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Computer History Museum Releases Apple II DOS Source Code

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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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The Computer History Museum and the DigiBarn Computer Museum today released the 1978 Apple II DOS source code for non-commercial use after obtaining permission from Apple.
With thanks to Paul Laughton, in collaboration with Dr. Bruce Damer, founder and curator of the DigiBarn Computer Museum, and with the permission of Apple Inc., we are pleased to make available the 1978 source code of Apple II DOS for non-commercial use. This material is Copyright © 1978 Apple Inc., and may not be reproduced without permission from Apple.
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The Apple II, which first began shipping in 1977, came as a ready-to-use computer equipped with a keyboard, compatible with any display monitor. Priced at $1,298, it also featured color, graphics, expansion slots, game paddles, and had the BASIC programming language built-in.

appleII.jpg
The Apple II DOS source code was developed by Paul Laughton, a contract programmer from Shepardson Microsystems, who wrote DOS on punch cards over the span of seven weeks after Apple paid $13,000 for his services.
"DOS was written on punch cards. I would actually hand-write the code on 80-column punch card sheets. A guy at Shepardson named Mike Peters would take those sheets and punch the cards. The punch cards would then be read into a National Semiconductor IMP-16 and assembled, and a paper tape produced.

The paper tape was read into the Apple II by a plug-in card made by Wozniak, and I would proceed to debug it. As the project got further along and the code was all written, and it was debugging and updating, I would mark up a listing and give it to Mike Peters who would then change whatever was necessary and deliver me a paper tape and I'd start again."
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The source code is downloadable directly from the Computer History Museum website, and comes with meeting minutes between Apple and Shepardson Microsystem, plus contracts and scanned lineprinter listings from 1978. The Computer History Museum also has a detailed history of the creation of Apple II DOS, which is well worth a read.

Article Link: Computer History Museum Releases Apple II DOS Source Code
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2013/11/12/computer-history-museum-releases-apple-ii-dos-source-code/
tevion5

tevion5

macrumors 68000
Jul 12, 2011
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Love seeing historic software like this being made available to the public domain. Would be great if somebody would collect virtually all of it, any 1990 and earlier and make it downloadable for all. It won't survive on 5 1/4 inch floppies forever.

Like why would any software company like apple care who has their source code for an ancient system like the Apple ii? Sounds just like the legal team being over cautious. What are they afraid samsung will suddenly release a new command line desktop computer called the GalaxyLine ii or something?

I know EA still takes down copies of SIM CITY from the early 80's on macintosh garden. Why?? You can't even get that legally if you tried.
 
bradl

bradl

macrumors 603
Jun 16, 2008
5,927
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tevion5 said:
Love seeing historic software like this being made available to the public domain. Would be great if somebody would collect virtually all of it, any 1990 and earlier and make it downloadable for all. It won't survive on 5 1/4 inch floppies forever.
Click to expand...

I still have those floppies, including the Intro to Apple II disk that had the cute kids recipes, the maze game, and how to use Ctrl-Open Apple-Reset, the disk for Logo/Turtle Graphics, DOS, ProDOS, and the ImageWriter Toolkit.

If I had something nearby, like an Apple IIe, I could have them shipped out to load up. But I'm sure there have to be a couple million copies of those still floating around.

BL.
 
Candlelight

Candlelight

macrumors 6502a
Oct 12, 2011
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tevion5 said:
Love seeing historic software like this being made available to the public domain. Would be great if somebody would collect virtually all of it, any 1990 and earlier and make it downloadable for all. It won't survive on 5 1/4 inch floppies forever.
Click to expand...

Beta Archive has most of it available for download, though - as the name suggests - they focus on beta releases first and foremost.
 
Jessica Lares

Jessica Lares

macrumors G3
Oct 31, 2009
9,612
1,056
Near Dallas, Texas, USA
tevion5 said:
I know EA still takes down copies of SIM CITY from the early 80's on macintosh garden. Why?? You can't even get that legally if you tried.
Click to expand...

Because of the stuff they probably licensed for the game. It's never a 1 person effort on projects as big as that.

I never noticed there was a power button on the keyboard. Where have I seen that before?! ;)

I wish Computer History Museum had a few books. I would definitely buy those. Their site is great.
 
C

ChrisA

macrumors G5
Jan 5, 2006
12,581
1,697
Redondo Beach, California
iVoid said:
How far we've come from the punch card days. :)
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The sad fact is "not very far". There is little conceptual difference between a deck of cards and a computer text file. The cards take up more space.

Not we have text editors but we still type lines of text. The real difference is the cost is lower now.

The real changed from 1977 are (1) the Internet costs a LOT less. Back them only university labs could afford the price and of course there were few other computers on the net so the utility was not as great. I remember doing a telnet session from UCLA to CMU in the 70's thinking it was "cool" but that was it. and the other thing (2) is the lowered cost of hardware making graphics affordable to everything. Back in the 70's a full color display sold for the price of a house.
 
MacSince1990

MacSince1990

macrumors 65816
Oct 6, 2009
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I've been wishing they'd release the classic Mac OS (or at least System 7) source code for years.. I guess this is a start :p
 
9

9000

macrumors 6502a
Sep 29, 2013
519
0
Hyrule
tevion5 said:
Love seeing historic software like this being made available to the public domain. Would be great if somebody would collect virtually all of it, any 1990 and earlier and make it downloadable for all. It won't survive on 5 1/4 inch floppies forever.
Click to expand...

Being open-source and being free are different things. System 7 and earlier are free downloads from Apple's site, maybe even OS 8. System 1 is available from a University of Notre Dame site, and I'm assuming it's legal.
 
L

laserbeam273

macrumors 6502
Sep 7, 2010
424
0
Australia
tevion5 said:
Love seeing historic software like this being made available to the public domain. Would be great if somebody would collect virtually all of it, any 1990 and earlier and make it downloadable for all. It won't survive on 5 1/4 inch floppies forever.

Like why would any software company like apple care who has their source code for an ancient system like the Apple ii? Sounds just like the legal team being over cautious. What are they afraid samsung will suddenly release a new command line desktop computer called the GalaxyLine ii or something?

I know EA still takes down copies of SIM CITY from the early 80's on macintosh garden. Why?? You can't even get that legally if you tried.
Click to expand...

I second that.. I reckon after 10-15 years, programs should become open source. As if you're going to lose much profits from that. And you'd hope that the manufacturer has improved upon the software since then!
 
X

X38

macrumors 6502a
Jul 11, 2007
539
562
juniormaj said:
Technically a power light, if I recall (it's been a while since I used an Apple ][).

The power switch was on the back.
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You are correct - it is only a power indicator light. There used to be quite a market in remote power switches more accessible than the standard one in back on the power supply.
(Still have my ][+ in original box.)
 
J

josh.b

macrumors regular
Oct 19, 2013
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0
and now in a week we will see the product 'Samsung 2' release, slightly modified Apple II DOS code
 
flottenheimer

flottenheimer

macrumors 68000
Jan 8, 2008
1,530
651
Up north
iVoid said:
How far we've come from the punch card days. :)
Click to expand...

ChrisA said:
The sad fact is "not very far". There is little conceptual difference between a deck of cards and a computer text file. The cards take up more space. … Now we have text editors but we still type lines of text. The real difference is the cost is lower now.
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@ChrisA:

A $500 user-friendly smartphone in my pocket beats hard-to-operate computers the size of several fridges costing millions from back then. That's 'conceptual difference' for you.

The rate of progress in the computer area is simply amazing — from no matter what angle you look at it: Punchcards to SSDs. Hz to GHz. Bytes to TBs. Not connected to connected. Building-sized to pocket sized. Pixels to megapixels. No GUI to GUI. Wired to wireless. $millions to $hundreds.

We've come very far indeed.
I'm thrilled. Let's celebrate.
 
9

9000

macrumors 6502a
Sep 29, 2013
519
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Hyrule
roadbloc said:
Ctrl Atl Del for login wasn't actually meant to be.
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Ha, I saw that a while ago on BBC. That's what made me think of it :)

----------
flottenheimer said:
@ChrisA:

A $500 user-friendly smartphone in my pocket beats hard-to-operate computers the size of several fridges costing millions from back then. That's 'conceptual difference' for you.

The rate of progress in the computer area is simply amazing — from no matter what angle you look at it: Punchcards to SSDs. Hz to GHz. Bytes to TBs. Not connected to connected. Building-sized to pocket sized. Pixels to megapixels. No GUI to GUI. Wired to wireless. $millions to $hundreds.

We've come very far indeed.
I'm thrilled. Let's celebrate.
Click to expand...

I'd argue that more than half of that progress went towards making programming easier for the programmers. Heavier software for faster hardware. I can't believe anyone feels justified taking 1GB of RAM for a consumer program.
 
C

CTHarrryH

macrumors 68030
Jul 4, 2012
2,935
1,431
I remember when I bought a new Apple II way way back (my first computer) it came with a red manual which contained listings of code which I assumed was its operating system - may not have been. Unfortunately, I can't find that book which I had kept specifically as a historical document. Have to look again.

I find it interesting that it is called a DOS since DOS = Disk operating system and the original Apple II didn't support disks - even floppy disks. the only storage that was supported was a casette tape player and the optional software came on casette tapes.
The support for a floppy drive came later.
 
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