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Interesting read on ebay

VERAULT said:
! Why wont any of you talk about my Wang?!
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Dont worry, we are ;)

It's all pointless if we start talking about what one machine can do over another surely and missing the point of the hobby ?

The A1 has a place in history, why people are speculating on it with insane prices, well 300k is cheap to a lot of people I suppose.
 
Either they got it out of thier system and dont feel the need to make more machines. Or more likely didnt calculate the investment needed vs labor and materials, resulting in meager profits or breaking even.
 
VERAULT said:
the apple ii (ii plus in your case) is far from useless even today. it has a software library of tens of thousands of programs and games. All those programs still do what they were designed to do. Spreadsheets, word processing, data transfer, book keeping.. you name it.. it still performs those tasks today.. the apple 1 doesnt do much of anything.
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IMO it's impractical to use an Apple II (of any sort) today. Yes it can still do the tasks you've stated but only in the most rudimentary way. They were great when the technology was new but the market has moved on. Perhaps if you're someone who already has an Apple setup in place and are happy with it but you would, IMO, be an exception.

I do feel they're still fun for games and, IMO, great if you want to learn about how computers work. By that I mean the really low level, details of how they work. IMO they far exceed even modern computers because they're, relatively, simple and documentation is plentiful. Something you don't find today. But productivity tasks? Not for anything but the most basic tasks and the most basic die hard user.
 
I have a Vernier photogate timing system I've occasionally connected to my Apple II. The sample speed is fast enough it's still quite useable and will take advantage of 80 column mode for high resolution graphing if its available.
It uses the joystick port, so even if you don't like lugging a full-size machine around you can still use it with a DIP to D-sub joystick port adapter on a IIc.
 
We have computers at work that are contemporary with the Apple II and they run a couple of nuclear reactors.

Big ones too.
 
The point is we are trying to make here is the Apple II is a very capable machine whose hardware has been quite extensively exploited, customized and programmed using some very nice resources that were released during and after it's release cycles. Even ProDOS has seen an update in the last decade. This does partially support its value, but even then it's still quite affordable as a micro.
The Apple I is not. I seriously doubt anyone in the last 20 years has bought an Apple I either an original or a replica to do anything besides display an ASCII picture and yet their prices have never fallen down to earth.
 
I see the Apple II as an early Raspbery Pi that was cheap, easy to program and open enough you could connect it to anything. In industry there are plenty of uses for devices that are easy to program and do simple tasks. Not everything needs a GPU, tons of memory and computing power.
 
NeXT said:
The point is we are trying to make here is the Apple II is a very capable machine whose hardware has been quite extensively exploited, customized and programmed using some very nice resources that were released during and after it's release cycles. Even ProDOS has seen an update in the last decade. This does partially support its value, but even then it's still quite affordable as a micro.
The Apple I is not. I seriously doubt anyone in the last 20 years has bought an Apple I either an original or a replica to do anything besides display an ASCII picture and yet their prices have never fallen down to earth.
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No one is contesting the Apple II cannot still do the contemporary tasks that it was capable of when current. There are countless examples of old hardware still in use doing the tasks it was doing when originally put into service. Providing one off examples doesn't make your point. The Apple II is a great system and I love tinkerer with mine. However providing one off examples don't make them any more useful in today's world. Few, if anyone, are building modern solutions based on an Apple II. Any that are have specific reasons for doing so.
 
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Unknown_K said:
I see the Apple II as an early Raspbery Pi that was cheap, easy to program and open enough you could connect it to anything. In industry there are plenty of uses for devices that are easy to program and do simple tasks. Not everything needs a GPU, tons of memory and computing power.
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The Raspberry Pi is orders of magnitude more capable than an Apple II. Much smaller too.
 
NeXT said:
The point is we are trying to make here is the Apple II is a very capable machine whose hardware has been quite extensively exploited, customized and programmed using some very nice resources that were released during and after it's release cycles. Even ProDOS has seen an update in the last decade. This does partially support its value, but even then it's still quite affordable as a micro.
The Apple I is not. I seriously doubt anyone in the last 20 years has bought an Apple I either an original or a replica to do anything besides display an ASCII picture and yet their prices have never fallen down to earth.
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I'm so glad I wrote the most popular Apple I program. Who would've thought it would be used to sell them at auction. Should have asked for a percentage...

oldpcguy said:
The Raspberry Pi is orders of magnitude more capable than an Apple II. Much smaller too.
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And they should be combined together:
 
Just in speaking about computing. I have to disagree. The Apple II is still very much a computer. And can STILL do everything it did and more thanks to recent innovations. Plus it has card slots so it had more connectivity potential than say a C64 right out of the box. Yes the C64 has better sound and graphics but I am just talking base computing and expandability.

I get the impression Oldpcguy you mean to say it can do CURRENT tasks like a windows 11 machine and internet web page browsing using modern security.. Well neither can the first IPAD anymore thanks to planned obsolescence. Same with the last of the windows xp machines. Both categories still plenty capable hardware wise. Modern software is crap and I dont put modern software and modern hardware together in conversation for that matter.

Again, I run windows 7 and linux. I will NEVER run a new version of windows again. I run a xeon class computer as my daily unit and its plenty capable.. But I refuse to run garbage.

So are you telling me if stupid beureacratic restrictions were not put in place a dial up connected 8 bit computer still couldnt reach out to a bank (or via telnet, its irrelevant) retreive bank information and make transactions? Of course it could. Restrictions set forth by people dont really correlate to hardware being incapable as we have seen with smartphones, tablets, and computers in recent years.

I dont need a gui to make payments, type and email, write a document, etc.
 
VERAULT said:
Just in speaking about computing. I have to disagree. The Apple II is still very much a computer. And can STILL do everything it did and more thanks to recent innovations. Plus it has card slots so it had more connectivity potential than say a C64 right out of the box. Yes the C64 has better sound and graphics but I am just talking base computing and expandability.

I get the impression Oldpcguy you mean to say it can do CURRENT tasks like a windows 11 machine and internet web page browsing using modern security.. Well neither can the first IPAD anymore thanks to planned obsolescence. Same with the last of the windows xp machines. Both categories still plenty capable hardware wise. Modern software is crap and I dont put modern software and modern hardware together in conversation for that matter.

Again, I run windows 7 and linux. I will NEVER run a new version of windows again. I run a xeon class computer as my daily unit and its plenty capable.. But I refuse to run garbage.

So are you telling me if stupid beureacratic restrictions were not put in place a dial up connected 8 bit computer still couldnt reach out to a bank (or via telnet, its irrelevant) retreive bank information and make transactions? Of course it could. Restrictions set forth by people dont really correlate to hardware being incapable as we have seen with smartphones, tablets, and computers in recent years.

I dont need a gui to make payments, type and email, write a document, etc.
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I really don't know what point you guys are trying to make with your Apple II examples.
 
He's right. Can someone with an S-100 bus machine please chime in.. We need Diversity here people....:unsure:

We dont want to sound like Apple fan boys or anything.
 
I just think the hype around the Apple I is dumb. Steve's a piece of s**t. The computer is comically underpowered, even in the 70's. Owning one is purely an intergalactic ego stroke by wealthy millionaires who pay way too much for a repro through VintageMicros.
 
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