Man discovers working 30-year-old Apple IIe in parents' attic

[midian182]

What just happened? A lot of readers might hold on to their old computers, though most of them are unlikely to work after spending decades gathering dust. But that wasn’t the case for one law professor from New York University, who discovered that an old Apple IIe found in his parents’ attic was still in working order.

Professor John Pfaff, from Fordham University in New York, discovered the 30-year-old third model in the Apple II series, which was released back in 1983. Despite sitting in the same location for years, it still booted up and played games.

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) 17 February 2019

“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,” he tweeted. The game in question was Adventureland, the first text adventure game for microcomputers released by Scott Adams in 1978.

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) 17 February 2019

Pfaff also tried out several other titles, including trivia game Millionware, Olympic Decathlon, and Neuromancer, which is loosely based on the 1989 book by William Gibson.

The professor also found a letter his dad typed to him in 1986, when he was 11 and 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) 17 February 2019

The main unit for the Apple IIe originally launched with a $1,395 price tag, equivalent to around $3,510 today. Buying it with accessories such as the monitor brought the price up to $1,995 (around $5,025 today). It came with new features including upper and lower case letters, full functionality of the Shift and Caps Lock keys, and four-way cursor control. It also boasted 64KB of RAM as standard, expandable to 1MB. The machine was discontinued in 1993.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/78800-man-finds-30-year-old-apple-iie-parents.html

 

[p51d007]

Soon to be listed on e-bay of course

 

[Jeff Re]

And I have a Commodore 64 that still works. How is this news? I expect this from MacRumors but not from TechSpot.

 

[Experimentongod]

And I have a Commodore 64 that still works. How is this news? I expect this from MacRumors but not from TechSpot.

You read my mind.
So if I undust some random piece of garbage tech from my basement I make front page now?
Why wouldn't it work? Dust doesn't kill hardware over time (?)

 

[Nobina]

And I have a Commodore 64 that still works. How is this news? I expect this from MacRumors but not from TechSpot.

It's either this or nothing at all.

 

[cliffordcooley]

Electronics do age. Materials in all the components will deteriorate. Everything has a shelf life.

And that is not to mention 5 1/4 magnetic media. If it had been 3 1/2 floppy disk, chances are the data would have been corrupted. Those things had a tendency to die within 5 years.

 

[learninmypc]

And I have a Commodore 64 that still works. How is this news? I expect this from MacRumors but not from TechSpot.

IF you don't consider it news, why is it mentioned numerous times here

 

[Kandygrrl]

I have three working Apple IIe machines and two working c64's. Aside from the fact one of the c64's has been dropped and the plastic around the keys is broken badly, they all still work just fine... well as good as they ever did.

 

[Uncle Al]

Mine's not in the attic and it still works great along with that huge 5 MB hard drive I got when they first came out! The 3.5 drive works, had to replace the monitor and the old original 5.25 drive gave up the ghost years ago, but old PFS file and write are still going strong as well as AppleWorks ......

 

[ferrellsl]

Built to last? Not hardly. There's just a lot less in those old systems to go wrong over time. And why is this even news? People drag out old computers from the 70's and 80's that have been left in attics all the time that are still working. I have an Amiga 1200 that spent 25 years in storage and when I fired it up again the battery backed clock was only off by 12 minutes. I wasn't at all surprised that the computer still worked but I was astonished that the battery wasn't dead and hadn't leaked all over the motherboard.

 

[mcborge]

For that apple ii to work flawlessly after all this time is remarkable. You would expect blown caps and a leaky system battery from a machine of this age, not to mention degraded magnetic media.

 

[Crobble]

And I have a Commodore 64 that still works. How is this news? I expect this from MacRumors but not from TechSpot.

Yeah this. I recently found an old Odyssey 300 from the 70s in my basement. Maybe I should have tested it instead of putting it in the trash. It could have been news!

 

[Thrackerzod]

This is a strange article. I mean I do like reading about old computers but I am not sure why this is being presented as something surprising and out of the ordinary. Lots of 30 year old computers still work; ebay is filled with them. I have a 40 year old Atari 2600 that still works but it's not really newsworthy.

 

[Thrackerzod]

And I have a Commodore 64 that still works. How is this news? I expect this from MacRumors but not from TechSpot.

IF you don't consider it news, why is it mentioned numerous times here

Because it has gone viral for reasons I just can't begin to fathom.

 

[ferrellsl]

Upcoming stories on TechSpot:

Man finds 30 year old diary in attic. Text still legible!

40 year old VHS tape deck found in attic. Still plays pirated HBO movies!

60 year old transistor radio found in attic. Still puts out awful audio on the AM band!

 

[cliffordcooley]

Upcoming stories on TechSpot:

I'll take this over non-tech articles any day.

 

[YSignal]

Apparently no one at techspot watches 8-bit guy or the dozens of youtubers that have old computers.

 

[captaincranky]

Apparently no one at techspot watches 8-bit guy or the dozens of youtubers that have old computers.

There's people on YouTube who have complete walls filled with Lava Lamps too, but I don't give a crap what they have to say, or how special they think they are because of it.

At the end of the day, I could find myself listening to, (and most certainly have), a bunch of crap here, because I'm using a 10 year old computer to visit TechSpot.

Yet you expect that I should waste time on, and venerate, some uber geek on YouTube, who d!cks around with something like an Atari 800 all day?

Pass.

 

[Mugsy]

Meh. My old Atari 800XL still works just fine.

 

[captaincranky]

Meh. My old Atari 800XL still works just fine.

You've never stepped up to the 1200? It has/had a much sleeker look.

Besides, even if you start an Atari YouTube channel, I'm not subscribing. Nothing personal mind you, I suppose it's just because I'm pissed at myself for never really getting the hang of Atari Assembly Language..

 

[Kibaruk]

Like if you just came here to see how much the device got from eBay

 

[Mugsy]

You've never stepped up to the 1200? It has/had a much sleeker look.

My next move was a 1MB 520ST (followed by a 4MB STe.)

 

[JamesSWD]

I still have a Tandy 1000 from the early 80's, the monitor, dot-matrix printer, etc. All in their original boxes. Want to ditch them because they take up a lot of space, but can't seem to part with them.

 

[koblongata]

Electronics do age. Materials in all the components will deteriorate. Everything has a shelf life.

And that is not to mention 5 1/4 magnetic media. If it had been 3 1/2 floppy disk, chances are the data would have been corrupted. Those things had a tendency to die within 5 years.

Must be the humidity, hardware like it dry, if the computer is sitting unpowered in a humid area it's gonna deteriorate in a couple of years...