The flip-top box is sturdy white corrugated cardboard and it’s clear Apple didn’t skimp on materials prices for their first high-level language released for the ///.  The color product label is folded over two sides of the box and glued in place.  Printing, logo placement and general design and art layout are similar to the packaging of Apple /// COBOL, which was released in 1982.  Reflecting Steve Jobs’s taste in quality and design, the art used on the manual covers and throughout the packaging was licensed from collections at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag in the Netherlands and from Vorpal Gallery in San Francisco.  Apple would do this again with artwork for the Apple /// COBOL packaging.

Also, note the subtle “professional” touches added here: the deep blue behind gray pinstripes, like an expensive executive suit.  This was business software for a business computer, after all!

Opening the box, we find the Packing List; the Apple User Input Report, which was intended to allow customers to provide feedback, make suggestions or report bugs; and the Software License Agreement, an early ancestor to today’s voluminous End User License Agreements.  The latter was a three-copy carbonless form you were supposed to sign (press firmly!).  You got to keep the white copy, while the yellow copy was to be given to your dealer, with the orange copy to be sent off to Cupertino.

Somehow, I doubt these were read any more carefully than today’s click-through EULAs…

Up next is a baggie containing the diskette folders.  As far as I can tell, this unique design was used exclusively with Apple III software.  I don’t recall ever seeing Apple II diskettes shipped like this, though I could be wrong.  The pinstripe pattern appears again here, reminding the user that she is using business software, not some silly game.

Beneath the four floppy diskettes, we come to the manuals.  A unique piece of art, no doubt hand-picked by Jobs himself, adorns every cover and each is individually wrapped and resting on top of their respective Errata pamphlets.  Perhaps as a testimony to the rushed nature of the development of Apple /// Pascal, every manual has one of these pamphlets, and they’re all extensive, the largest accompanying the Programmer’s Manuals, and Introduction, Filer and Editor Manual and each weighing in at a hefty eleven pages of corrections.

It’s clear that Pascal, like nearly every software package for the ///, was so late that Apple preferred to ship the Errata right in the box, rather than incur further costs and delays by editing and reprinting all the manuals.

The whole package is a bulky 9.75” x 6.5” x 3.25” and weighs 4.5 lbs.

Three of the four manuals – the two Programmer’s Manuals and the Introduction, Filer and Editor Manual have already been scanned and are available in all the usual places, but the Program Preparation manual and the Errata pamphlets are currently MIA.  I’m not one to knock other people’s work but I think it’s safe to say the existing scans, while serviceable, hardly qualify as archival so I’ve added these to the queue along with the ones that were skipped the first time around.  I hope to have everything up at Apple2scans.net within a month or so.

So after years of losing market and mindshare, today’s announcement that Quark has been sold to a mergers & acquisitions company intent on selling off Quark’s IP portfolio should come as no surprise.

Those of us who have been playing around with computers for a bit longer than the average user probably remember Quark for more than just a powerful desktop publishing application. Here’s a quick look at some of the stuff they produced for my favorite 8-bit home computer, the Apple II (and III!). Don’t worry, the list is short.

Catalyst

Quark was an early proponent of DRM and implemented draconian copy protection schemes in their products. Catalyst was designed as a program selector to assist users in loading their expensive business products from diskette onto their new, even more expensive hard disk systems while retaining their copy protection. They were going for the best of both worlds here, and didn’t really attain either.

A user would first install Catalyst onto their shiny new $5,000 Apple ProFile 10 MB drive and then, through a series of convoluted steps, load various pieces of software into Catalyst. During the install, the user’s original diskettes would be disabled and permanently tied to the Catalyst diskette so that the originals would no longer boot and could only be reinstalled to the hard drive through the specific copy of Quark’s program to which they were tied. Quark whimsically called these disks, “Catalyzed”.

Additionally, if your newly enslaved applications required access to your printer, Catalyst had to be manually configured through a quick, 30-step process… Okay, maybe not so quick.

Catalyst itself was also copy protected and featured a serial number so that once “Catalyzed” your applications couldn’t be loaded by a copy with a different serial number.

Great stuff!

A version of Catalyst creatively called “Catalyst IIe” was eventually introduced for the Apple IIe and IIc.

Word Juggler

Word Juggler was a popular word processor for the Apple II platform for many years.

Quark’s word processor for the Apple II line was known for its ease of use, extensive feature set and simple learning curve and matched up well against AppleWriter, which served as Word Juggler’s main competition until the AppleWorks suite was released by Apple in 1984. On the Apple III, Word Juggler was the first, and for years only, commercially available word processor.

Word Juggler ad from InfoWorld, Nov 30, 1981

Word Juggler wasn’t immune to Quark’s copy protection schemes and customers had to install a hardware dongle in their Apple II to get the software to boot up at all.

Lurking silently in your Apple II, protecting Quark's IP.

And that pretty much wraps it up for Quark’s 8-bit Apple software offerings. They also sold a number of minor applications, most designed to enhance Word Juggler. Lexicheck was an 8,000-word spelling checker; Terminus provided telecommunications functionality; Mail List Manager Interface also integrated with Word Juggler as did TypeFace, giving you access to typesetting equipment, should you have it.

And so we bid a not-so-fond farewell to the corporate entity known as Quark, Inc.

Bill Budge Honored

Did you know famous Apple II programmer Bill Budge (Raster Blaster, Pinball Construction Set) worked on the Apple III graphics driver?  Well, if you read the online edition of Wired magazine, you probably do now.  On February 10, 2011, The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (PDF) will present Budge its second annual Pioneer Award for his groundbreaking work on Pinball Construction Set.  The Apple III connection here is that it was while Budge was working on the driver at Apple that he was inspired by a group of pinball fanatics (that included Woz) at the company to develop his first pinball game, Raster Blaster.

It’s nice to see some of the pioneers and luminaries from the early days of the Apple II industry whose last names aren’t Wozniak or Jobs getting some recognition.  Congratulations, Bill!

More on the 512K Card

Here are a few more shots of the On Three 512K card.  High resolution versions are available in the Picasa gallery.

The On Three 512K card removed from the machine, PROMs and address lines removed.

Close up of the PROM sockets and resistor packs on the 512K board.

An On Three 512K board (top) next to a standard 5v Apple III 256K board

On Three's 512K Board

I don’t know specifically what I was expecting – probably a similar set up to what you see in Apple IIIs with 128K and 256K boards.  And that’s sort of what I got, with the exceptions of the additional wires and cables coming from the memory board and attaching to various spots on the motherboard.  The person from whom I acquired the Apple III didn’t have any documentation about On Three’s expansion, so I was confused.  Why would a 512K board need such additional electronics if the III natively supported that much memory?

On Three's board includes several modifications

One of the unfortunate side effects of the III’s short lifespan is that Apple never developed more than a handful of expansion cards for the machine.  While cards such as the ProFile controller and the UPIC were produced in fairly plentiful numbers and are easy to find today, Apple never got around to releasing memory boards with more than 256K RAM, or much of anything else for that matter.  This left it up to small third party developers to manufacture and support peripherals for the die hard users who refused to migrate to Macintosh or other Apple products.

One of these developers, a user group called On Three, holds a special place in Apple III history.  While most UGs of the day held weekly or monthly meetings and offered other services such as shareware sales and newsletters to members, On Three took it much further.  In addition to printing a professional monthly Apple III-specific magazine, they also published numerous commercial-quality software titles and the 512K memory expansion.   The latter is doubly impressive, as Apple never released much in the way of low-level technical documentation for the machine, so it represents an excellent hardware hack in the truest sense of the word.

Back to the issue at hand.  I had this neat add-on, and no documentation for it.  Fortunately for me, when Dave Ottalini decided it was time to get rid of his Apple III collection, it ended up in the hands of Bill Degnan.  Degnan photographed and commented on much of the collection, including the 512K board.  It was his website that turned up in the Googles when I was hunting for more information.  After a brief email exchange, Bill provided me a copy of the scan he made of the user’s guide.  (You can get a copy here, if you’re interested.)

A quick perusal of the PDF gave me the answer to my question:  the Apple III doesn’t actually support 512K.  SOS does but not the hardware itself, at least not without some modifications.  The manual doesn’t really go into much other technical detail, but there it is.  In the mean time, enjoy some pictures of the board while my search for the specific function of On Three’s hacks continues.

Several hardware modifications are necessary to allow the Apple III to access 512K of RAM

On Three's new board includes addressing ROMs as well new address lines

In the end, the rather high $949 introductory price (On Three later dropped it to $449) and fact that it was introduced after the III was discontinued to an already-shrinking market, helped to limit the number of boards that made it into the hands of users.

Update (1/19): I added a gallery of high-resolution photos of the On Three board.  Check it out in the Picasa galleries.

Rupert Lissner's /// EZ Pieces, the Apple III version of AppleWorks

I say this as much to focus my attention and hopefully help increase my creative output here, as to warn you off.  The three of you who read this rag with any kind of regularity probably don’t care much either way.

That said, I’ll start off with a couple of items that I should have already covered.  First, a slightly belated happy birthday to the Apple III+, which was introduced on December 26, 1983.  Apple gave one last, half-hearted attempt to erase some of the damage to its reputation caused by the original III with this much improved business computer, but it didn’t live long.  The III+ was discontinued in April 1984 on the same day that the IIc was introduced.

Next up, the photo caption contest.  I received a total of three entries for the contest.  They are:

Eric R.: “Noooooo! I was just working for 3 hours on that report, and my Apple III crashed!”

Wholly Mindless: “Dropping it did make it work!!!!”

Sean F: “After tedious hours of hacking, Lori gets Group 7 access and manages to contact Flynn”

While I found all three comments funny, I have to give it to Sean F (he of a2central.com).  Not only witty, but with the release of the completely awesome Tron sequel, timely too!  Congrats Sean.  I have… um.  I don’t know.  Something for you.  Maybe I’ll bring it to KFest!  Thanks to everyone who participated.

In other news, the latest Juiced.GS shipped recently and should by now be in the hands of readers everywhere.  My Apple III article made the cover this time (woo hoo!).  In it, I take a look at some of the technologies introduced in the Apple III that found more success in later Apple products.  Due mainly to space considerations, several of these ended up on the cutting room floor and I’ll cover them in an upcoming blog post.  Other topics I’m considering include the On Three 512K memory board upgrade for the III, and maybe some coverage on the Apple III Plus itself.

Stay tuned…

Each newsletter is 8 pages long, and you can download the PDFs here.

As I was scanning, I came across this picture in one of the newsletters.  I couldn’t resist posting it here, because when I start to think of things that might be going through her mind, I start to giggle.

So, without further ado, I’m announcing the first ever (and quite possible last ever) 6502 Lane Photo Caption contest.  I haven’t decided what (if anything) the winner will get, but I’m thinking I’ll actually give away something more than just my undying respect for your quick wit.  Since it’s an Apple III-related picture, whatever I give away will probably be, well, related in some way to the Apple III.  That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t participate if you’re not interested in the III, though, right?  I’m mean, c’mon!  It’s my undying respect!

So send me your entry and I’ll pick the winner from what will undoubtedly be a short list.  As I don’t actually know what email address is associate with this site (embarrassing, right?), just use the Contact Us form here and fill in your entry in the body of the message.

Finally, the Apple III has made another Worst Of list.  This time, it shares the ignominious honor with the Lisa and several other top Apple failures in the January 2011 issue of Maximum PC.  The list, handily called “The List” goes where so many have gone before, listing their favorite Apple failures.  Well, if you can’t beat ‘em, remind ‘em how much they used to suck, I guess… (Note: Maximum PC’s web page doesn’t seem to have the list available to browse online, so you’ll actually have to pick up the magazine at your local book store to read it… Or, I guess if you want to throw your money away, you can buy it in this eBay auction.  Only $8.99 + $3.99 shipping.)

Boingboing picked it up and it had a moment or two in the viral internet sun.  Apparently, the Soviets were doing digital photo manipulation several years before the release of the first version of Photoshop, which is very cool.  But of course, what caught my eye was the Apple III the technician is using to control the PERICOLOR-1000, which is actually a French device running Russian software.  From the brief glimpses we get of the III, it’s hard to make out the keys but the “><” key in the upper right corner where the “|\” is normally found on every Apple III I’ve ever seen, would seem to indicate that it’s a non-US keyboard.  Also, from the position of the Apple keys, this is an Apple III, not a III+.  I wonder if they have to pick it up three inches and drop it to reseat the chips between every image…

While the video doesn’t provide any information or historical context for the III, it’s always nice to see something like this.  Other than magazine ads from the era, and videos made in the present day by Apple III enthusiasts, Apple III-relevant multimedia is scarce.  The III appears briefly here and there in Apple II ads made when Apple was trying to convince the consumer that the III was part of the Apple II family, company shareholder reports, and not really anywhere else.   I chalk it up to Apple trying to position the III as a business machine and the fact that it had a very brief – and very rocky – lifespan.

The Apple III also gets a brief mention in this recent interview.  Eyal Akler of DaniWeb sat down with Woz and unfortunately, their discussion of the III is limited to the same old thing: its flaws.  It would be nice to see an article or interview that didn’t just rehash the technical problems suffered by the III and took a look at all the other stuff that was actually really great about Apple’s first business computer…  From an Apple II standpoint, there’s nothing new in the piece and, is it just me or do you get the sense that Woz is beginning to tire of the same old Apple II questions again and again?  Not that I blame him…

Normally, this kind of thing doesn’t grab my attention, as I have little interest in anything related to Steve Jobs or the Macintosh, but this caught my eye.  For those who don’t know – likely anyone who is unaware (or has forgotten) that Apple made computers before Macintosh (David Pogue, I’m looking in your direction) – Jef Raskin gave birth to what would eventually become the Macintosh long before Jobs had anything to do with the project.  Woz designed the Apple II.  Dr. Wendell Sander and Dan Kottke designed the Apple III.  Other companies designed the iPod and its interface.  And that pretty much sums up Jobs and his responsibilities at Apple.  At least according to Jef Raskin, who didn’t have too many kind things to say about the Apple co-founder.

If you’re unfamiliar with the pre-Macintosh history of Apple Computer and the days leading up to the introduction of the computer for the rest of us, take a minute and read through Steve Weyhrich’s excellent narrative history of Apple here.  You see, Apple, Inc.’s revisionist history gives all the credit to Jobs for bring Macintosh to market but the reality is, Raskin had already done much of the design groundwork and the project was well under way when Jobs forced his way on to the team (and subsequently forced Raskin out the door when the two disagreed over design ideas).  Jobs had little to do with the design of the Apple-1 or Apple II – that was Woz – and his legacy for the Apple III, Apple’s first attempt at at business machine, was to design a case that caused overheating and other problems which contributed to the ultimate failure of the machine.

So other than the Reality Distortion Field – which admittedly, has done wonders to nurse Apple back to health in the 13 years since his return – has Jobs really done that much for Apple?  Well, he did kill several underperforming, money draining projects and streamline Apple’s production systems.  And he has a knack for hiring smart people who do know a thing or two about design.  But when it comes to the true design genius at Apple?  Probably not as much as Jobs would like you to think…

For those unfamiliar, the committee tasked with designing Apple’s new business computer felt it would help boost sales if they included hardware to allow the Apple III to run Apple II-compatible software.  This would allow III users access to the Apple II’s vast business software library and help ease the upgrade process, while also allowing developers more time to produce software specific to the Apple III’s expanded capabilities.

The committee also felt however, that the III should be positioned as a serious business machine and wanted to distance it from the Apple II’s image as a home and educational computer.  The solution they came up with was to emulate a 48K Apple II computer, but include circuitry designed specifically to block the emulation mode from accessing some of the Apple III’s more powerful functions.

In addition to blocking access to a large portion of the Apple II software library, this added a level of complexity to the design of the machine that was already pushing the limits of standard engineering practices of the day.  Woz, who valued simplicity and reduction of chips above all else in his designs, later noted that this was one of the Apple III’s main design flaws.

Titan, the company that also produced a popular line of accelerators for the II series, created a plug in board for the Apple III specifically designed to defeat the limiting electronics and allow the users to better emulate an Apple II within the III.  The first version, the “III Plus II” was released in 1984 and was essentially an Apple II Plus on a card with better access to some of the III’s advanced feature set.  A year later, Titan introduced the “III Plus IIe”.

The Apple III of course was not on the market for very long so many of the peripherals and upgrades were designed and sold by small companies such as Titan, in limited runs well after Apple Computer discontinued the III.  What this translates to today is a very limited marked of expensive and difficult to find peripherals and documentation.

Which leads me to my request.  The Titan card set I received has all the cables and software necessary for operation, but is missing the users manual.  While I can probably muddle my way through set up and use, it would be nice to have something to reference for the inevitable times I get stuck on an issue I can’t fix.  Additionally, because hardware bearing the “III” mark is often referenced as “///” or worse, “///+”, search engines that use Boolean expressions (basically all of them) tend to fail to produce much useful information.  Searching for “Titan III” returns a handful of hits, but “Titan ///” or “///+//e” gives me everything on the web about “Titan” because the “///” isn’t treated as plain text in the search term.  I’d imagine there are specific command sequences in the Google that can give me better results, but my efforts have been unsuccessful so far.

So the question I have is, does anyone have a manual for the Titan III+IIe (///+//e) card that they’d be willing to give or lend me?  Better yet, has it been scanned and posted somewhere that I can’t find because of the aforementioned difficulties in searching for terms with a forward-slash?

Interestingly, this is one of the only pieces of Apple III advertising, other than scanned magazine print ads, that I’ve been able to find.