Happy Birthday, Apple II
The Apple II turned 30 today. To most people this is probably totally irrelevant. To me it is an important part of my life.
I discovered computing on a TRS-80 at a local computer club. I read the manual in a single night and started almost immediately working on a game, a train simulator. However I soon became frustrated by the limitations of both the graphical capabilities of that computer as well as its BASIC language. The Apple II was in a different league, offering high-res color graphics and a built-in disassembler. It was love at first sight.
The Apple II was an expensive computer, at least for a 14 year old like me, at the time. However, I was lucky enough to have a friend at school who could import an Apple II clone (an Orange II) from Taiwan. Thanks again How-Tzer.
Armed with a single book, Nicole Bréaud-Pouliquen’s excellent 6502 assembly language reference, and some Call-A.P.P.L.E magazines, I started writing my own applications, many of which I was able to sell successfully around the world, while still in my late teens. This gave me a sense of achievement that is hard to describe. I can remember a scene that is burned deep in my memory. On my third or fourth trip to San Francisco I was finally able to rent a car (previously I was underaged) and on my way to visit the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco, after signing a distribution contract for a new game that I had just started writing (LaserForce). I turned the radio on and almost instantly the song “California Girls” started playing. I felt I owned the world.
The Apple II gave me many friends (you know who you are), money and a career (surprisingly at IBM) but more importantly it gave me a passion that still burns strong inside me thirty years later. Happy birthday, Apple II.