Apple II Bits

Last week was my dad’s birthday, and someone asked me: had I ever gotten him a gift for the Apple II?

In fact, I had! It was one Christmas in the 1990s, and Dad was in his second decade of using AppleWorks on the Apple II to run the family business. We’d just upgraded our version of AppleWorks — one of many purchases we’d made from Quality Computers. Although I was still a minor at the time, it was not unusual for me to receive a QC catalog in the mail, call them to order something, and tell them to charge it to dad’s credit card, which they had on file. If the purchase was a game or something else that couldn’t be written off as a business expense, I would reimburse my parents from my allowance.

Even at that age, I’d already caught up to and surpassed my father’s familiarity with the Apple II and its capabilities. I thought I should use that experience to benefit his AppleWorks experience, so I bought AfterWork, a screen saver specifically for AppleWorks.

Screen savers are still ubiquitous, but primarily as an artifact of an earlier time when they served a necessary purpose. Today’s LCD monitors don’t run the risk of burn-in, but on a CRT monitor like the AppleColor RGB monitor on our IIGS, my dad stepping away from work for an hour to play Tetris could have disastrous results. AppleWorks 4.0 would blank the screen, but with AfterWork, fun animations would flood his display until he came back to his spreadsheets.

I don’t know that my dad appreciated receiving the gift as much as I did giving it. Most of my family see computers much like I see cars: a vehicle to get you from point A to point B. They don’t enjoy tinkering or playing with it or making it do fun, cool things for the sake of it. But I was nonetheless proud to give my dad something that integrated seamlessly into his workflow. I wasn’t trying to get him to use the Apple II in a different or "better" way — I just wanted his work day to be a little more amusing, and to give back to him a small part of the wonder and joy he’d given me by getting me into the Apple II in the fist place.

It’s been decades since I’ve seen AfterWork in action: I don’t have it installed in Sweet16, and there appear to be no screenshots or YouTube videos of it. What I can find online is a 1995 review of AppleWorks 5.0 by now-Juiced.GS staff writer Andrew Roughan, in which he states, "AppleWorks now includes the AfterWork screen saver and five sample modules. The full AfterWork package which has 21 modules is available separately." I’m left uncertain which Christmas I bought AfterWork or for what version of AppleWorks. But I’ll always remember it as a gift that represented something my dad and I had in common.

My family never learned thrift; if something was old or worn, we’d replace it instead of repair it. And if used items weren’t good enough for us, they were certainly not good enough to give as gifts. Every Christmas, we’d bestow and accept shiny, shrinkwrapped goods, representing the latest merchandise that retail had to offer.

That’s a shame, because so many Apple II products can no longer be had new. There’s a growing market of original or replicated hardware, to be sure — but if I want something vintage, the only way to affordably acquire it is used. As a result, no one from my family will ever think to shop for my Christmas gift on eBay.

The Retro Computing Roundtable podcast has a gift guide that they update with each biweekly episode. There’s plenty of new and retro tech in there, but my favorite suggestion to come from this group was when the hosts collaborated on a Juiced.GS gift guide. In that article, Carrington Vanston had the brilliant idea to give someone a subscription to a classic Apple II magazine, such as Nibble or inCider/A+. Though those publications have been out of print for decades, old issues can be acquired from eBay or AbeBooks, then individually mailed to the gift’s intended recipient on a monthly basis.

I love this idea. The first and only Apple II magazine I’ve ever subscribed to is Juiced.GS, which I haven’t received in the mail since June 2007. I miss finding Apple II news, reviews, and interviews in my mailbox. The only way to make it happen is to plunder the bounty of years gone by, salvaging previously read issues from the stores of eBay.

That sounds better than finding anything new under my Christmas tree.

Shopping for the Apple II user in your life? For less than $100, you can get a Uthernet network card, a Focus IDE interface card, every issue of Softdisk G-S ever. Each of these is a significant and invaluable gift — but you may want to pick up something smaller and simpler from a mainstream retail outlet to stuff in a stocking.

For that need, I recommend floppy disk sticky notes.

Image courtesy Burak Kaynak

This unique stationery is designed Burak Kanyak with attention to authentic detail. Whereas standard Post-it notes measure 3" square, these pads, like actual floppy disks, measure 3.625" tall and 3.5" wide, replicating the look and feel of when being able to hold 800K of data meant not needing three 5.25" disks. Each of the pack’s three pads has fifty sheets, providing ample opportunity to leave 150 floppy notes and labels in your home, work, vehicle, or wherever a gentle reminder is needed, at an average cost of less than ten cents each (plus shipping).

For a retrocomputing enthusiast who still relies on this ancient medium, these notes are the perfect gift — as long as they don’t end up accidentally inserted into a floppy drive!

(Hat tip to TheDieline.com and Jason Scott)