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Mastodon for Apple II (][+, //c, IIe, and IIgs) – colin@colino.net

Mastodon for Apple II (][+, //c, IIe, and IIgs) – colin@colino.net

2023-10-01 23:13:02

When you’re desirous about retro computing, chances are you’ll be pleased to learn that I’ve made a binary launch of my Mastodon consumer for the Apple 2. It has been largely examined on an Apple //c, and works on ][+, IIe, //c, //c+, IIe enhanced, IIe Platinum and IIgs according to emulator testing.

The login screen

Features:

This Mastodon client features:

  • 2 factor authentication login
  • Home, local and global timelines view
  • Infinite scroll
  • Profile view
  • Thread view for toots with replies
  • Notifications view
  • Image viewer (toots and profiles), with description
  • Favouriting and Retooting
  • Toot writing (with images)
  • Toot edition
  • Replying
  • Content Warning (both reading and sending)
  • (Un)following people
  • (Un)blocking and (un)masking people
  • Bookmarks

Most obviously missing things:

  • Polls
  • Profile edition (bio, images etc)
  • Account creation

To get a good idea of what you can do with this client, check the Mastodon for Apple II User guide.

What people say about it:

  • “I will never use this and yet I love that it exists.”
  • “Absolutely pointless, beautiful work here”

Screenshots:

(You will find detailed installation instructions just below these)

Installing the proxy:

Download surl-server-buster-YYYY-MM-DD-lite.img.gz from the Github Releases page.

Uncompress it and copy it to a micro-SD card. You can do it using command-line on most platforms, or use a tool like Balena Etcher to do it interactively. Here is how to do it via command-line (substitute YYYY-MM-DD for the file you downloaded, and /dev/mmcblk0 for your microSD’s device file):

gunzip surl-server-buster-YYYY-MM-DD-lite.img.gz
sudo dd if=surl-server-buster-YYYY-MM-DD-lite.img of=/dev/mmcblk0

You can now insert the microSD card in a Raspberry, plug it into your Ethernet network, and put it away for now.

Transferring the floppy:

Download the floppy image from the Github Releases page. Use the image corresponding to your Apple II:

Apple II model Floppy image
][+, IIe with no 80-column card mastodon-oldii.dsk
IIgs mastodon-iigs.dsk
//c, //c+, IIe enhanced or platinum mastodon.dsk

Obtain ADTPro from ADTPro’s releases page, and set up it.

Put the mastodon.dsk file in ADTPro’s disks/ subdirectory.

(Notice: there’s a very good video documenting the following process, should you choose this format).

Get a DIN-5 to DB-9 null modem cable (from RetroFloppy for example, from 8bitclassics, or on Ebay), and a DB-9 to USB serial adapter (from RetroFloppy for example, or simply about another place. Some chipsets are higher than others and an FTDI-based cable will work nice).

Join your Apple II to your fashionable laptop by way of the serial cables, then activate the Apple II with no floppy. Get to BASIC immediate, urgent Ctrl-Reset if needed, then kind:

IN#2

The quantity right here will depend on the place your cable is plugged: On an Apple //c, it’s 2 for the modem port, 1 for the printer port. On an Apple IIe, it will depend on your Tremendous Serial Card’s set up slot.

Now you can configure the serial port on the Apple II: On the command immediate, kind Ctrl-A, then, with out typing Enter, area or something, proceed with 14B. That is all.

In your fashionable laptop, begin ADTPro. Click on on the Serial button; choose your serial port (normally COM1 on Home windows, ttyUSB0 on Linux). Click on Bootstrapping / ProDOS / Speediboot. You will note ADTPro suggests to carry out the Apple II setup we simply did, so you may click on OK.

As soon as the bootstrapping is completed (a couple of minutes), the Apple II ADTPro consumer will open. Now you can insert a clean floppy disk within the Apple II, then hit R to obtain a disk picture, then both kind MASTODON.DSK, or Enter to get the record of obtainable disk photos and choose MASTODON.DSK.

(Notice: should you plan on utilizing ADTPro for extra, you may and will create an ADTPro floppy too, to keep away from all of the bootstrapping sooner or later. Simply obtain the ADTPRO-2.1.0.DSK file to a floppy).

Your Mastodon floppy is now prepared. You’ll be able to unplug the serial cable out of your PC, plug it into the Raspberry, and boot the Raspberry.

Now you can reset the Apple II (both by turning it on and off, or by way of Ctrl-Open-Apple-Reset), and login into your Mastodon occasion!

Last step: take pleasure in!

See Also

After this, every thing ought to work. If not, log onto the Raspberry utilizing ssh and the pi/raspberry login. You’ll be able to examine the logs in /var/log/syslog.

As soon as within the Mastodon utility on the Apple 2, ensure to configure it (utilizing the O key) when you’ve got a french keyboard, for charset conversion to/from UTF-8 (and I’d be glad so as to add different layouts if their charsets!), and configure the picture conversion algorithm for monochrome or colour screens.

Upgrading:

If you wish to improve following a brand new launch, you’ll have to re-transfer a floppy picture utilizing ADTPro. For the proxy half, you may both begin contemporary with a brand new Raspberry picture, or ssh into your current Pi to improve the package deal:

ssh pi@<ip-address-of-the-pi>
$ sudo apt replace
$ sudo apt set up --reinstall surl-server

Troubleshooting:

When you have serial communication points, you may attempt decreasing the serial pace within the proxy’s /and many others/a2tools/tty.conf file – though the default 19.2kbps must be fully protected. After altering this configuration file, restart the proxy service utilizing

sudo systemctl restart surl-server.service

You may also attempt to change the serial port you utilize in your Apple II. The Mastodon consumer will recommend reconfiguring the default serial settings at startup, if it cannot hook up with the proxy.

Notice: The serial pace has been upgraded from 9600bps to 19200bps at launch 1.5.0. Ensure that to replace the surl-server settings in /and many others/a2tools/tty.conf.

Notice: By default, the surl-server proxy on the Raspberry runs with out {hardware} line handshaking, which isn’t superb for the Apple II, however is essentially the most appropriate answer: {hardware} handshaking help will depend on your adapter cable. If it helps it, or wish to give it a take a look at, replace /and many others/a2tools/tty.conf and set hw_handshake: on. Then restart the service utilizing:

sudo systemctl restart surl-server.service

When you have questions or ideas, I’d be pleased to listen to from you, both by email or on Mastodon.

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