/vr/ - Retro Games

>>4479279
It does have a following. It even gets new hardware.
What makes it so wonderful (against other machines like the C64 that where better in many ways) is the Woz enginuity and simplicit.

>>4479279
Do you think there were Apple stores in the late 70's or are you shocked that toy stores didn't sell $1000+ machines? Are you also shocked they didn't sell cars and houses?
The Apple II has as much in common with an old PC. It's a basic system with lots of expansion slots you need to fill to get more out of it. No one ever talks about it because there are only a handful of people on /vr/ who were born before it was discontinued and pixels with sharp edges hurt young eyeballs.

>>4479327
most of /vr/ wasn't born when the consoles they are so much fanboying came out

Everyone of a certain age remembers the Apple IIGS that many schools had. Maybe it's not as popular because it reminds people of school.

I'd love to own one but I can't come close to affording it. So I got things like the c64, atari st etc

>>4479363
A IIc costs no more then a C64.
You have no idea what you're talking about.

The height of the Apple II as a gaming platform was in about 1982-84 when it had lots of great arcade games. After 1984, it couldn't keep up with the new NES kinds of games so most later-period Apple II stuff are sims, RPGs, and strategy games that don't have much animation and none of which you need to play because all of them exist on the C64, Amiga, NES, PC compatibles, etc and look, sound, and play better.

Problem with the Apple II is that it was made by a still-existing company that a lot of people hate, while Commodore and Atari are like the computer equivalent of a 1951 Packard--the company that made them is long gone so discussing them is not as inflammatory.

Steve Jobs did just about everything he could to sabotage the Apple II line.

>>4479591
Jobs was a visionary in a lot of ways; he wanted a world of appliance computers anyone could use. Problem was that he was too ahead of his time and the idea of the appliance computer in the 70s-80s wasn't yet viable.

>>4479279
The only place I ever used them was in school. No one I knew had a family that owned one. Mine certainly didn't, not at the ridiculous price they were asking for one. We had a c64, and so did the families of several of my friends. Quite a few 8bit Atari computers as well. Not a single Apple. It also never seemed to get the lion's share of software, at least not as far as video games go. Pretty much everything on the shelf was c64/Amiga/IBM.

I was told by one collector that when he shows off his retro gear, the C64 always gets lots of attention and people asking him to run games on it, but his Apple II seldom gets anything other than a blank stare and the occasional "Can you boot up Oregon Trail?" question. His Atari 800 doesn't get a lot of reaction either but everyone loves his Atari 2600.

Well, my dad had an Atari 800 and then a C64. He said the Apple IIs were expensive and the IBM XTs really fucking expensive, as in "take out a second mortgage on your house" expensive.

>>4479497
Atari still exists as a name even if it's actually Infogrames.

The Apple II has more in common with a Commodore PET or a TRS-80 than it does a C64 or Atari 8-bit.

The Apple II is painfully difficult to program compared with a C64 or Atari 8-bit. You need to be really good at 6502 asm to get it to do anything. There's no hardware sound or graphics acceleration or even any interrupts; beeping the speaker or reading the keyboard monopolizes the entire CPU.

>>4479919
Tell me, anon, what CPU do you think the c64 and Atari 8bits used? I'm curious.

I think it doesn't get the credit it deserves since PC gaming was basically born on the Apple II. Entire companies were founded to produce Apple II games.

>>4479923
>What kind of reading comprehension do you think I have? I'm curious.
Not that anon but I'm guessing very little. On the Apple ][ you needed to do many things in ML that could be done in BASIC on other systems because the Apple didn't have the extra chips to handle it. For example on the C64 you could poke a few value into the SID registers and have it play a sound. That sound could last for a long time and the rest of the system could carry on doing it's thing while the SID handled it. The more you know.

>>4479497
LOL

Like people who actually care about this shit give a fuck
Good if it keeps the normies away

Plotting pixels on an Apple II isn't hard, getting sounds out of it and sprite animation is where you're really tested.

i like the mockingboard sound cards and their simple sounds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mcak0MU8LSw
can't find a good quality recording of these games but still

>>4480146
Yeah, that's great and all, but it doesn't change that "other" faggot's direct implication that the c64 or 8bits were using something other than a 6502. Let's not pretend that wasn't what was being said.

>>4480862
I didn't feel he implied that at all. Like I said, reading comprehension. Also, the C64 has a 6510 not 6502. Also, welcome to /vr/.

This seemed like the best thread for this question.

What's the best A/V solution for the C64?
Should I look for a monitor with LCA (?), and VGA so it's multi-use, or use the TV out?

>>4481814
Y/C (s-video) on a VGA monitor with a S-Video to VGA converter.

>>4481821
To add to this, get the Y/C (S-Video) signal straight from the motherboard and not the A/V connector.

>>4479361
In my case, we had Apple IIe in elementary school and middle school, then Mac SE in high school. Never wound up seeing a IIgs

>>4481821
>>4481823
Is the S-video signal from these cables fine on a TV? Is the converter just because a C64 belongs in a monitor, and those don't usually have svideo?
Thanks btw.

>>4481905
C64 natively supports Y/C (s-video), it even had a monitor that had Y/C inputs.
The signal straight from the motherboard is just cleaner, that's why I recommended it. (instead from the A/V port/cable that also has audio in the same port/cable)
The converter I recommended is so you can use VGA monitors instead of a Y/C monitor or S-Video TV.

The C64 Y/C is not pure S-Video though, some TV's might not like it. Specially flat screens, you can get a rainbow effect. It's easily fixable though. (You need to add some resistance to the chroma channel, aka resistor to ground.)

>>4481920
The S-video standard was introduced in 1987 so the C64 predates it by some years.

>>4483339
>The babys been on the wikipedia again
Fucking kek kid.

If I were a collector, what would be the best Apple II to have?

>>4479757
i've heard some old people say that an ibm was close to the price of a cheap car

>>4483489
The IIc is the best for a simple setup that runs the vast majority of Apple II software. Original IIs are collectors' items and nobody actually plays with them, they're an expensive knick-knack. The II+ isn't recommended either. There aren't as many of them around as the IIe/IIc, so they're more expensive. They aren't as reliable because the motherboard has more chips on it, meaning more heat generation and failure points, and they also have the old 4116 RAM which gets hot and isn't all that reliable. The joystick is connected via a slot on the motherboard rather than the D-shell connector used by the later models. The IIgs looks cool but is kind of useless. It requires expensive ricing to do anything with and most native-mode software is kiddie eduware.

I should add--a 64k IIe or a II+ with a 16k RAM card will run the vast majority of Apple II software worth bothering with. Almost everything that requires 128k is application software or games that you don't need to bother with because all of them can just be played on other platforms instead.

>>4483512
Any software incompatibilities between models?

>>4483529
Nothing that significant. The method of checking for the vertical retrace differs between the II/II+, IIe, IIc, and IIgs so older games made pre-1984 will often have screen tearing on a later model Apple II. It really depends on which particular model the programmer(s) of the game were using.

>>4483512
>IIc with 1MB of RAM, Mockingboard and 3.5" drive ROM
YES

>>4479361
We had Apple IIe from 3rd thru 9th grade. Then the high school was MACs. I owned a IIgs that I got when I was about 12. That thing was 3000 IIRC.

>>4479710
Jobs was a douche. He managed to convince people to pay way more for sub par Apple products.

Woz was the real genius at Apple.