WOzFest 23 Announcement (and 24, 25, 26, and 27!)

Wow, life sure is moving fast.

We now have frequent WOzFest attendee Dylan living with us (restarting Tween parenting in mid-late 50’s is proving…interesting), I have had to look for a job, and I found and started a new job – it’s just “Go! Go! Go!” here.

And, in two weeks I’ll have 2022’s first WOzFest, WOzFest 23 – start time is midday Sydney time (UTC+11), 2 April 2022. QFest 2022/1 will be held on the same day.

For the first time, I can actually announce the proposed schedule for all of a year’s WOzFests – after 2 April, the rest will be on the fourth Saturday of the odd months from May to November

This means the full scheduled looks like this:

WOzFest 232 April 2022
WOzFest 2428 May 2022
WOzFest 2523 July 2022
WOzFest 2624 September 2022
WOzFest 2726 November 2022

WOzFest 23 was going follow the “fourth Saturday of an odd month” scheme in March, but my son’s engagement party (!) is on 27 March, and we’re in voluntary pseudo-lockdown for the two weeks leading up to that to try and avoid being in isolation on the big day.

This means WOzFest 25 will align with KansasFest 2022, as has been the case with the July WOzFest for several years. In fact, this alignment is what I’m intending to use to determine the schedule moving forward for the 5 WOzFests I’m hoping to hold each year (which means, technically, I can announce the next year’s WOzFest schedule as soon as the next year’s KansasFest is announced).

I’ve not set a theme for any of 2022’s WOzFests yet – in the first instance, WOzFest 23 will just be a celebration of allowing attendees again into WOzFest HQ.

I will likely try to pick up some of my RetroChallenge 2021/10 projects, but may just be too caught up trying to catch up with my Apple ][ friends in person.

It’s highly unlikely there’ll be any government restrictions imposed between now and 2 April – however, if I get COVID before then and am isolating, I’ll have to postpone. There’s just no way I’m going to miss it!

Please note: even without a government stipulation on the vax status of visitors, I’ll be requiring WOzFest attendees to be double-vaxxed for the foreseeable future (don’t @ me).

WOzFest 23 or 24 will be the last WOzFest to use Google Meet to stream what I’m up to as Google is deprecating their free legacy edition I’ve been relying on – let me know if you’d like the link so you can connect up with us. I’ll be looking for an alternative as the year progresses.

I won’t be able to prepare the day before as I’ve not yet built up enough leave to do so, so for the moment I can just commit to the Saturdays being from 12:00 to 22:00 local time (if I can last that long) – UTC+11 for WOzFests 23 and 27 and UTC+10 for WOzFests 24-26.

As always, I’m continuing to raise funds via Ko-Fi. This allows small (or large!) donations to be made – check out my intro post there for the lowdown, and feel free to drop anything you can in the can to help me to run WOzFest moving forward.

RetroChallenge 2021/10 Endgame, WOzFest Twenty BOO! 👻 Report.

What a month October was – while not a complete wash out, I certainly did not complete as much of my projects as I’d like (please put that on my gravestone). And I was subsequently swamped with work and family matters through into the New Year (Happy New Year, by the way!).

I’d pretty well done nothing between my last report and WOzFest Twenty BOO! 👻, so there are no missing updates to catch up on.

But progress is progress, so let’s get the lowdown on what progress there was last weekend…

  • europlus Refurbapalooza Resurrection – No progress. Work was just too busy to get to this one. I’ll have to save this Resurrection for another day (RetroChallenge 2022/04?!).
  • Lockdown WOzFests – Completed! Well, this was a sort of a cheat one, but I did get to chat with some people, which was especially comforting at WOzFest Twenty BOO! 👻 (see below).
  • Pirated software manual scans – Incomplete. The progress I made on this project was to finish removing all the hundreds of rusty staples holding each manual together. Now it’s just sheet feed scanning to follow – a pretty simple, if lengthy (there is a 13cm pile of paper to scan!), task.
  • Applesaucing – Incomplete. I did do some imaging at WOzFest Twenty BOO! 👻 for Call-A.P.P.L.E. of some of their original disks I had in one of my multitude of boxes which Bill Martens (a virtual attendee) suggested they didn’t have copies of, so at least what progress I did make on this was pretty targeted!
  • Citizen Science – No (effective) progress. I now have a funky magnetic field display film which I can use in conjunction with flux images of disks to get a sense of how the physical layout of magnets on modern devices relates to disk damage. When I get to work on this one, there’ll be some cool graphics to include in the findings.

WOzFest Twenty BOO! 👻, held on Saturday 30 October, was meant to see me get more done than staple removal and imaging 15 or so disks.

In my defence, the day was severely marred by the news received mid-afternoon that my friend, Tony Diaz, had passed away in America earlier that week.

I’ll leave my thoughts on Tony and his passing to a separate post, but sharing grief with other enthusiasts both locally and internationally was indeed comforting.

I had elected to keep WOzFest Twenty BOO! 👻 as (almost completely) virtual-only as my wife and I are keeping ourselves in an almost-lockdown for some time to come – only Michael from RCR was in attendance as he is in similar almost-lockdown circumstances at the moment, and he had a delivery for me. Sharing a 42m² room with one person who’s pretty well not seeing others seemed OK.

That meant I got to share pizza and ciders in real life, and remembrances of Tony in person and via Google Meet.

An additional project I took on for Saturday was setting up a 21″ iMac 2012 I’d been gifted the prior week – I have two 21″ iMacs I use for Applesaucing and scanning, and with the 2012 replacing a Mid-2010 machine, I was able to have the new one and the other one (2015) both set up for High Sierra and Catalina dual booting. This allows me to use 32-bit software (iWeb and scanner software) when needed, but also have more recent OSes on them.

Between OS installs and data and app migrations, that went on for much of Saturday, but the new machine is significantly lighter than the one it replaces, which makes puttering around in WOzFest HQ easier as I move things around for optimal placement when doing work.

I’m now trying to plan for this year’s five WOzFests – I think I have a schedule sorted, and will make an announcement as soon as I can.

RetroChallenge 2021/10 Days 2-3 Report: Progress, of sorts, and a WOzFest!

I’ll be honest – I didn’t get as much done during WOzFest RC 21/10 as I’d hoped – I did continue to set up WOzFest HQ for working on my projects, and I did get some Applesaucing done, but I hit a few roadblocks…

Firstly, I think one of my disk ][ drives with an Applesauce sync sensor is having issues, which I only fully appreciated after about 10 disks (with quite a few multiple attempts to capture some of them). At four plus minutes per attempt, well…

I put the “track 0 always coming up orange” as attributable to some sort of protection scheme Personal Software applied to the Visi* range of products, but I finally tried an unprotected disk and had similar issues.

Of course, that first unprotected disk I tried had actual track 0 issues when I tried a new drive, but fewer of them, and a second disk I tried worked first time.

And it wouldn’t be a RetroChallenge without further confounding issues – the first Visi* disk I went back to also had real issues on track 0! Gah!

Oh, and of course, in the mix was the drive’s head cable occasionally getting caught and making captures useless (the same data being captured as different tracks). Between all that, it took me a while to get in my groove!

Anyway, I was able to capture several disks, sometimes using multiple captures to create a single working image (a newer [and long desired] feature of the Applesauce software).

I still have a lot more disks to do, but am now feeling at least in a better position than mid-afternoon Saturday.

Today, I’ve just tided up a little and started to set up my second spare iMac so I can use my ScanSnap sheet feed scanner for the pirated software manuals. The scanner uses 32-bit software, so I’ve installed High Sierra and am just migrating the other spare iMac’s High Sierra apps and user so I don’t have to set everything up from scratch.

This will allow me to use either machine for Applesaucing or scanning, or a single machine for both in less busy times.

Google Meet worked OK once I installed and set up the “auto admit” extension – for some reason, even with the invite link, Google doesn’t allow attendees outside of the inviting domain to just enter the meeting. And the first “auto admit” extension I tried didn’t work. And you have to restart Chrome to make the settings stick.

For sharing my projects, I joined from the Applesauce-connected iMac to stream various windows as I captured disks, and from an iPhone above the disk ][ drive to watch the drive do its thing.

My first two attendees were international – RetroChallenge judge Eric and Josh “Get The Damn Batteries Out” Malone, both from the US, joined for a while at the start. We had a few Australians hooking in across the day and evening, and everyone just worked on their own projects or whatever and discussed whatever came to mind.

It was nice having the company throughout the day, and I can’t wait for WOzFest 22 when I’ll hopefully get a few updates on where everyone go to – and with the way our vaccine rollout is finally going, I’ll hopefully be allowed to have 10 attendees as well!

I also responded to a few posts on the Australian Computer Museum Society forums site in relation to our Team ACMS project – a AU$500 grant is up for grab for Australians who register an ACMS affiliation when entering RetroChallenge and post about their entry on the forum. There’s a large Aussie/ACMS contingent this RetroChallenge, which is great to see.

I can’t wait to get some more progress under my belt – the nice thing about the scanning especially is it’s pretty brainless for me to keep plugging away at (even during the week), while my other projects are more hands-on.

Catch up in a few days – will I be able to report useful progress?!

RetroChallenge 2021/10 Day 1 Report: Prep is all you need

Just spent the time after a morning work meeting prepping WOzFest HQ – mostly sorting and getting rid of rubbish.

Bought some chips and some booze, even if I will have to be a martyr and consume them myself!

Ready for a proper day or retro tomorrow during WOzFest RC 21/10 – DM me on Twitter for the Google Meet link.

WOzFest RC21/10 & WOzFest 22 Announcement

UPDATE: See details of a new project for my RetroChallenge 2021/10 entry below.

Firstly, an apology for forgetting to announce WOzFest ]20 HOME : GOTO 20 – life got in the way, and I just didn’t get around to posting here

And although it’s not far away, I’m very happy to announce the date for the next WOzFest: WOzFest RC 21/10 will be held on Saturday 2 October 2021, starting at midday Sydney time (UTC+10:00).

And, to top off the year, I can also announce that WOzFest 22 will be held on Saturday 30 October 2021, starting at midday Sydney time (UTC+11:00).

Why two WOzFests in one month? Well the name for ’21 should give the clue – I’m entering RetroChallenge 21/10, and it seemed a good way to bookend my efforts for the month.

The theme for WOzFest RC 21/10 and WOzFest 22 is, obviously, “RetroChallenge” – drop in, check out what I’m up to, and let me know your plans at WOzFest RC 21/10 and how you went at WOzFest 22.

My entry for RetroChallenge 2021/10 has four five parts:

  1. europlus Refurbapalooza Resurrection – my Apple ][ europlus refurbishment project has edged along since my last Retrochallenge entries, but I’ve started to kick up the pace. Can I get all my boards tested by the end of Retrochallenge 2021/10?!
  2. Lockdown WOzFests – to celebrate Retrochallenge 2021/10, I will schedule the next two WOzFests for 2 October and 30 October. Retrochallengers from around the globe should drop in to detail their plans at WOzFest RC 21/10, then describe the pain of how it went all awry at WOzFest 22! Share the love, pain, frustration, and triumphs!
  3. Pirated software manual scans – I have a 13cm pile of photocopied Apple ][ software manuals from WOzFest attendee Neville to scan and upload to the Internet Archive.
  4. Applesaucing – Similarly, I have a metric buttload of disks to image with my Applesauce, gotta just get back to it.
  5. NEW: Citizen Science – Floppy disks vs Magnets: I’ve seen discussion of magnets affecting disks, I’ve done it myself, and I jokingly place bad disks on WOzFest HQ’s fridge with HD magnets. But magnets are all around us now, and those into software preservation have to be careful. Join me as I test the effects of the various common (and maybe not so common) magnets in our modern lives on the media we’re here to preserve. If you have equipment to flux image a disk, and some magnets laying around, add your data to the pool so we can spread the warning far and wide – disks and magnets are not BFFs!

Yes, four five projects is a crazy an extra-crazy load to take on, but I’m crazy! Aim for the stars and you’ll blow up on the launchpad, I always say!

I encourage Australian entrants to also sign up at the Australian Computer Museum Society forums and detail your entries and progress in the RetroChallenge 2021/10 category there – a $500 grant is being offered by the Society for Aussie entrants to try and drive local engagement in the retro scene. Just make sure you tick the Australian Computer Museum Society affiliation tick box when entering RetroChallenge!

In addition, regular WOzFest attendee Andrew told me HacktoberFest 2021 is happening in October, so be sure to sign up to an open source project, and let us know what you’ll be working on during the month when you drop by.

Sydney is still in COVID lockdown, and will not see any easing of restrictions in relation to visitors until the Monday after 70% of the population 16 and over are double-vaxxed. This is currently due to happen towards the end of the first week of October, so WOzFest RC 21/10 will be a stream/virtual event only.

Once we hit 70%, five double-vaxxed visitors can attend, so that will be the minimum allowed for WOzFest 22 – but we’ll probably have achieved 90% double-vaxxed by 30 October, so the restrictions may have eased even further. Please note: even without a government stipulation on the vax status of visitors, I’ll be requiring WOzFest attendees to be double-vaxxed for the foreseeable future (don’t @ me). QR check in will be mandatory, as well.

I’ll be using Google Meet to stream what I’m up to and who I’m chatting to – let me know if you’d like the link so you can connect up with us.

As per recent WOzFests, I’ll be preparing the day before – the Google Meet link will work for all four days. Runtimes are Fridays from 11:00 local time to 17:00 local time (roughly), Saturdays from 12:00 to 22:00 local time (if I can make it that long) – UTC+10:00 for WOzFest RC 21/10 (and prep) and UTC+11:00 for WOzFest 22 (and prep).

As always, I’m continuing to raise funds via Ko-Fi. This allows small (or large!) donations to be made – check out my intro post there for the lowdown, and feel free to drop anything you can in the can to help me to run WOzFest moving forward.

I hope to (virtually) see you there!

Apple ][/][+ Motherboard Test Sheets

Towards the end of WOzFest 18, frequent attendee Andrew and I started to look into the use of the ROMX programmable ROM product in a pre-Revision 7 motherboard.

This requires a different character generator (CHARGEN) chip, and also the replacement of two logic chips that aren’t next to each other (the ROMX designers have created a U-shaped sub-board to allow the non-adjoining chips to be replaced in one go).

I only have one pre-Revision 7 board – something Andrew and I determined after checking each and every europlus board I have (not a small task, as those who know me understand). And, of course, it’s in my “to-be-refurbished” pile, so I wasn’t sure it would work. In fact, with several missing logic chips, I could tell it wouldn’t, so off we went scavenging the needed chips to try and get some joy.

However, joy was not to be had – we were unsuccessful in booting, but I could see a non-standard font was being used, so partial success as far as the character generator goes.

At this stage of the night, I was not up to pulling out my logic chip tester and working through the board, so we called it a night.

But this isn’t a single-board consideration for me. I have quite a few boards I need to check and try to get up and running, and that’s daunting enough that I have procrastinated on that part of my europlus Refurbapalooza.

I gotta say here, though: I promise the next step is not a further pit of procrastination – but I decided if I was going to check this board, I needed a resource to help me do so which might be usable on other boards, and, if it takes several sessions, to keep track of where I was at, and also to maybe record some other salient information about the board I was working on.

With my experience designing the “WOzFest Labs Apple Astec Power Supply Unit AA11040B/C Electrolytic Capacitor ‘Spec & Check’ Sheet” (over four years ago!), I thought I might be able to do something similar for Apple ][ motherboards – of course, it would have to have different versions for the main motherboard revisions, so you can see why there’s a risk it might end up being a useful way for a procrastinator to put off productive work!

But I’m a New Age Procrastinator! I’m happy to wastespend time preparing for a small job while accommodating the larger task it’s a part of. So for the last week I’ve been working on test sheets based on Winston D. Gayler’s RFI motherboard block diagram on page 177 of The Apple II Circuit Description. I’ve also referenced Jim Sather’s Understanding the Apple II, which, in Appendix G, details revision differences.

The result? Four test sheets covering the major revisions of Apple ][ and ][+ motherboards:

The sheets show most major components, including product codes, which motherboard product codes are relevant for that revision, areas to record info like case and PSU serial numbers and notes, and an area to record the dates of test sessions and progress through the board.

I would suggest first filling out the serial numbers, date code and (if not standard for the board) crystal frequency, along with any other salient info in the Notes area. Then mark missing (or clearly damaged) components with a red pen.

When testing components, I would mark bad components with a red pen and good components with a green highlighter. When bad or missing components are replaced, highlight with a green highlighter. Whether pads are cut or soldered can be indicated as well.

If switching components from other boards, some collectors might like to indicate that either at the component location or in the Notes area. Most collectors would likely be able to identify individual motherboards by date code – for those with larger collections with duplicate date codes, perhaps a numbering scheme will be need to be implemented by those collectors.

I’ll be leaving a test sheet in each of my machines not only to easily identify them and their operational status, but also keep track of any other work I might be doing on the machine (replacing speaker foam, etc.).

I want this to be as useful a resource for the community as possible, so any suggested changes are welcome. While I won’t be working on other Apple ][ models, I’m happy to discuss with others such sheets and provide info and files.

I’m now actually looking forward to the next stage of motherboard refurbishment, knowing I have the info I’ll need and an ability to keep track of each motherboard’s progress, as I rarely get enough time to work through a whole board in one sitting.

WOzFest 8-bit Recap

The last WOzFest for 2017 was held in mid-November, later than I intended due to a long recovery from the flu. The theme was 8-bit computers, especially, but not limited to, Apple 8-bits.

We had nine attendees in all, with Melody and April from Paleotronic making it all the way up from country Victoria to attend.

I used the opportunity to do a little bit of extra work on my “europlus Refurbapalooza” – I basically took apart all my europluses, and ordered the base pans by serial number, the motherboards by date code, and the power supplies by serial number.

Then, via this arrangement, each system was composed of these “chronologically aligned” sub-parts. I still have some cleaning and testing to do, as well as the replacement of any missing or damaged feet, and I expect these tasks to form the basis of my RetroChallenge 2018/04 entry.

Murray, who had brought a Hitachi Peach to WOzFest S7,D2, had recently acquired a second one, and he brought both along as alternative 8-bits. More work was done trying to identify components or assess the viability of connecting peripherals. Murray has posted info on the machine and his growing collection, and is even planning on hosting a gathering he’s tentatively named “PeachFest” in the new year – can’t wait!

Craig brought his Laser 3000 and Dick Smith Cat – these machines were quite clearly manufactured in the same factory, with the Dick Smith machine being re-labelled for sale in those stores.

Craig found a specific version of BASIC (v3.0) on one of the machines which other enthusiasts of these clones had been looking for, so he’s going to make sure the ROMs get imaged.

We had a couple of great Skype calls – the first was from Jonathan Zufi of The Shrine of Apple website (which is currently shut down) and author of the book Iconic. Jonathan regaled us with tales about his history with the Apple ][, his collection efforts for the Shrine and Iconic, and various trials and tribulations around publishing and selling the book. As a special treat for attendees, Jonathan gifted attendees with a copy of Iconic, which was exceedingly generous of him.

The book has exquisitely detailed photos of Apple products going all the way back to the Apple-1 – Jonathan said he didn’t want to create a product catalog of Apple devices, so not every device is shown, but I like to think he has showcased all the major elements of Apple design and the machines (and peripherals and packaging) those elements have been used in. It’s well worth getting your hands on if you can.

The second Skype was from another well-known Apple ][ author, Steven Weyrich, of the Apple ][ History website, which Steven has published in book form as Sophistication & Simplicity. Michael from RCR had brought his copy, and it’s a great book full of great stories about the history of Apple and the Apple ][.

We also chatted about how Steven first got into writing the history when he was on GEnie and how it morphed into a website. I’ve put it on my todo list for the new year to buy a copy, and it will make a great addition to the WOzFest Library.

Jon worked on his //c+, Andrew on one of his europluses, and Melody and April gave us an update on everything they’ve been doing at Paleotronic. As always, photos from the event (including a couple from Melody) are available in a separate Photo Galleries post.

There was pizza and cider, of course, and I believe a good time was had by all – as always, I’m very much looking forward to the next WOzFest, which I’m about to announce!

Retrochallenge 2017/10 Recap – A Soft Exit

A very short post here to confirm what my tweets have previously stated – I was unable to get any work done during Retrochallenge 2017/10 so I had to soft exit, which is a very sad story.

Well, I did line my europluses up on the table, and take one case apart, and get skewered by a keyboard ribbon cable plug, but that was it and probably took less than 30 minutes from go to (bloody) woe.

I suffer from chronic nausea, and it flared up rather badly after I got the flu recently, so it was very hard to have any energy beyond work and home commitments to do any more.

I’m certainly planning on entering Retrochallenge 2018/04 more successfully, but I can’t promise I won’t work on my europluses before then – in fact, I’m expecting to do at least a little bit during WOzFest 8-bit as penance.

Retrochallenge 2017/10 Entry – europlus Refurbapalooza Ep. 3

Retrochallenge time is almost upon us again, and, after two prior entries helping me move my europlus refurbishment project along, there’s no way I wasn’t going to enter again!

And so, for the third Retrochallenge in a row, I am entering my “continuing stooooooory” of a europlus Refurbapalooza into the mix for Retrochallenge 2017/10.

I’m now at the stage of chronologically aligning the base (with serial number) to power supply to motherboard – my intention is to troubleshoot the motherboards once attached to the bases and connected to the power supplies, but before affixing the top case – it will make swapping chips out that much easier, especially at the front and back of the motherboards.

I’ll also aim to replace any missing/damaged/moved rubber feet on the bases, and hopefully clean the top plastic cases.

My minimal aim is to have at least one extra fully operational unit by the end of October – given the glitches I saw when I quickly ran through all the machines, I think it’ll be a stretch to get them all working, but I will try.

If you’re vacillating about entering, or have never considered entering, I can highly recommend it as a way to help you move your retrocomputing project/s forward.

For anyone who does enter, whether for the first time or as a returning entrant, I wish a heartfelt “Good luck!”

Retrochallenge 2017/04 Recap – europlus Refurbapalooza Edges Along

I was right in my suspicion that I would not get as much done with my europlus refurbishment this time ’round, but I am actually happy with what I got done during April (and just outside the competition deadline) given my “real life” constraints.

During April, I tested the electrolytic capacitors on all seven of my europlus AA11040C power supplies, developed my capacitors “Spec & Check” sheet for that model PSU (which was definitely not on my original April agenda), and during WOzFest PR#6, I replaced the filter capacitor on one of my PSUs and tested it in a europlus.

On 1 May local time (after “tools down”), I found some time towards the end of the day to replace the necessary filter and electrolytic capacitors on the remaining six PSUs, and all but the last one are now working.

That last one is a bit of an oddball compared to the others – it had a large filter cap (which had blown) and resistor soldered directly across the Live and Neutral pins of the power cord socket on the PSU case. It’s also the highest serial number AA11040C I have.

Subsequent discussions on the local Apple ][ enthusiasts mailing list were held regarding this apparent modification – in fact, it looks like the PSU shipped from the factory with this modification. This is consistent with several such examples owned by local enthusiasts, and the cord socket being riveted to the case as with the other PSUs (although rotated 180° compared to my other AA11040Cs).

In the longer, later Apple //e PSUs (the AA11040C was used in the plus, europlus and //e), this larger filter cap and resistor were incorporated into the main circuit board of the PSU, further strengthening the evidence the capacitor and resistor on the socket were a modification made by Apple in-factory.

The PSU should work without them (it’s not working, so will need further investigation), but I will replace the blown filter cap and the resistor (which I removed when I removed the filter cap) once I’ve got the PSU working.

Anyway, it was an instructive April for me, and I’m pleased with having six refurbished PSUs and having created the “Spec & Check” sheet – roll on the next Retrochallenge!