Tiny Apple Potato: Whereas criminals are working laborious to show retro gaming right into a viable (although illegal) enterprise enterprise, law-abiding followers of the whole lot retro are utilizing 3D printers to copy their favourite traditional machines. The Adventures in Retro Computing (ARC) channel created a fully-functional, micro-sized Apple IIe mannequin, which the YouTuber mentioned can be an ideal reward for classic pc lovers and 3D printing hobbyists.
A YouTube channel centered on retro computing is showcasing a novel Apple IIe reproduction. The 3D printed, microcontroller-based “pc” has been described because the smallest working Apple II pc by many shops, and deservedly so.
Based on feedback ARC supplied in his video, the reproduction effort relies on an ESP8266 microcontroller, manufactured by the Shanghai-based firm Espressif Methods. Espressif started promoting the chip in 2014 as a low-cost Wi-Fi microcontroller with built-in TCP/IP networking capabilities. The chip prices just some {dollars} and proved to be fairly well-liked inside the “maker” neighborhood – a lot in order that Espressif needed to translate its Chinese language documentation and software program SDK into English to cater to a bigger viewers.
The ESP8266 chip features a 32-bit RISC microprocessor core operating at 80 or 160 MHz, 80 KiB of user-data RAM, and assist for a number of enlargement interfaces, resembling 17 GPIO pins, SPI, and UART. ARC used an Apple II emulator, created just a few years in the past for the ESP8266, and added a “correct” display (taken from an Apple Watch), two USB ports, and a chargeable battery.
The mini Apple IIe is “one hundred pc suitable and usable,” ARC mentioned, with correct assist for SD card readers, permitting Apple II disk picture recordsdata to run. The system, manufactured by MFA Store in Hong Kong, makes use of a 3D-printed case based mostly on an option8 design. The unique design was later modified and resized to accommodate the display and a mockup of two floppy drives.
Adventures in Retro Computing plans to provide just a few models of the Apple IIe and promote them, although no pricing data has been supplied but. The Apple II reproduction was launched to the general public just a few days in the past throughout the Classic Laptop Pageant Midwest 19 in Chicago.
The actual Apple IIe was the third mannequin within the Apple II sequence of dwelling computer systems developed by Cupertino. Launched in 1983 because the successor to the Apple II Plus, it had fairly a run throughout its 11 years in the marketplace. The IIe is taken into account the longest-lived pc in Apple’s historical past, and it might probably now even be emulated on a 30-year-old toaster, due to its 6502 (or 65C02) CPU operating at 1.023 MHz.