Flashback to one of my Apple eras...

A while back I found some old black and white negatives I'd forgotten about. That is one of the nice things about moving, old stuff presents like new.

Among these negatives I found these pictures of my second computer. My brother and I shared the cost of this and Dad chipped in the rest.

It was an Apple II Euro Plus and the love of my life. Well, after all I was a spotty teenager, what did you expect? A girlfriend?

Even though the photo is black and white the representation of the screen shots is quite accurate because I only had a black and white tele plugged into it.

I can't quite remember the specifications of it. Lucky for you eh?

But I do remember that this machine had been upgraded significantly by its previous owner. We got it second hand for $3500 if I recall correctly. OMG indeed!

We had twin 5.25 inch floppy drives, not many people bothered to have two, which meant the operating system could boot off one and we could do stuff with the other without having to endlessly swap disks.

It also meant we could copy programs more easily. Legitimate ones. Programs we had written ourselves and such...of course.

To the left is a screen shot of a flight simulator we had. Yep, I am not sure what it is actually simulating but it was great fun at the time.

These days flight simulators are photo realistic and you can even have a full 3D cockpit and motion simulator in your garage if you want. I want!

Below that is another favourite game. It was quite like an arcade game of the time and this was one of the best parts of having an Apple - you didn't have to fork out endless money at Time Zone and get beaten up by the local tough kids for using their machine.

Of course, those of you old enough may recall a certain trick with electronic cigarette lighters which bypassed the payment option. Sadly this trick also sped up your beating from the tough kids as they too wanted free arcade games.

The idea of this game was to shoot planes and their parachuting occupants before they could overrun your bunker or bomb it. Here you can see two little guys advancing on the bunker while a plane bombs it.

I wish I still had that machine. It would be a museum piece.

But then again maybe not. Fun times!