Monthly Archives: April 2019

Otto Romanowski: Apple II

Otto Romanowski is one of the electronic music pioneers in Finland who have had great and remarkable career. He’s considered as electronic music pioneer among Erkki Kurenniemi and Henrik Otto Ronner. He is electronic music composer and professor in Sibelius Academy.

I contacted him few years ago and asked if he had any Apple II material left or if he could borrow some disks to be imaged and preserved. At the time all his Apple II material was in storage but he’d be accessing them later. It took quite a bit of time but now he contacted me as he was in process of moving and had found these:

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Apple II europlus

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Board date: 0283 | F8252, Board code: 606-X-648-X

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Serial: IA2S2-693030 (Made in Ireland) 825-0187-00

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-Power supply : Astec AA11040C (230 VAC 50Hz 0.5A)

-Disk II – floppy drive (2 pcs) : One drive had drilled hole on it so you could adjust the drive speed without removing the case. Looks like bullet hole.

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Apple /// monitor : In quite good condition and clean. Few light scratches.

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Apple paddle controllers : Pair of the old black 16-pin models, one adjusment ring missing.

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Mountain Computer Sound System-cards with lightpen

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Saturn 32k RAM-card

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California Computer Systems CCS Apple II Asynchronous Serial Card 7710

-Disk II – interface card
-Epson printer – card 

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5.25″ diskettes : Some programming and music releated software.
These are now imaged to .woz (.a2r) and .dsk and available at : archive.org and asimov archives.

This particular Apple II europlus was originally used with in opening exibition of Finnish Science Center, “Heureka” in Vantaa back in 1989. It was used to let the visitors to create music and graphics with the Mountain Computer Sound system, paddles and lightpen.

images
An another Mountain Computer Sound System with Alpha Syntauri-setup can be seen on video used by Otto here: https://yle.fi/aihe/artikkeli/2009/11/10/otto-romanowski-esittelee-musiikkimikron

It seems to be early Apple //e model. This setup might have belonged to Espoon Musiikki Opisto (Espoo Music Institute) as Otto remembered the Alpha Syntauri was theirs. I contacted the Institute but sadly, the Alpha Syntauri was long gone. Otto was teacher at the Espoo Music Institute for Music Theory, Solfége and Electronic Music in 1979-1990.

setup_of_alpha_syntauri_system_s

Alpha Syntauri setup:

I will interview Otto later this year and release it here at FinApple.

An another piece of Finnish Apple II history saved up!

 
Alpha Syntauri:
http://www.appleii-box.de/H212_9_AppleIIalphaSyntauriPage9.htm
http://www.appleii-box.de/APPLE2/H212_AlphaSyntauri/AS%20TECH%20DOCS.pdf

Otto Romanowski:
https://romanowski.fi
https://soundcloud.com/oromanow

 

FinApple 2019 (c)
Apple II Forever.

Nu tittar vi närmare på Apple ///

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Found recently a Swedish microcomputer magazine issue, “Mikrodatorn – Nr. 3 April 1981”. It had preview/test of very early Apple /// with 96k. Those were imported to Sweden by Gylling System-Elektronik AB who later also published a lof of Apple II and /// Software and manuals translated to Swedish. I have few of those catalogs already (scanned at archive.org).

This short article is now scanned at:
https://archive.org/details/NuTittarViNarmarePaAppleIIIMikrodatornNr3April1981Swedish

Always looking to find more Nordic Apple II and /// material (software, hardware, manuals etc)!

FinApple 2019 (c)
Apple /// Forever.

 

Kasettilamerit: rescuing Turku GameLab Apple II disk collection:

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Turku Gamelab borrowed about 80 pcs of Apple II 5.25″ floppies to be preserved. Some of the disks were original, some typical “backup” material that went from hand-to-hand among the hobbyists back in 80’s. Most likely most of the material is preserved already, but.. who knows. Just in case.

The floppies were read with Applesauce device and saved as .a2r and then converted to .woz, the format that is more useable. Most emulators read .woz files thesedays as well some hardware devices to be used the the real Apple II hardware.

Some images had personal information so they were excluded from the collection.

Most intresting find was those few graphical rolling on-screen demos made for Finnish electronics retailer “Mustapörssi”. There were demos for “Access //” and “AppleWorks”programs. Mustapörssi sold Apple II’s in mid to late 90’s, atleast //c and IIe.

AppleWorks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzAFmMdWzmY

Access //:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRv_-HY6dW0

The collection is downloadable at:
https://archive.org/details/TurkuGameLabAppleIICollection

The .woz files can be loaded with emulators like: OpenEmulator (macOS), Virtual II (macOS), MAME, microM8, EPPLEII.

Or with card readers for real Apple II’s like: wDrive or Floppyemu.

 

Finapple 2019 (c)
Apple II Forever

 

Apple Plot med Apple Plot Kurvor Och Diagram:

002_s

Recent find, this time nice sealed software with Swedish manual (to be scanned):

Apple Plot (Sealed)

-Manual (English)
-Apple Plot Kurvor Och Diagram (Gylling & Co. AB, 1981, In Swedish)

 

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Apple Plot is a program that allows you to create, manipulate, display and print graphs and charts.

 

003_s

I didn’t open the shrink wrap and test the floppy. I do however have the floppy and manual already in my collection.

 

Hope to find more Nordic Apple II and /// material!

FinApple 2019 (c)
Apple II Forever.