Anyone using a < 48K Apple?

D Finnigan

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Apr 28, 2022, 5:33:24 PM4/28/22

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I saw a revision 0 on eBay last week, probably the same one that many others
saw. And I noticed it didn't have the whole 48K installed. It was a 16K
machine. I also noticed, and probably others did too, that it didn't have
the Programmer's Aid #1 ROM installed, nor did it have the (I presume)
Applesoft ROM card which is mentioned on the handwritten sales slip.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/165434130293

That made me wonder whether there's anyone out there in Apple II land who
still maintains a sub-48K Apple II? I'm guessing that's an incredibly small
number of people, if any. It makes using DOS trickier, for starters. I think
16K was the minimum RAM size for DOS, but then how much RAM did you have
left over for a program?

And what about the base, 4K Apple II configuration? What did anyone manage
to accomplish with a 4K machine? No HI-RES graphics, for sure! Anyone here
ever use a 4K Apple?

Garrett Meiers

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Apr 28, 2022, 5:39:26 PM4/28/22

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On 4/28/22 4:33 PM, D Finnigan wrote:

> And what about the base, 4K Apple II configuration? What did anyone manage
> to accomplish with a 4K machine? No HI-RES graphics, for sure! Anyone here
> ever use a 4K Apple?

It blows my mind to think of a 4K apple II. I know they were offered
in the beginning, but that was before they had a DOS. Can't image you'd
be able to do much on a 4K system.

I've never checked all my II's and II Pluses, to see what they are
configured, but I suspect most of them are at least 48K.

D Finnigan

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Apr 29, 2022, 9:06:03 AM4/29/22

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Well starting around Rev 4, the RAM selector blocks were all fixed at 48K,
making it difficult to have any inferior RAM configuration. My integer Apple
II has a Rev 4 board, with a handwritten date code of 1980.

But my Apple II Plus has a Revision 3 board with removal RAM blocks. It's
dated early 1979 (if you have The New Apple II User's Guide, you have a
photo of this motherboard).

--
]DF$
The New Apple II User's Guide:
https://macgui.com/newa2guide/

waynej...@gmail.com

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Apr 29, 2022, 12:45:00 PM4/29/22

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Quite a few of my II/II+ started out at 16k but have since been upgraded.
Occasionally I've pulled out a 48k machine and used it for a bit.

qkumba

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Apr 29, 2022, 3:47:34 PM4/29/22

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We fit a Wordle clone into 16kb.
https://github.com/a2-4am/untitled-word-game
A 4kb machine would be limited to text and lo-res. That limits things a bit.

D Finnigan

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Apr 29, 2022, 4:30:01 PM4/29/22

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Just read your overview on the 'Hub. "It is all completely ridiculous." I
bet reading your 6502 source and learning about the data structures involved
for storing the word list is more interesting than playing the game. ;-)

qkumba

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Apr 30, 2022, 7:14:57 PM4/30/22

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:-) I like the game, but I enjoyed this coding more, even though I just ported the compression.
4am wrote the text and most of the code.

Rich Jordan

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May 22, 2022, 8:20:42 PM5/22/22

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Mine came as a 48k unit in 1981, with Apple RAM. The vendor I bought from, not long before Apple did its first crackdown on online sales, charged a $100 increment from 16 to 32K and 32 to 48K... I remember seeing the Apple branded 16K upgrade kits for 16 and 32K systems at my local dealer for something like $200. It was "Not Cheap" (TM) to upgrade back then.

But when the initial Apple II was released, some of the competition was still the AIM-65, SYM-1, and KIM-1, some could be had with as little as 1K of RAM. It was enough to learn on and probably exceptional for learning to program efficiently and not waste bytes. Getting a 'full' keyboard and video out with text any kind of graphics at all! on a 4K system was pretty nice back then.