The Koala Pad and my Apple ][+ from early 1980's.

Posted by RO4DHOG@reddit | vintagecomputing | View on Reddit | 9 comments

In 1983 my Step-Father and I drove from Los Angeles to San Fransisco to attend the AppleFest Convention at the Moscone Center. While roaming the back aisles, I found a small 10x10 booth in the very back, where Koala Technologies was illustrating their new Koala Pad for the Apple Computer.

As a 14 year old, the Apple ][+ was incredible compared to the Atari 2600 we had. I had learned to program Graphics and make sounds by 'pokeing' the speaker address. Now, with a Koala Pad and Koala Illustrator Software, I created slide shows using pictures I drew, and used The Print Shop to generate Text titles for Video production using a black and white sony camera on Beta tapes. We lip synced to popular radio and records we had.

Now, in 2024, i still play with the illustrator software, still have the original Apple ][+, with hundreds of Disks, all ripped safely into DO/WOZ format and now running on Emulators... in order to keep the hardware working. FloppyEMu allows original Apple hardware to source 'digital disk images' using its original Floppy controller.

Apple Copy Project (using DISK2FDI software in 2015, before discovering 'Applesauce' in 2023 to rip all disks into a FLUX format)

Power supply burned out twice, but easily replaced. Hayes Microcoupler modem 300 baud, still dials and answers our phone, using software I curated over 40 years ago.

I'm 56 now, and love reading stories from everyone, all sharing their adventures in vintage computing. I became an IT guy for a tradeshow company 'Expobadge' (1998 to 2021) and travelled setting up registration computers at various Hotels and Convention centers worldwide, including customers like Oracle and Amazon. Ironically, working numerous shows at Moscone, getting to know the facility inside and out, from behind the curtains in the same spot that I found the Koala Booth 20 years prior. (PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE GUY BEHIND THE CURTAIN - The Wizard)

[The Koala Pad from 1983 is still really Kool.](

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cristobaldelicia@reddit

I'm surprised you compare the Apple to the Atari 2600 at all. Except for the "VCS -Video Computer System" name, it was just a console, or as my parent's called it, a toy, not a "computer" like the Apple was.

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RO4DHOG@reddit (OP)

The comparrison was more about the timeline illustrating the transistion from Pong, Atari, Apple, PC DOS, Windows. Like having a crush, girlfriend, wife... being very different phases, but still just interfaces to the various underlying hardware.

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r_sarvas@reddit

This seemed like magic to me reading about these in 80s computer magazines, at the time but I never could afford one.

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RO4DHOG@reddit (OP)

They were so much fun, I had no idea how special they were at the time. I just thought the dozen kids out of hundreds at school who had them in my 9th grade, were called Nerds. Then in the 10th grade the school bought a dozen of them, and I was a Star, knew more than the teacher. Because I spent years prior, learning how to program in HEXADECIMAL. Reading BYTE magazine, and being a Breakdancer in the 80's, chose the breaker alias 'KID BYTE' as my name. I'm still that EggHead that can still do an EggRoll at age 56. Life is cool.

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