Byte Cellar

Pshaw, it's raster and since it doesn't fit 80 columns in I can't play nethack on it! I've been meaning to get an Apple IIc to use as a serial terminal: http://www.bytecellar.com/archives/000113.php

I've had some Wyse terms before that sucked, and I've unsuccessfully bid on eBay for ADM-3A terminals before, but I kind of ran out of steam on pure-hardware terminals when I discovered that GNU Screen can open character devices directly!

I only need to get a serial console on something a few times a year, but when I do I really need it to work, whether I'm getting console on a network device, an embedded ultrasound machine, or a case full of modems I'm hacking. GNU Screen satisfies that need perfectly, especially since I'm always working in it already.

I like the idea of the Apple IIc terminal because it combines the warm fuzzies of ancient greenscreen hardware with the not-sucking-ass of a pure-software terminal emulator implementation. That it's cute and diminutive is a bonus.

Indeed, it is a DualUp -- the best display I have ever owned. I love it so very much, I planned to get a spare for when it dies, before they EOL'ed it. (I assumed it would not last long, as there can't be widespread appeal for such a display.) I missed that chance - but after months of setting eBay alerts, I found a local teacher that had a used one with just 400 hours on it (I have 17,000 hours on mine), and I bought it ($50 above retail price) and have it cleaned and waiting in a cloth sleeve for its time to shine, one day.

I talk about it and using it on a Mac with HiDPI display modes in this blog post from several years back:

https://bytecellar.com/2022/11/08/4k-scaling-is-not-a-problem-on-modern-macs/

OMG that Epyx joystick [1] in the screenshot brings it all flooding back! I hated that thing so much that I went to my local arcade parts dealer, bought a stick and buttons, built a plexiglass housing and circuit board (designed in Deluxe Paint) in the electronics lab at my high school, and cannibalized that horrible Epyx joystick for its plug. Best decision I ever made! SOTB and Turrican were so much nicer with an arcade stick. I even added toggle switches to reroute one of the buttons to "up" (since many games used up for jump).

I still have the buttons and joystick, though the home-built plexiglas housing didn't fare so well over the years.

[1] https://bytecellar.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/a2000.jpg

Interestingly, the two oddball ALU flags (PF and AF) live on in at least one modern arch. Apple Silicon has an undocumented extension to calculate those and store them in unused ARM flag bits. Having Rosetta manually calculate those on each of the ALU ops (or at least the ones the compiler can't remove the flag calculation of) would massively cut into it's speed. And apparently Apple either had traces of them being used or enough fear that someone important was still using them in order to include hardware support.

https://bytecellar.com/2022/11/16/a-secret-apple-silicon-extension-to-accommodate-an-intel-8080-artifact/

This site seems to be out of date: the current development site seems to be https://sourceforge.net/projects/previous/ while https://bytecellar.com/2018/04/25/bbsing-on-a-virtual-next-cube-thanks-to-previous-2-0/ seems to have some relevant links too.

How does the experience of running NeXTStep or OpenStep in Previous compare to that of running x86 OpenStep or NeXTStep https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz2nPJGx4Qg on x86 hardware, on an old x86 box as in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz2nPJGx4Qg or on a modern x86 system?

Blake Patterson has a beautiful tribute to No Man's Sky[1] done on an Amiga 1000 if anyone wants to see one in action. I really love his more recent Amiga retrospective[2] and he has a great Amiga 1000 photo album[3] too.

[1] - https://bytecellar.com/2018/03/14/a-planetary-anachronism-no-mans-sky-beautifully-rendered-on-the-amiga-1000/

[2] - https://bytecellar.com/2020/10/27/looking-back-on-35-years-as-an-amiga-user/

[3] - https://www.flickr.com/photos/blakespot/albums/72157621596272210