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Author: Steve

Apple’s Information Exchange (1987 to 1989)

The Information Exchange was a collection of marketing program descriptions, tip sheets, Apple event schedules, key Apple contacts, Apple trade-show schedules, and other information. It provided readers with an overview of Apple’s marketing direction, as well as outline specific opportunities that readers could take advantage of to help market their Apple-compatible products.

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Apple Service Guides (1990 to 1997)

A series of supplemental booklets that help Apple certified technicians troubleshoot and repair Apple products at customer’s sites. The Apple Service Guide series contains information condensed from a number of Apple Service products and sources, it includes only need-to-know information for the experienced technician. These guides to NOT replace the Apple Service Source CD.

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Apple Service Technical Procedures (1982 to 1992)

From 1982 to present Apple has published a significant amount of documentation for use by the technicians and hardware developers who repaired Apple hardware and/or designed new hardware components in the Apple Service Technical Procedures Binders. Includes an extensive amount of diagrams and also part numbers for the various components.

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Apple’s Technical Notes and QA 1985 to present

Apple’s Technical Notes and Technical Q&A Notes provide technical information, sample code, and answers to common question for developers of Macintosh hardware and software with references to other Apple documentation such as inside Macintosh. At this time they are still available from Apple in their documentation archive. I’ve made backups of these articles with the assumption that like the Technical Information Library, Apple may as some point delete these files too.

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Apple’s Information Alley: 1994 May 1st to 1997 March 24th

Information Alley was a bimonthly (twice a month) the electronic newsmagazine published by Apple’s Support Information Services. The goal of the Information Alley was to help Apple computer users get full use of their Apple computers, peripherals, and software. The articles chosen for the Information Alley came from many sources, both from inside Apple Computer and from our customers and users. Sources include Apple’s Technical Information Library, Apple Assistance Center, New Technology Group, World Wide Product Technical Support, Apple Users Groups, and other technical groups and organizations.

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Apple’s Software Recovery CDs 1999, 2000

The Apple Software Recovery CDs, a four volume set, were designed to provide users with a complete and efficient tool for disaster recovery, software installation, and maintenance. I found these CDs, in addition to Apple’s Developer CDs and Apple’s Restoration CDs, to be extremely useful for setting up my 68k Macintosh Systems and you will see them referenced in many of my guides.

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Apple’s develop: The Apple Technical Journal 1990 to 1997

Published from January 1990 to March 1997 develop was Apple’s quarterly technical journal that provides information to 3rd-party developers. The journal was intended to lead developers into other reference materials like Inside Macintosh and the Apple IIGS Reference Manual. It did not replace these books, but compliments them and helped the reader identify which sections of those document they many need to study more carefully. Stating in 1998 develop became a section in MacTech, and MacTech’s site also includes HTML versions of the journals.

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Apple’s Developer CD Series 1989 to 2009

Starting in 1989, following the release of Apple’s first CD-ROM drive in 1988 (the AppleCD SC), Apple began distributing software updates and technical information about it’s products on CD. In addition to downloading these for my own use, I am including links to online sources to make it easier for others to find these CDs and I’ve included links to the relevant Apple Direct/Directions articles that describe the contents of each CD. I have found these CDs incredibly useful for learning about and setting up these old systems.

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Apple’s Developer Newsletters 1985 to 2008

Starting in 1985 Apple began publishing a Newsletter for Apple Certified Developers. The newsletter was initially called Outside Macintosh, then Outside Apple, then Apple Direct, and finally renamed Apple Directions. These newsletters were available to subscribers of Apple’s Developer Services. I’ve found these newsletters, in addition to TibBITs, and other newsletters on the internet archive to be very useful providing descriptions and timelines for Apple’s products and services.

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Apple’s First Website: June 1994

When I was looking through Apple’s reference CDs I read a note in the 1997 Service Source v2.5 CD that stated all future documents would only be on Apple’s website. Reading that note made me wonder when Apple launched it’s first website. I thought that would be an easy fact to find, but I’ve yet to find a specific date. So I decided to do some research using the internet archive and wayback machine to see what I could piece together for a timeline of Apple on the internet.

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Apple’s Technical Information Library (TIL) 1985 to 1997

When writing posts about old Apple hardware I like to include links to relevant Apple Knowledge Base / Technical Information Library articles created during the 80s and 90s. Until recently (2023) these articles were still available on Apple’s Support Site. Earlier this week I discovered that Apple has now removed these old articles from their site (direct links do not work), and they are no longer returned in the search. (Note to reader, if they were simply moved let me know in the comments). So I decided to make the articles, I have copies of, available on my site.

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IDE: Replacing your old IDE drive with a CF2IDE adapter

As part of setting up my LC 630 DOS system I wanted to replace the IDE drive with something faster and more reliable. After some experimentation with various IDE2SD adapters, which I could not get to work, I decided to use a CF2IDE adapter. My first try was with a standard consumer CF card, that didn’t work. So I decided to purchase an Industrial CF card, and that has been working perfectly.

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SCSI2SD: FAT32 32GB easy edit version

A new, and I think a much easier way to use your SCSI2SD with your Macintosh system. This image file can be used to setup your 32GB card with a FAT32 formatted partition that contains a set of volume files that you can easily mount and edit using Basilisk II, Mini vMac, or some other tool. I created this image file after wondering if I could create something for my SCSI2SD that would be as easy to use as my MacSD. Turns out I could, and then I found out that Andrew over on the MLA beat me to it. This is my version of what he created, his version is formatted exFAT, I decided to use FAT32 and I added more volume files and support for an optional second drive (with 4GB volumes).

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