On Thu, 2 Aug 2001, Carl Wilhelm Soderstrom wrote:

> > 	2x - Apple IIe's.  What can these possibly be used for?  I don't even
> > know what OS these run...
> 	they don't really have an OS... there's an Apple BASIC interpreter
> built into the ROM (sometimes I wish x86 boxen had something like this..);
> which serves as a bootloader for whatever program you have.
> 	somewhere I probably still have a pile of 5.25" floppies with my
> Apple BASIC programs on it.

Actually, they did have an OS... several, actually. Apple DOS 3.3 was
the primary one, which was something like a fusion of a simple shell and
a BASIC interpreter. But it was decidedly more than the BASIC ROM, in
that it would actually work with disks. The BASIC ROM only handled
cassette tapes IIRC.

Then there was Pascal, which was an operating system unto itself.
(Print Shop notably used this: you booted off of the Print Shop floppy
and it ran the program automagically.) Later came ProDOS, which still
involved a BASIC shell, but was a bit more powerful, especially since it
could handle subdirectories. :)

> > 		7x Apple IIci Cache cards
> 	what the heck is this? never having taken apart my apple IIc (no
> need); I don't even know where a card might fit in the things.

The cache cards are for the *Mac* IIci, a completely different beast
from the Apple //c. (There never was an Apple IIci of the Apple ][
family.) They use the NuBus expansion slots that were so dang useful in
the Mac II series.

Just a bit more history on a Friday afternoon...

Pacem in Terris / Mir / Shanti / Salaam / Heiwa
Kevin R. Bullock