Apple II Textfiles(textfiles.com)
textfiles.com
Apple II Textfiles
http://textfiles.com/apple/
7 comments
How were the files compiled and distributed before they ended up on this website? How did your opportunity to contribute to them come about?
I wrote it by myself, there was a certain program I was using (pirating) and nobody else had the manual for it. And you really didn't scan things into PDFs back then. A disk only held 140KB. So I spent a weekend and figured things out by trial-and-error and wrote it up. Did it in a text editor and uploaded it to my favorite BBS.
Distribution happened lots of ways. A BBS might trade files with a friendly BBS somewhere else. Some people collected them like Pokemon and traded them. Having something valuable that others wanted was a currency. Maybe I sent you my G-File collection and you sent me Dr J vs Larry Bird.
Eventually these files diffused all over the planet and wound up in collections on the internet and CD-ROMs at hamfests. They will spring up in the most unlikely of places.
It's fun to look back on it now, but it wasn't always wonderful. Calling BBSes could get expensive, transmitting files tied up your system for an entire night (no multitasking!) for something that took up less space than a Facebook tracking cookie. The hardware and bandwidth I'm using now would have been incomprehensible back then.
Distribution happened lots of ways. A BBS might trade files with a friendly BBS somewhere else. Some people collected them like Pokemon and traded them. Having something valuable that others wanted was a currency. Maybe I sent you my G-File collection and you sent me Dr J vs Larry Bird.
Eventually these files diffused all over the planet and wound up in collections on the internet and CD-ROMs at hamfests. They will spring up in the most unlikely of places.
It's fun to look back on it now, but it wasn't always wonderful. Calling BBSes could get expensive, transmitting files tied up your system for an entire night (no multitasking!) for something that took up less space than a Facebook tracking cookie. The hardware and bandwidth I'm using now would have been incomprehensible back then.
I also authored some of these in the 1980s (before PDF, CDs, OCR, and scanners in the home). Typed into word processor software (that can save as text files, not binary) or just a text editor.
Mine and many others were distributed on file sharing sites called AE Servers. And yes, BBSs, too.
Some of the more popular files were the ones typed up from The Anarchist’s Cookbook, and peoples’ variations on those (bomb making, lock picking, etc). I never knew that was a real book until many years later.
Mine and many others were distributed on file sharing sites called AE Servers. And yes, BBSs, too.
Some of the more popular files were the ones typed up from The Anarchist’s Cookbook, and peoples’ variations on those (bomb making, lock picking, etc). I never knew that was a real book until many years later.
Files from Anarchist's Cookbook were always a hit with the kids. Imagine all the rebellion and havoc you could cause! I tried some of the recipes and nothing ever really worked. But it was a lot of fun to read.
I didn't know what BBS was until I Googled. So to save a question/google:
A bulletin board system (BBS), also called computer bulletin board service (CBBS),[1] is a computer server running software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging messages with other users through public message boards and sometimes via direct chatting. In the early 1980s, message networks such as FidoNet were developed to provide services such as NetMail, which is similar to internet-based email.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system
A bulletin board system (BBS), also called computer bulletin board service (CBBS),[1] is a computer server running software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging messages with other users through public message boards and sometimes via direct chatting. In the early 1980s, message networks such as FidoNet were developed to provide services such as NetMail, which is similar to internet-based email.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system
The sharp intake of breath you hear is a bunch of us oldies being reminded we're old...
By the by, in the UK local calls were billed, whereas (I think) they are/were free in the US so BBSs were much thinner on the ground as they were so much more expensive to connect to - and to run if the owner offered FidoNet etc.
By the by, in the UK local calls were billed, whereas (I think) they are/were free in the US so BBSs were much thinner on the ground as they were so much more expensive to connect to - and to run if the owner offered FidoNet etc.
For traditional landline residential service in the US there are 3 types of calls. Local, local toll and long distance. The US is divided into Local Access and Transport Areas (LATA). Each LATA is also divided into local exchanges. Each LATA is operated by a Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC).
Local calls are calls which stay within a local exchange and there is usually no charge for them. Calls between local exchanges within a LATA, intraLATA, are local toll calls and are billed. These days there is expanded local exchange calling which allows for calling between certain local exchanges within a LATA without a fee, but back in the day this didn't really exist. Long distance calls are those which go between different LATAs.
Local toll calls were the most expensive calls to make because there was no competition for those calls. There were multiple competing long distance services which kept costs lower for those.
Depending upon where your local exchange boundary fell calling a local BBS could be more expensive than calling one that was across the country. My local user group BBS was physically located 20 miles from me but was in my local exchange so no charge to call. A friend who was physically located 2 miles from me ran a BBS and it was an expensive local toll call for me.
This is based upon how the system has worked since the AT&T breakup in the early 80s. Not sure how it worked prior to that. I didn't start using BBS's until shortly after the breakup happened.
Local calls are calls which stay within a local exchange and there is usually no charge for them. Calls between local exchanges within a LATA, intraLATA, are local toll calls and are billed. These days there is expanded local exchange calling which allows for calling between certain local exchanges within a LATA without a fee, but back in the day this didn't really exist. Long distance calls are those which go between different LATAs.
Local toll calls were the most expensive calls to make because there was no competition for those calls. There were multiple competing long distance services which kept costs lower for those.
Depending upon where your local exchange boundary fell calling a local BBS could be more expensive than calling one that was across the country. My local user group BBS was physically located 20 miles from me but was in my local exchange so no charge to call. A friend who was physically located 2 miles from me ran a BBS and it was an expensive local toll call for me.
This is based upon how the system has worked since the AT&T breakup in the early 80s. Not sure how it worked prior to that. I didn't start using BBS's until shortly after the breakup happened.
In the early days in the US every call was billed. If your call was to another city or even area code then it was a "toll" call and was even more expensive. That sparked the traffic in stolen calling card codes (an account with a long-distance telephone company). Most of these "codes" were only 4 digits so many people wrote programs to brute-force the codes. Then they were traded rapidly to spread the blame and, again, were treated as currency.
Later on some phone companies offered "call-paks" which allowed unlimited calls to numbers in the same area code. But that still didn't cover long-distance. FIDOnet was a clever way to let you call locally and still work nationally.
Operation Sundevil took down a lot of the hubs for trafficking LD codes, but by that time a lot of BBSes were turning into internet ISPs and modeming over long distances wasn't necessary. Things faded off after that.
Later on some phone companies offered "call-paks" which allowed unlimited calls to numbers in the same area code. But that still didn't cover long-distance. FIDOnet was a clever way to let you call locally and still work nationally.
Operation Sundevil took down a lot of the hubs for trafficking LD codes, but by that time a lot of BBSes were turning into internet ISPs and modeming over long distances wasn't necessary. Things faded off after that.
transmitting files tied up your system for an entire night (no multitasking!) for something that took up less space than a Facebook tracking cookie. The hardware and bandwidth I'm using now would have been incomprehensible back then.
Not just HW and bandwidth, it's the software too.
File transfers were probably done via the XModem protocol, which did error checking only via a weak checksum, not even a CRC. Over a large file, the chances of corruption somewhere were dismaying.
And these here were text files, which should be hugely compressible. But at this point in history, compression algorithms were still in their infancy. I don't recall encountering ARC until the late 80s. So you'd be transmitting rather more than you needed to in the first place.
Not just HW and bandwidth, it's the software too.
File transfers were probably done via the XModem protocol, which did error checking only via a weak checksum, not even a CRC. Over a large file, the chances of corruption somewhere were dismaying.
And these here were text files, which should be hugely compressible. But at this point in history, compression algorithms were still in their infancy. I don't recall encountering ARC until the late 80s. So you'd be transmitting rather more than you needed to in the first place.
Really good point. You also had other environmental hazards, like a family member picking up an extension phone when your transfer was 98% completed and the connection dropped. Lots of fun memories there.
> transmitting files tied up your system for an entire night (no multitasking!)
Those of us with Apple ]['s and Novation Apple Cat's could chat while transferring files.
https://archive.org/details/Cat-Fur_2.0_Black_Bag
Those of us with Apple ]['s and Novation Apple Cat's could chat while transferring files.
https://archive.org/details/Cat-Fur_2.0_Black_Bag
The vast majority of files on Textfiles.com came from BBSs in the 1980s and early 90s. The founder, Jason Scott made an awesome documentary about the BBS days. Steven Levy also covers the time and the scene somewhat towards the end of his fantastically detailed book “Hackers”
The Jason Scott documentary is highly recommended. I knew Ward Christensen and Randy Suess, they were pretty interesting people. (RIP Randy, he passed away near the end of 2019)
Jason regularly streams his archiving activity on Twitch under the username "textfiles". It's usually a quiet stream- he's been digitizing a lot of videotapes recently.
Cracking has changed a lot, but also not so much. I love how the basic form is: let the target program load into memory then dump it to disk. Basically the same idea applies to older software protections like ASPack...find the original entry point (where the original executable is loaded up without protection), steal a few bytes to jump to a code cave, and patch whatever you want to patch from the code cave.
also, memory dumpers that can rebase an exe from memory given the original entry point
also, memory dumpers that can rebase an exe from memory given the original entry point
Related discussion (and well worth reading, including site owner's DEFCON talk)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22995008
The Apple II history series by Steven Weyhrich is wonderful if you’re a fan of knowing minute details about the various Apple II models. Having started my Apple II experience with the IIe I learned a lot about the models that came before. I was surprised and pleased at the level of technical detail he went into.
I was kind of expecting this to be about the fact that beginning with the Apple ][ and running up to (and maybe even a little past) the introduction of OS X, text files on Apple computers used ^M as the line delimiter as opposed to ^J on Unixes and ^M^J on DOS.
I wish there was a way to duplicate this but it just a fact that the industry got so profitable that these kinds of shared materials get hit by DMCA
These this always reminds me of x2ftp.oulu.fi. One of my biggest influences as a teenager. Soo much info
And it'll outlive me.