exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Nicely expanded Apple IIe.

These ones had a lot of slots and could be easily upgraded.

8-)

HigashiJun wrote: 25 Dec 2023 04:04 Nicely expanded Apple IIe.

These ones had a lot of slots and could be easily upgraded.

8-)

The expansion slots were definitely very forward thinking on the part of Apple and allowed very custom setups.

Given that in the early home brew computer era machines were generally a backplane with cards it's not surprising that the Apple II had multiple ones.

stephen_usher wrote: 25 Dec 2023 10:02 Given that in the early home brew computer era machines were generally a backplane with cards it's not surprising that the Apple II had multiple ones.

Indeed, but when you look at other machines that were competing with the Apple, such as the PET and the TRS-80, the Apple definitely offered more in the way of expansion for the time.

I'm still researching the S100 computers as I'd love to build one.

The thing is that the original PET was designed as an HP scientific instrument control computer competitor, the idea being that you would link everything via the serial bus in a similar way to the IEEE bus HP used, so you wouldn't need slots.

The TRS-80 Model 1 was a cost-reduced "home" computer and not aimed at the same price point as the Apple II, which is why it used a TV as a display and didn't have expansion options. Effectively it was the Tandy Organisation's equivalent of the Acorn Atom, which also didn't have any expansion capability.

rubber_jonnie wrote: 25 Dec 2023 13:56 I'm still researching the S100 computers as I'd love to build one.

You can find some on Evil Bay for insane prices... Is it really worth it for what this computer offers ?

HigashiJun wrote: 25 Dec 2023 23:24

rubber_jonnie wrote: 25 Dec 2023 13:56 I'm still researching the S100 computers as I'd love to build one.

You can find some on Evil Bay for insane prices... Is it really worth it for what this computer offers ?

There are modern equivalents, I certainly don't think I'd be getting anything like an Altair, Imsai or SWTP on evilbay, the prices are really off the charts. I need to get the OSI Superboard II built first, and I'll research the S100 machines in the meantime.

Ok, so more parts arrived for the OSI 600 Superboard today, plus a bonus, a serial card for my Apple IIe :)


Still a lot of components to come for the OSI though.

:)

8-)