat tip to Joyniece Kirkland)
