[Blindapple] Exciting news for the Blind Apple II emulation community!

[Rachel Keyte]

Yes, I'm in Australia.
Lol that all sounds way too technical. like I say, I'll try and get 
the ROMs to work. :)
Thanks anyway.
At 09:18 PM 28/08/2013, you wrote:
>Hi,
>
>You're right that you can't read those disks with anything modern. 
>There is a device that lets you image 5.25 disks, but you have to 
>have a specific type of PC 5.25 drive. The best way, imho, is to 
>image them using actual Apple computers. You run a serial cable from 
>your Apple to your PC, assuming it still has a serial port, and use 
>a program called Apple Disk Transfer to image floppies. Of course 
>this assumes you still have working Apple hardware. If not, the only 
>solution is to send the disks to someone who does, and get that 
>person to image them for you. So I'd say you're doing the right 
>thing not throwing those disks away, you might find a way to read 
>them some day. I'd offer to help with imaging disks, but based on 
>the timezone of my original message from your perspective, it looks 
>like you're not in the US, which would probably pose some problems 
>with international shipping and whatnot.
>Jayson
>
>On 8/28/2013 5:57 AM, Rachel Keyte wrote:
>>wow, I have fond memories of some of the Echo games - one that 
>>comes to mind I loved was where Echo would announce a key on the 
>>keyboard and repeat it getting higher in pitch til you pressed it. 
>>If you missed, it would explode.
>>Also remember wordtalk?
>>I still have all those floppy discs; guess they're no good now but 
>>just can't throw them out. Lol
>>I'm worried I'm not technical enough for the below but I might 
>>certainly give it a go. :)
>>At 10:37 AM 28/08/2013, you wrote:
>>>Hi all,
>>>
>>>It's finally happened, what we've all been waiting for. I didn't 
>>>know about it until a week or two ago, and I got it working this 
>>>morning. I'm talking about the MESS project emulating the Apple II 
>>>systems. Not only that, but someone decided to add Echo II 
>>>emulation! Yes, you heard right, at long last, you can get a feel 
>>>for how the old systems really worked for us blind folks back in 
>>>the 80's without ever buying any Apple hardware.
>>>
>>>Disclaimer: The file I'm about to link to includes ROM images. It 
>>>is illegal for anyone to possess these ROMs unless they own the 
>>>original hardware, in this case, an Apple IIe Enhanced and a Disk 
>>>II controller card. However, since these files are absolutely 
>>>necessary for the emulator to do anything at all, I've decided to 
>>>make things easier by providing the ROMs.
>>>
>>>If you'd like to take this emulator for a spin, you'll need to be 
>>>running Windows. MESS runs on many platforms, but Windows was the 
>>>system I chose for this quick distribution since it's what I most 
>>>often use. Download the following file:
>>>http://bluegrasspals.com/messapple.zip
>>>
>>>Unzip it somewhere. In the disks folder are a few talking .dsk 
>>>images for you to play around with. To start the emulator with one 
>>>of them, do, for example,
>>>mess apple2ee -flop1 disks\egames.dsk
>>>
>>>Yes, you do need to write apple2ee with two e's, since we're 
>>>emulating an Enhanced IIe. This system has an extended 80-column 
>>>card, an Echo II in slot 4, and a disk controller in slot 6. Once 
>>>the program starts, you may have to hit Enter to start the Apple. 
>>>You'll notice that the Echo speech sounds a bit fast, I noticed that too.
>>>
>>>For the most part, things work like you'd think. F12 is the reset 
>>>key, left and right Alt seem to be open apple and closed apple. To 
>>>quit, hold down scroll lock, press Insert, and release both keys, 
>>>then press Escape. To make this work, if you're using Jaws, you'll 
>>>need to passthrough or have Jaws go to sleep or unload it. Same 
>>>goes for Control key commands in the Apple. I don't know how the 
>>>arrows are emulated, so I use the Control key equivalents, Ctrl+H 
>>>for left, Ctrl+U for right, Ctrl+J for down, and Ctrl+K for up.
>>>
>>>I don't know of an accessible way to switch disks during a 
>>>session, so you probably don't want to use this to play Eamon. The 
>>>MESS UI doesn't seem to be accessible.
>>>
>>>Hope you can get something out of this! I certainly have enjoyed it.
>>>Jayson
>>>
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>>>BlindApple at bluegrasspals.com
>>>http://jaybird.no-ip.info/mailman/listinfo/blindapple
>>
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>
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