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Read Only Memories Unearthed
While OpenEmulator and Virtual ][ make a pretty solid one-two duo of Apple II emulators for the modern Macintosh (and just may have done more than anything else to turn my attention towards that particular old computer), I did start experimenting (with much help from someone compiling Homebrew installation formulae) with an emulator called Epple-II. It’s promised to offer considerable hardware fidelity even if it’s also fiddlier to work with, being launched from Terminal, using external configuration files, and demanding its disk images be converted to a new and high-fidelity format. After some experimentation with the program and checking of its home page, I decided to take a quick look at a particular book promoted there that described the Apple II’s hardware. Then, on seeing where the book was available, I got to wondering what “old computing” documents might have been added to the Internet Archive of late. Pushing a long way down a list with mild interest, my mood changed all of a sudden when I saw a title I’d long been aware of only to search for on occasion without success.
“ROM: Computer Applications For Living” might amount to a footnote in computer magazine publishing; it ran for less than a year’s worth of issues from 1977 to 1978. However, its subscribers having been transferred to Creative Computing and its last assembled articles having been run in that longer-lasting magazine for a few months in 1978 did get my attention; they did seem to try and reach a bit further past “tinkering a hobby system to life” than most of the other computer magazines had been at that time. Of course, one of the comments in Creative Computing was that being ahead of its time hadn’t helped ROM stick around, but its back issues having been available for sale from that other magazine for several years following had added to that slight “out of reach” sense.
At first, only the first two issues showed up in the list of documents; I made sure to download the PDF files available anyway. Then, I tried searching for the full title (to try and distinguish it from a system-specific magazine that had used the computer-chip name in the 1980s) and turned up everything that had been published. (Afterwards, I checked the account of the uploader to discover the final Kilobaud Microcomputing issues, if also the “better scans” of Creative Computing I’d happened on some months ago.) The magazine did seem to have put just a little more into graphic design (and cover graphics) than the other computer magazines of the day. With one more curiosity discovered, anyway, I’m aware there always does seem some piece of old computer documentation a bit more obscure yet to be stumbled on.
“ROM: Computer Applications For Living” might amount to a footnote in computer magazine publishing; it ran for less than a year’s worth of issues from 1977 to 1978. However, its subscribers having been transferred to Creative Computing and its last assembled articles having been run in that longer-lasting magazine for a few months in 1978 did get my attention; they did seem to try and reach a bit further past “tinkering a hobby system to life” than most of the other computer magazines had been at that time. Of course, one of the comments in Creative Computing was that being ahead of its time hadn’t helped ROM stick around, but its back issues having been available for sale from that other magazine for several years following had added to that slight “out of reach” sense.
At first, only the first two issues showed up in the list of documents; I made sure to download the PDF files available anyway. Then, I tried searching for the full title (to try and distinguish it from a system-specific magazine that had used the computer-chip name in the 1980s) and turned up everything that had been published. (Afterwards, I checked the account of the uploader to discover the final Kilobaud Microcomputing issues, if also the “better scans” of Creative Computing I’d happened on some months ago.) The magazine did seem to have put just a little more into graphic design (and cover graphics) than the other computer magazines of the day. With one more curiosity discovered, anyway, I’m aware there always does seem some piece of old computer documentation a bit more obscure yet to be stumbled on.