The original Apple IIs (before the IIgs) had their own DOS but it was 
something Apple wrote from scratch and not a clone of CP/M or MS DOS. It 
had the usual commands to catalog the contents of a disk or execute a 
program. It was, like many things on the II, very small fast and 
efficient but had some gaping holes such as the lack of a copy command 
or folders. You also had to type out CATALOG every time which got old. 
That's why I used the ampersand trick to make it do a catalog. poke 
1014,110 and then poke 1015,165 to make & == CATALOG. So much typing 
saved that those pokes still stick in my head years later. Yet I still 
forget the lunch I packed on the the table at home when heading to work. 
Why is that?

CB

Krister Ekstrom wrote:
> Hi there.
> I think your story isn't boring at all. It's interesting to hear where  
> people came from before they ended up here. All those old computers  
> and synths and stuff it's way cool!
> Has anyone, by the way, heard of or even used a computer/screenreader/ 
> speech synth that was called "totaltalk". I have heard it, but i have  
> never used it. It was the only speech synth i couldn't for the life of  
> me understand what it said.
> A question also to the hard core apple users out there, did the Apple  
> II have a dos like interface? Did it differ much from MsDos?
> /Krister
>
>
> 7 jun 2009 kl. 22.30 skrev Ignasi Cambra:
>
>   
>> All this stories are so fascinating...! Many of these computers you
>> guys are talking about are way older than me anyway... I started using
>> DOS with a spanish screen reader called Habla. Well I think it was
>> developed in Spain, but I don't know if anyone else ever tried it. It
>> was kind of similar to JAWS for Dos. I used that thing with an
>> external synth connected through the serial port. The synth was made
>> in Spain too, and it was pretty fancy for the time. Well, actually it
>> might not be a spanish synth, I don't know. It had some very very
>> sharp braille dots on it that said "Ciberveu". No seriously, they were
>> sharp enough that if you tried to read them with too much energy I
>> guess they could hurt you and everything! I was 7 or 8 years old by
>> then, so I only used Word Perfect and a dictionary that came in some 6
>> or 7 disketes. I even had a really, really loud embosser that I still
>> use these days. After that I started using a PC with Windows 98 when I
>> was 10 or 11. It had a 1gb HD and 64mb ram. After going through all
>> those Windows PC's I finally got a Macbook aluminum and I can't be any
>> happier with it...
>> Oh well, my story is obviously boring and uninteresting, but somehow I
>> wrote it anyway...
>>
>> Ignasi
>> On Jun 7, 2009, at 5:01 AM, Krister Ekstrom wrote:
>>
>>     
>>> Hi folks,
>>> I don't know if i have told you my computer history fully and if i
>>> had, feel free to skip this mail.
>>> I think i am one of the few blind people who actually started my
>>> computer experience in a graphical environment and loved it from the
>>> start.
>>> The very first computer like thing i had was an Eureka A4, ya know
>>> those note takers with thermometer, clock, calendar and many more
>>> things on them. It had its own variation of Cp/m so it was a command
>>> line interface. Then by accident or coinsidence or how one should say
>>> it, i and my work mates  stumbled upon Outspoken through an ad in a
>>> paper. We decided to try it out since a work mate on my job back then
>>> had a Mac Se30 with System 7 on it. It so happened that one of
>>> rehabilitation people i knew had a copy of Outspoken in a drawer that
>>> he had discarded as useless some time ago. I asked if i could borrow
>>> it and test it and got reluctant permission. Boy, was i glad when i
>>> discovered that not only could i access the Mac, but i could use it
>>> just as well as my sighted collegues, with the exception of graphics
>>> editing. I got a mac myself, that is first we rented a Mac Classic
>>> with 80 Meg hard drive and i thought that "I'm never gonna fill this
>>> gigantic hard drive". The experimentations went so well that i got my
>>> own Mac a Mac II Vx with 200 meg hard drive. This must have been
>>> around 1993 or something. I also had a Powerbook back then. This  
>>> setup
>>> went with me until 1996 or thereabouts when i was more or less forced
>>> to switch to PC. Of course i was curious as to what one could do with
>>> a PC and Dos so that was one of the reasons i switched. As i had used
>>> Outspoken and loved it on the Mac, i decided to try Outspoken for
>>> Windows when it came out. It was quite good, but not as good as the
>>> Mac version.
>>> Time went by and i tried various Windows incarnations, 95, 98 and XP,
>>> and now i'm back on the mac again and love it.
>>> One thing that i must mention before i finish this longish mail is
>>> that the only braille embosser compatible with the mac at that time  
>>> in
>>> Sweden, at least that's what they said, was a big loud thing called
>>> the Versapoint, anione remember that one? I never got that one to
>>> work.
>>> Well thanks for reading this looooongish letter of nostalgia.
>>> /Krister
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>>     
>
>
> >
>   

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