Apple machine language

What Hacker News says

1. sllabresFeb 2026
   I have seen the topic a bit late, but nevertheless:

   I have learned 6502 assembler (and assembler) in general with "6502 assembly language programming by Lance A. Leventhal" (1979) [1] and "Apple Machine Language by Don Inman & Kurt Inman" (1981) [2]

   For the 'internals' of the machine, I had "What's Where in the Apple: A Complete Guide to the Apple Computer by William F. Luebbert" (1985) amazon:[3]

   [1] https://archive.org/details/6502-assembly-language-programmi...

   [2] https://archive.org/details/a2-ml

   [3] https://www.amazon.de/Whats-Where-Apple-Complete-Computer/dp...

   Show morethread
2. WillAdamsApr 2026
   For a summer program, I, along with some other kids and a teacher were supposed to build a robot --- since none of us know how to solder, we instead used the money to purchase a computer, modify a nice Rubbermaid trash can and a lazy susan and some drawer slides to hold it along w/ a few accessories (notably a Cognivox voice recognition unit), calling it CTC-1 (Computerized Trash Can mark 1) --- an Apple ][ was selected over the other options (a TRS-80 Model III and an Atari 800 were the other possibilities).

   Bought a copy of _Apple Machine Language_ by Don and Kurt Inman, and did BASIC programming (having previously started w/ whatever BASIC was on the HP 3000 at the local college where a gifted and talented summer program allowed access.

   Then, there were rumours in _Byte Magazine_ that Apple was making a new computer, and one day, in the copy of _Newsweek_ in the high school library there was a _16-page_ advertisement (which I pulled out and kept w/ my _MacWorld_ magazines --- had a full run of the first couple of years, but I'm getting ahead of myself....)

   Graduated, enlisted, began training, then on leave at home that Christmas took out a huge loan and bought basically one of every Mac related thing in the store, including the bag to carry everything in (excepting the ImageWriter printer) --- used it for years, eventually getting HyperCard, playing _The Manhole_ (Where Alice would have gone if Alice had had HyperCard, a precursor to the game _Myst_) as well as buying a copy of _Through the Looking Glass_, the only game Apple ever made. Got out and went to college studying graphic design, using a variety of Windows computers (drove all the way to the state capitol to buy a copy of Adobe Type Manager for Windows 3.0), and then was gifted a NeXT Cube by my brother-in-law. Also bought a Newton MessagePad 110 and used it w/ the NeXT using a serial link to transfer data. And, I bought an NCR-3125 running Go Corp.'s PenPoint, which had a Wacom EMR stylus which paired well w/ the Wacom ArtZ tablet connected to the Cube.

   A copy of OPENSTEP 4.2 for the Cube was the last thing I bought from Apple until I bought a copy of Mac OS X Public Beta.

   A thing which I hoped for, for a while was that they would use the NeXTBus and make a motherboard for the NeXT Cube which would run contemporary software....

   A great way to vicariously experience all this is to read:

   https://folklore.org/0-index.html

   there's even a story on the game:

   https://folklore.org/Alice.html

   Show morethread
3. WillAdamsApr 2025
   Using an HP 3000 at a local college via teletype terminal during summer gifted & talented program.

   The school eventually got some TRS-80s, and I did a summer program where we passed an Apple ][ off as a robotics program, and I mowed grass summers and eventually bought a Commodore Vic-20 and later a TRS-80 Pocket Computer PC-1 (in retrospect, should have waited and gotten the Model 100).

   Got Inman's book on Apple Machine Language, and a couple of other programming books, and lots of magazines (including one which had the ad "We See Farther" ad: https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_11970... ) and typed in lots of program listings for games and so forth, and used Scripsit for my senior term paper.

   Bought a 128K Mac and pretty much one of everything in the store, then switched to Windows 'cause I wanted a portable device, until the NCR-3125 and Go Corp.'s PenPoint came out --- paired that w/ a NeXT Cube which got me through college and was pretty much the high-water mark of my graphical computing experience.

   Show morethread
4. WillAdamsFeb 2025
   Why not learn a language intended for didactic use?

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMIX

   has a quite deep corpus and what looks to be a good introduction:

   https://www.mmix.cs.hm.edu/getstarted.html

   (and I say that as a person who owns a much battered copy of Inman & Inman's _Apple Machine Language_)

   Show morethread
5. klingon78Mar 2021
   What did you use for programming games?

   I wrote games for the Apple ][ in basic and created some with The Arcade Machine, but my Apple Machine Language book was largely unread, due to my impatience.

   Someone at the time that did have the patience was Jordan M., who wrote Karateka[1], which I thought was pronounced “kah-RAH-tic-a” but is “CARE-ah-TAKE-ah”[2], and please don’t ask me to change. The making of that game was one of the greatest things in the recent history of humanity, at least in my limited experience.

   [1]- https://www.amazon.com/Making-Karateka-Jordan-Mechner-ebook/...

   [2]- https://youtu.be/QDaFte42odA

   Show morethread