Historic Apple II DOS source code now available to download
Thanks to a collaboration between two vintage computer museums, the Apple II DOS source code, widely regarded as the seed that sprouted Apple as we know it, has been made available to the public.
The Computer History Museum, with the help of DigiBarn Computer Museum, posted to its website on Tuesday the Apple II disk operating system for non-commercial use. Apple gave consent to the publication as the company still owns the code.
The Apple II was a fully-assembled personal computer with a number of advanced features like a built-in BASIC programming language, compatibility for an external monitor and various modes of input. However, the machine lacked a disk drive, meaning programs and data had to be stored and retrieved via cassette tape.
Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak created a floppy disk controller for the Apple II in 1977, but needed a DOS to access and organize the associated programs and data. That task was handled by contract programmer Paul Laughton, who at the time worked for Shepardson Microsystems.
In 1978, Steve Jobs inked a $13,000 deal with Bob Shepardson to provide a file manager, BASIC interface and utilities, with a delivery date pegged for some seven seeks later. Laughton said he had to write the DOS on punch card sheets, which were assembled and made into a paper tape able to be read by a plug in card created by Wozniak. The process was repeated throughout debugging and updating.
After just a few weeks of coding, Apple II DOS 3.2 was released in June 1978.
The source code can be downloaded via The Computer History Museum's website, while documents relating to the software, including schematics and business agreements, can be found on DigiBarn's site.
The Computer History Museum, with the help of DigiBarn Computer Museum, posted to its website on Tuesday the Apple II disk operating system for non-commercial use. Apple gave consent to the publication as the company still owns the code.
The Apple II was a fully-assembled personal computer with a number of advanced features like a built-in BASIC programming language, compatibility for an external monitor and various modes of input. However, the machine lacked a disk drive, meaning programs and data had to be stored and retrieved via cassette tape.
Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak created a floppy disk controller for the Apple II in 1977, but needed a DOS to access and organize the associated programs and data. That task was handled by contract programmer Paul Laughton, who at the time worked for Shepardson Microsystems.
In 1978, Steve Jobs inked a $13,000 deal with Bob Shepardson to provide a file manager, BASIC interface and utilities, with a delivery date pegged for some seven seeks later. Laughton said he had to write the DOS on punch card sheets, which were assembled and made into a paper tape able to be read by a plug in card created by Wozniak. The process was repeated throughout debugging and updating.
After just a few weeks of coding, Apple II DOS 3.2 was released in June 1978.
The source code can be downloaded via The Computer History Museum's website, while documents relating to the software, including schematics and business agreements, can be found on DigiBarn's site.
Comments
They were grown adults who had families and other careers, etc.
Without those academics with maturity behind them through life experience we'd have nothing but pissant Facebooks of the globe.
The real weight of Computer Science has always come from people 40 years of age. Some really great ideas from the 15-39 crowd, but the heavy lifting has always come from much more seasoned minds.
Nice to see Apple going the open source route.
Will this run on my 2011 MacBook Air?
If you run into any problems just hit up the Genius Bar at the Apple Store.
Where will we be in 2050!? (I know where I'll be
For "for non-commercial use" as if there's any use for it at all? It's 35 years old and has no relevancy anymore. That's like IBM making their punch cards open source.
so where will you be?
you wrote "less than half a lifetime" so logic dictates that you'll still have some time ahead of you when 2050 rolls around ...
Apple released Iphone6 image.Did you see it?If not see here http://imgdino.com/viewer.php?file=68880560336892107577.jpg
Quit sending links to obscene adult related sites. Take your trash somewhere else!
It's 35 years old and has no relevancy anymore.
It's interesting that many modern programmers have almost unlimited resources available to them on modern platforms and as a result can often write inefficient algorithms and code. Obviously re-usable code / objects /etc. help in some regard with design and maintenance..
But, they didn't have that luxury in the early days. I can remember adding up the CPU cycles of individual 6502 assembly instructions within loops to see if it was possible to code it a different way to increase the speed of execution - With a 1.023Mhz chip , 256 bytes of 'zeropage' addresses and maybe 16 or 48KB to store code AND data in, you had fairly limited resources on the Apple ][ even with only a text-based display!
But, as you say .. probably not relevant to modern coding 'methods' with our gargantuan ( by comparison ) resources.
Yes I visited Apple many times when I lived for 25-years in the Bay area.
Half a lifetime.... Not necessarily mine.
Yeah! Apple occupied quite a few buildings on Bandley, Mariani, Stevens Creek and De Anza * in the early years...
AIR, that particular address was called "Bandley 3". My first visit to Apple was in June 1978 to a building (Bandley 2?) that was closer to Stevens Creek.
I believe that Bandey 3 is the building where Woz's brother Mark and I met Woz late one night and Woz smuggled out a controller card and 2 drives (without any Apple logos or markings). I had bought an Apple ][ from a store that Mark managed, Mark let me take the smuggled drives home for a long weekend.
Ahh... Great memories!
* Apple would usually include a logo on their building to differentiate them from others nearby. One of the most unique was a 2-story California Mission style building on De Anza about 2 blocka above Stevens Creek. They incorporated the Apple logo as a void in the wrought iron railing on the 2nd floor... This location was called "Taco Towers".
Does anyone know about the address shown near the top left corner of the letter, "10260 Bandley Drive, Cupertino, CA 95014"? Was this an address that Apple once had?
Yes, Apple had a number of buildings on Bandley drive, and I believe that was the originally building that worked out. They eventually took over all of Bandley drive along with Valley Green Dr through out the 80's
Yes and no!
I had worked for IBM for 14+ years in 1978. My wife, Lucy, let me buy an Apple ][ for my 39th birthday.
At that time, really, there was no mature discipline known as "Computer Science". My first real programming class was on the IBM 650 in 1958. They didn't really have compilers back then -- about the most advanced construct was a symbolic assembler. My early training was learning to program the "Indian problem" in the native assembly (machine) language of various computers.
My first job programming job (age 21) was for Lockheed in 1960 -- they were planning to install an IBM 1401 to replace 3 IBM 407 unit record accounting machines. There were no compilers, at first... RPG came later.
When I went to work for IBM in 1963 (age 24) there was a ForTran compiler for scientific machines. But business programming was mostly still done in assembly language. The most advanced constructs were FIOS (File I/O Systems and TOS (Tape Operating Systems). CoBOL and AlgoL compilers were in development and would soon gain widespread use. There were no disk drives or dumb terminals in wide use.
When I left IBM in 1979, it was partly because: I was 40; I wanted to be my own boss and I saw the Apple ][ as a vehicle.
Likely, at that time, "Computer Science" was being taught and learned... We all benefit from that.
I maintain that we also benefitted from the mature, seasoned, businessmen like Mike Markkula, Scottie, Gene Carter, Wil Houd... They gave the business of computing the attention that they deserved.
BTW, I was in the room when Steve Jobs said: "Never trust anyone over 40"... I was 40.