![]() The video after the break demonstrates playing a simple melody, as well as how one might use the Apple II keyboard to ‘play’ the synth in real time. ![]() With the card installed in Slot 7 of the Apple II and the DAC wired through to the synth’s CV/gate, it’s then a trivial matter of writing POKE statements in Applesoft BASIC to control the synth. The pack can output voltages between 0 and 2.55 V at 8-bit resolution (or 256 steps), which is plenty for a retro synth. This DAC was originally used to control model trains using your Apple II – something that we now desperately need to see in action. The two machines are paired using a vintage digital-to-analog logic controller pack. We have a soft spot for synthesizers – seriously, who doesn’t? So when combined his retro-looking DIY modular synth with the equally retro Apple II computer, we just had to share it with you. Posted in Microcontrollers, Retrocomputing, Wireless Hacks Tagged apple II, ESP32, expansion card, wifi Not that the Apple II is incapable of dealing with the modern internet more directly we’ve seen a basic Apple II web server written in BASIC. Making new applications does mean having to write software on two ends, but the simplicity of the system also means flexibility, because anything the ESP32 does can have its complexity abstracted away by the time its data is presented to the host machine. It’s a simple system, and one that thinks works quite well for specific tasks.Įxample programs include things like scanning and selecting a WiFi network, fetching weather data, and sending a message to Slack. This means that there are two pieces of software for any given task: one running on the ESP32 doing the actual work, and one running on the Apple II that communicates with the ESP32 on the card by reading and writing to memory. The ESP32 then takes care of all the WiFi communications and tasks requiring internet access, and the host computer directs these tasks (and reads their output) via PEEK and POKE commands. The Apple2Idiot, when installed into a host machine, presents as a memory location which the host machine can access. It does this by embedding an ESP32 module and a dual-port RAM chip onto an expansion card. The PCB has plenty of space on which to silkscreen reference data. ’s Apple2Idiot expansion card for the Apple II family of computers is a nifty mix of modern and vintage, and provides a clever means of allowing the host computer to (indirectly) access the internet over WiFi while keeping things simple from the host computer’s perspective.
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