Apple II Pi Release 2.2

[David Schmenk]

Here is release 2.2 of Apple II Pi based on the current Raspbian Jessie image. If you have the Apple II Pi card you can bring your system up-to-date with the original vision of the Apple II Pi: a modern upgrade to the the Apple II that boots up as a decked out IIGS and transitions into a 32 bit GUI desktop. If you don't have the Apple II Pi card, you can still enjoy the Apple II Pi experience with a Super Serial Card and USB<->Serial dongle for the Pi (and a slight update to the A2Pi configuration file on the Pi).

All full-size models of the Raspberry Pi are supported from the Pi 1 Model B, Pi 2 version 1.1, Pi 2 version 1.2, to the Pi 3. The Pi Model 0 should be compatible but hasn't been tested.

The SD card image can be downloaded here:

https://ultimateapple2.com/pi_images/a2pi-2.2-1.zip

The image can easily be written to an 8GB or larger SD card (self expanding) with the Etcher application following these instructions:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installation/installing-images/README.md

An accompanying User Manual can be downloaded here:

https://ultimateapple2.com/forums/forum/main-forum/apple2-pi-rev-4-5-newest-2017-card/604-quick-start-guide

I would look forward to any comments or feedback from the installation and running of the new Apple II Pi.

Dave...

P.S. An accompanying User Manual can be downloaded here:

https://ultimateapple2.com/forums/forum/main-forum/apple2-pi-rev-4-5-newest-2017-card/604-quick-start-guide

[Jeff Ramsey]

Nice Dave!

To clarify: (I seen this release on FB earlier today) Does this release have A2CLOUD/A2SERVER installed or no?

[David Schmenk]

Thanks, Jeff. It does not. I didn't want to confuse the projects. They are somewhat orthogonal and unfortunate, the services A2SERVER provide don't work easily on the same machine as GSport. They work great together on separate machines.

[David Schmenk]

For anyone having questions about "What is the Apple II Pi?":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moww3BpckR4&list=PLlPKgUMQbJ7_NYzv8teRtEAZZzydgqMWV

Hopefully that gives a quick answer.

Dave...

[James Davis]

Thanks for that. You should add some narration to the four part series of videos you have on youtube. Silent as they are, they do more to discourage use of the A2Pi.

[A2CPM]

Hi!

Where does one obtain a 4.5 card?

Willi

[David Schmenk]

Check ultimateapple2.com later this week or early next week. I know Anthony is working to build them up, but he has a new baby (literally) on his hands.

Dave...

[Chuck Morris]

I'm rather new to the Raspberry Pi, and have just managed to successfully get gsport built and running under Debian Jessie from the 0.31 source available on SourceForge. In that version at least, running in full-screen mode doesn't scale the IIGS display to the resolution that the Pi is configured to use, and the lowest available resolutions tend to leave rather large borders. Is this still the case with the version of gsport that is in this release? If not, are there updated sources available for gsport?

Thanks in advance!

[David Schmidt]

Just to clarify - what level of code do you have? The 0.31 release
version, or that plus all the changes that went in for the years
subsequent to that (yes, we're behind in putting out a freshly built
version)?

[followups set to comps.emulators.apple2]

[Chuck Morris]

Just what is available for download on SourceForge, which I believe is the 0.31 release version without any subsequent changes. If there is somewhere else that I could have obtained a more current set of source code, I wasn't able to locate it.

[David Schmidt]

SVN?
https://sourceforge.net/p/gsport/code/HEAD/tree/trunk/

[Chuck Morris]

Heck, now I can't even find the link I used to download the sources originally, but I did grab a copy of the source just now from your link and will try to build it and see what it does. The source I had came from a file called gsport_0.31.tar.gz, and the source files there appeared to have last been modified in June of 2014. The code at your link clearly has been updated since then, so perhaps I'll be pleasantly surprised with the changes.

Thanks for the link!

[David Schmenk]

On Thursday, June 22, 2017 at 10:45:49 AM UTC-7, Chuck Morris wrote:
> I'm rather new to the Raspberry Pi, and have just managed to successfully get gsport built and running under Debian Jessie from the 0.31 source available on SourceForge. In that version at least, running in full-screen mode doesn't scale the IIGS display to the resolution that the Pi is configured to use, and the lowest available resolutions tend to leave rather large borders. Is this still the case with the version of gsport that is in this release? If not, are there updated sources available for gsport?
>
> Thanks in advance!

For the Apple II Pi, there are two versions I build, and select depending on whether it is running under X. Of course, the correct way to do it is use SDL, but I didn't have time to add that kind of functionality (Dagen has WIP that does). When run from the CLI, the Pi sets a 640x480 screen resolution and uses that to render the 640x400 IIGS screen (scanline doubled). But your TV is probably 6:9 and may or may not scale to 4:3. Check the menu settings, it may have a way to force the aspect ratio.

Dave...

[David Schmenk]

Update with the latest Raspbian image (that just got released). We will post any updates to the UltimateApple2 forum: https://ultimateapple2.com/forums/forum/main-forum/apple2-pi-rev-4-5-newest-2017-card/610-gsport-sd-card-image-shipped-with-v4-5-2017-06-02

[jbac...@gmail.com]

Hello!

I've only just discovered this project and I am super excited about trying it out. My hopes are sinking as it looks like I may have simply missed the boat on obtaining an A2PI.

I'm not even really sure where to look for one given that they're all sold out and an ebay search didn't reveal anything. Any ideas of where I could look?

Thanks!

[David Schmenk]

I don't check the usenet groups as often as I used to. Although the A2Pi cards are no longer sold by UltimateApple2, you can create effectively the same thing using off-the-shelf parts. A Super Serial Card for the Apple II and a USB <-> RS232 dongle for the Pi and some cable magic will connect the two functionally the same as the A2Pi card. You can download the Apple II boot floppy, the Raspbian SD card image, and video/guides from UltimateApple2: https://ultimateapple2.com/forums/forum/main-forum/apple2-pi-rev-4-5-newest-2017-card

P.S. I believe they are working on a follow-up product, but I don't know a lot about it.

[jbac...@gmail.com]

Hi!

Thank you so much for the reply. I think I’ve actually decided to build my own card based on your design. It’s a bit of a stretch for me but it will be good practice and it think it is totally achievable. Thank you so much for all your hard work and generosity with your time.

Take care,
Josh

[Scott Alfter]

In article <854af248-ad04-4c70...@googlegroups.com>,

<jbac...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Thank you so much for the reply. I think I’ve actually decided to
>build my own card based on your design. It’s a bit of a stretch for
>me but it will be good practice and it think it is totally achievable.
>Thank you so much for all your hard work and generosity with your time.

You might find this of interest:

https://gitlab.com/salfter/A2RPi_v2

I should revise this page, as if I remember right, I've assembled a board
and can replace the renders now:

https://hackaday.io/project/46430-a2rpi-v20

_/_
/ v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
(IIGS( https://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
\_^_/ >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

[Leon Sargent]

Is there any benefit to using SSC in a GS rather than modem or printer port to connect Pi to Apple][ GS?

Leon

[David Schmenk]

On Thursday, 30 May 2019 06:32:52 UTC-7, Leon Sargent wrote:
> Is there any benefit to using SSC in a GS rather than modem or printer port to connect Pi to Apple][ GS?
>
> Leon

Just software support. David Schmidt wrote a preliminary client for the Apple II GS' serial ports. I think it has a little issue on startup but works fine after that.

[David Schmidt]

Surely I can fix that. Uh... where was that code again?

[David Schmenk]

I thought *you* had it ;-) Is this it? https://github.com/dschmenk/apple2pi/blob/master/client/BUILD/a2pigs.s

[David Schmidt]

That helps a lot! Now I know what to search for locally. :-)