In the video after the break, you can see loading Apple disk images on a IIc from his new Intel Mac. Of course the Apple ] needed to do a little logic conversion with a 74LS251 multiplexer and a 74LS161 counter. The FTDI device in question is a UM232H chip that takes a USB connection and turns it into an SPI bus. Instead, he used a simple USB FTDI device to talk to the Apple disk drive. A project like this has been done many, many times over the last few decades, but put his own twist on it: he doesn’t use a microcontroller. To solve this problem for himself, came up with an Apple disk emulator. While at one time in the late 80s you may have had your own copy of Oregon Trail, that disk is either lost or non-functional, and it’s pretty hard to get new disk images onto 5 1/4″ disks. One of the most commonly frustrating things about having an old Apple ][ lying around in your basement or attic is the lack of software.
