They’re gonna love this one at the Apple Genius Bar.
A New York professor took a stroll down memory lane on Twitter over the weekend after discovering a decades-old Apple IIe computer in the attic of his parents’ home. The machine still worked when John Pfaff turned it on, and even prompted him to restore a saved game after he popped a disk into it.
Pfaff figured the machine was probably 30 years old — and that putting hands on it again made him feel 10.
Oh.
My.
God.An Apple IIe. Sat in my parents’ attic for years. Decades.
And it works.
Put in an old game disk. Asks if I want to restore a saved game.
And finds one!
It must be 30 years old.
I’m 10 years old again. pic.twitter.com/zL7wWxOo36
— John Pfaff (@JohnFPfaff) February 17, 2019
This is tricky, because three decades later I can’t quite remember where I left off this round of Adventureland. pic.twitter.com/Eoj7EqkHtb
— John Pfaff (@JohnFPfaff) February 17, 2019
Pfaff, author of “Locked In,” an examination of the U.S. prison system, ended up tweeting throughout the night on Saturday as he tried numerous floppy disks in the 30-year-old computer.
He played a few games, reviewed notes left on disk sleeves and even read a letter on the machine that his late father wrote to him in 1986, when he was 11 and away at summer camp.
Just found this letter my dad typed to me in 1986, when I was 11 and at summer camp.
I REALLY WONDER what my theory abt the daily newspaper comics Spider-Man was.
My dad passed away almost exactly a year ago. It’s amazing to come across something so “ordinary” from him. pic.twitter.com/Aog3MiSnXN
— John Pfaff (@JohnFPfaff) February 17, 2019
Hm. I rocked this version of One on One. Could hit a three from anywhere.
But the boxes my mom sent have no joystick!!
Will GameStop have one that fits these ports? pic.twitter.com/VQFgaAyb9G
— John Pfaff (@JohnFPfaff) February 17, 2019
My kids thought things were insanely retro when my wife and I played NES Super Mario on the oldest’s Switch.
Tomorrow morning their definition of retro is going to shift significantly. pic.twitter.com/cwpMyvCoYw
— John Pfaff (@JohnFPfaff) February 17, 2019
Hacker screens!
And ASCII art!
On a 35 year old 5.25” magnetic disk from the first Reagan Administration. pic.twitter.com/2EWVrcxvLr
— John Pfaff (@JohnFPfaff) February 17, 2019
Pfaff was also blown away by a retweet from the famed science fiction author William Gibson, who reacted to Pfaff finding a copy of the 1988 game “Neuromancer” — loosely based on Gibson’s 1984 novel of the same name.
This game… never got past the first level despite HOURS of (pre-internet cheating) trying.
Now w the web, I have a shot.
The music, tho. That classic Apple IIe music. pic.twitter.com/ebeXNzoCs2
— John Pfaff (@JohnFPfaff) February 17, 2019
Check out more of Pfaff’s tweets:
Wow. So this was an old trivia game I loved (Millionware). This screen gets to the point where it says “Say ‘Hello’ to our contestants Donna.”
And then the disk drive whirs w its little red light.
Then you get “Thank you, Donna.”
1984 computer humor. pic.twitter.com/dFnbQk7y0D
— John Pfaff (@JohnFPfaff) February 17, 2019
It’s like riding a bicycle.
But need to get that 100m dash time down a bit. That was respectable in the 1980s, but not anymore. pic.twitter.com/cmnOKwBUUJ
— John Pfaff (@JohnFPfaff) February 17, 2019
“No, look, kids. This computer has. no. hard-drive. The reason those giant disks say ‘Disk Side’ 1-4 is you had to keep flipping them over as you played.”
Hi-def Mario Kart 8 for the Switch there for comparison. pic.twitter.com/6mZCgiEaR7
— John Pfaff (@JohnFPfaff) February 17, 2019
I FOUND THE APPLEWORKS PROGRAM DISK.
Insanely, it had been sitting in the disk drive for 30 years. I took it out without looking at the title.
Going w 1995 to avoid any Y2K issues.
And look: “folders.” pic.twitter.com/Q04O63GDSr
— John Pfaff (@JohnFPfaff) February 17, 2019
Also, in the days before the Cloud, kids, you had to make sure you backed up your backups, bc those floppies could betray you.
My dad wrote a computer financial modeling textbook. He… wasn’t joking abt backups.
Not sure why he went w the fancy Roman numerals tho (w “6” too!). pic.twitter.com/YFQmy97GyN
— John Pfaff (@JohnFPfaff) February 17, 2019
Sarah Connor narrates
And in the end, all our efforts to terminate Skynet were in vain, because in an attic somewhere, an old Apple computer was prepared to wait 30 years to finish the game….. #Terminator https://t.co/RogJEF2rYa
— BikeyMikey (@bikeymikey70) February 17, 2019
