Apple II Bits

When my father brought home our first Apple II, it came from Computer Systems & Software, an authorized Apple dealer. Back then, this was one of the only ways to get an Apple product: there was no online ordering, few mail-order opportunities, and definitely no Apple Stores, which didn’t debut until 2001.

When Apple opened its first retail stores, doing so cut out the middleman — small businessmen such as the proprietor of Computer Systems & Software. That competition, combined with the advent of Internet sales, made it difficult for mom-and-pop, brick-and-mortar shops to stay in business. It was unpleasant but unexpected when CS&S closed up shop some time ago.

The next victim appears to be one of CS&S’s contemporaries. Tekserve has served New York City since 1987, providing sales and service to consumers and businesses alike. And while Tekserve will continue to exist, its quaint retail outlet — featuring not only classic computers, but “ancient radios, an antique Coke machine… massive old RCA microphones… and a stereoscope with hundreds of photographs” may soon be closing shop.

As reported by Jeremiah Moss, Tekserve will be reducing or eliminating its consumer retail presence this fall. They will continue to sell and service products for small- and medium-sized business clients, so the company as a whole is not going away. But a lot of employees, services, and artifacts are likely to disappear as a result of this transition.

I visited Tekserve in 2012 and received a behind-the-scenes tour, resulting in the below photo gallery. It’s a damn fine place with a heritage of and respect for Apple products — including the Apple II — that you don’t often find. If you can visit the store before their September transition, please do.

(Hat tip to Jason Scott)

Unless the subject is video games, I don’t listen to any modern technology podcasts. Perhaps as a result of having been a Computerworld editor for six years, I feel sufficiently connected to the state of modern IT without spending my spare time consuming audio or video content on the subject. As a result, I’m largely unfamiliar with Leo Laporte and his expansive This Week in Tech broadcasting empire. What little I’ve been exposed to has left me underwhelmed. When the stars of his shows are Apple II heroes such as Dan Bricklin or Jeri Ellsworth, then I always walk away satisfied and enlightened. But without those outside personalities, I find Laporte and his cronies to be pretentious and bombastic.

I recently made an exception for The Giz Wiz #1377, which aired all the way back on August 14, 2012. I’d added the episode to my queue long enough ago that I’d forgotten my motivation for doing so. But I trusted my past self and listened to the entire episode. It wasn’t until time indices 52:39–58:16, after nearly an hour of listening to Laporte and co-host Dick DeBartolo discuss SkyMall’s catalog, that I found the show’s relevancy to this retrocomputing enthusiast:

To this episode, Lon Seidman submitted a video tour of his Apple IIGS. Enhancements include not only an overclocked Transwarp GS but also the Uthernet networking card and Rich Dreher’s CFFA3000. We don’t get to see much of the software or unique uses Seidman has for his Apple II, and that which we do see will be familiar to members of the modern Apple II community — but the segment was short and focused enough to get picked up by TWiT, making for excellent publicity for our hobby. Way to go, Lon!

For other video reviews and tours of Apple II hardware, check out the work of Brian Picchi and Terry Stewart.

While attending WordCamp NYC with representatives of IvanExpert last month, I had the pleasure of being introduced to Jazmin Hupp, director of marketing for Tekserve, New York City’s oldest Apple specialist. She graciously provided us with a behind-the-scenes tour of the Tekserve space, from the classroom to the break room to the museum. I was pleasantly surprised to find a number of objects reflecting Tekserve’s and Apple’s heritage, including a typewriter, the Cirqus Voltaire pinball machine, and many models of Apple II and Macintosh models.

You don’t need to have connections to see these artifacts for yourself: several will be placed on display on the main floor July 17 – September 6 as part of the store’s 25th anniversary. In the meantime, this photo gallery should provide an intriguing vicarious experience of my tour.

The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, will unveil in January 2011 an exhibit entitled “Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing“. The press got a sneak peek last week, with their tour guide being a historical figure himself: no less than Steve Wozniak.

Imagine what an experience that must’ve been! Seeing the computers that launched an industry and revolutionized a world, described by the man who was there to make it happen. Such narration should be captured and offered as an audio tour to future visitors of the museum.

Fortunately, this rare experience was documented by the many journalists in attendance. Harry McCracken of Technologizer.com took several photos, focusing more on his tour guide than on the exhibit himself. Along the way, Woz commented on several computers that influenced his design of the Apple II, even stopping to pose with some of his own creations that are included in the museum.

As the group walked among machines capable of so little compared to today’s computing behemoths, McCracken observed that Woz “again and again … came back to praising engineering minimalism — accomplishing a task with the fewest possible parts and the simplest possible code.” It’s a design philosophy that I expect is shared among many Apple II developers to this day. For example, in an interview with Juiced.GS in December 2009, Alex Freed of Carte Blanche fame said, “Electronic design is my day job and I work with considerably more advanced devices, but some ideas from the Apple II days are still valid. For example, I always try to find a way to use minimum hardware to do the job.”

For the Mercury News, David Cassidy provided more prose than photos and was more reflective than reportorial, wondering if Steve Wozniak isn’t more deserving of the fame and adoration that is normally heaped upon Apple’s other co-founder, Steve Jobs.

And Robert Scoble has a 360-degree panoramic photograph taken as Woz was presenting before an original Apple-1.

UPDATE: Therese Poletti shares this video from the tour:

UPDATE 2: Mark Milian at CNN also has a video:

UPDATE 3: Peter Watson pointed me to this series of videos from ZDNet:

• Wozniak on designing the first Apple computer
• Wozniak on his early work as a hacker
• Wozniak on his first favorite portable device
• Wozniak’s computer history tour
• Wozniak on humans and technology

Woz seems to be everywhere these days, but one has to make onself available to such opportunities. The Computer History Museum is one of many historical sites throughout Silicon Valley that I would be thrilled to see. My employer, Computerworld, has its offices in Framingham, Massachusetts, about an hour west of Boston. But we’re affiliated with both PC World and Macworld, which make their home in San Francisco. Computerworld has at least one employee in that location, and I can’t help but think that maybe it’d be mutually beneficial for me to be the second.