Apple II Bits

There are as many ways to connect an Apple II to a display as there have been display types across the decades. Each machine had its own protocols, standards, and benefits. Although the Apple II was designed for color — hence the six-color Apple logo — most people remember a monochromatic experience, due to the black-and-green monitors to which many early computers were connected. The first laptop Macintosh I ever used had a black-and-white display, which was great for playing Crystal Quest but not much else.

A new interactive infographic, "The Evolution of Computer Screens", attempts to chronicle the different ways computers have visually presented data to us over the eras, inviting us: "Take a trip through time and experience the most noteworthy achievements in computer screens, from little known discoveries way back in 1968, to the heated battles between Apple and PC and beyond."

Naturally, such a timeline would be remiss to overlook the Apple II:

There are a couple problems with this artistic rendition, though. First, that looks like a mockup, not an actual screenshot, of VisiCalc — the font just seems odd to me. Second, the accompanying text offers the prompt A>dir, which would never be valid on an Apple II unless it had a PC Transporter running MS-DOS, or a Microsoft Z-80 SoftCard running CP/M — a more representative prompt would’ve been ProDOS or DOS 3.3’s native ]CATALOG. Third, the text doesn’t actually say anything about the monitor or the display — there’s no explanation justifying the Apple II’s inclusion on this timeline.

This timeline is produced by AT&T with no individual bylines attached to it. I don’t believe corporate sponsorship of a product is inherently suspicious, but not knowing the pedigree of the creators leaves me wondering what their familiarity with or interest in the topic was.

Fortunately, the timeline includes citations to resources referenced during their research. One such link is to Benj Edwards‘ 2010 feature for PCWorld, "A Brief History of Computer Displays". As a slideshow, it may lack the pizazz of the above timeline, but Edwards’ content is, as always, top-notch. Spanning 1951–2010, the twenty slides cover a range of technologies and applications, including both the Apple-1 and Apple II, with technical explanations for what made each innovation a milestone.

Any acknowledgement of the Apple II in mainstream media is one I appreciate; early Apple’s flagship product is otherwise too often overlooked. But clarity of audience, intention, and detail do the Apple II justice and ensure that the reference will be understood and appreciated by those familiar with the topic.

(Thanks to Paul Hagstrom for added details.)

It sometimes feels like display technology has outpaced the Apple II’s evolution: connecting to a modern display, such as via VGA, often requires expansion cards that are rare or still in development. I’m hopeful a future Juiced.GS article will outline all the possibilities for bridging these technologies.

In the meantime, Matthew Pearce has demonstrated how to connect the Apple II to a relatively modern and high-quality monitor: the Apple Cinema Display.

This setup has its own hardware requirements and challenges: used in this video are a Portta AV/CVBS RCA composite-to-HDMI mini-converter ($18.99), a Kanex XD HDMI-to-Mini-Displayport converter ($71.49) — and, of course, an Apple Cinema Display, which was discontinued six years ago, in 2011. With Matt’s video having been produced in 2015, that means he was showing us how to connect two equally unsupported Apple products.

It’s not a perfect solution, and one that we saw Matt demo in 8-bit mode only with Oregon Trail; Herbert Fung warns it won’t look great with the 640 x 200 mode of the Apple IIGS. But as a proof of concept, it’s a pretty cool configuration — and one that could have applications for other HDMI or MiniDP devices. For lack of turnkey alternatives, this hardware combination is a good one to add to your bag of tricks.

For more from Matt, check out his factual overview video of the Apple II.

(Hat tip to Buster Hein)

Most Apple II geeks aren’t shy about their passion; they wear their hearts on their sleeves, proudly displaying logos, license plates, and hardware where friends, co-workers, and strangers can see and inquire about them.

One of my favorite ways to demonstrate my heritage has been to use an Apple II-inspired screensaver on my MacBook Pro laptop computers. Alas, when I updated to Snow Leopard a few years ago, that particular saver stopped working, and I couldn’t remember where it came from to see if there was an update. But when the Apple II turned 35 earlier this week, Paul Horowitz included that same screensaver in his celebratory roundup. No wonder I couldn’t find it before: it’s one of 200 screensavers in a single archive!

The screensaver features many customization options.

Even cooler, the package comes with a VT100 terminal that emulates the display of the Apple II, "complete with screen noise, random color flickers, a permanent caps lock, and other peculiarities unique to technologies of a bygone era." I have tested the screensaver and the utility on both Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and Lion (10.7), and they work great.

Apple II Bits has never been more beautiful.

So what are you waiting for? Put your Apple II on your desktop for all to see!

UPDATE: You can also get this screensaver from the Mac App Store. Hat tip (again) to Paul Horowitz.