A course on a legendary machine
Learn the Apple II, inside and out▊
The Apple II (1977) is one of the best machines ever built for learning how computers actually work. One CPU, one memory map you can hold in your head, hardware you talk to by reading and writing bytes — no operating system in the way. This course takes you from “what is a 6502?” to writing your own BASIC and assembly programs that run on real hardware or an emulator.
]LOAD COURSE
]LIST
10 HOME
20 PRINT "WELCOME TO APPLE ][ ACADEMY"
30 PRINT "6 LECTURES. REAL EXERCISES."
40 PRINT "DIAGRAMS THAT MOVE."
50 GOTO 10
]RUN█Lectures
History & System Overview
Where the Apple II came from, the family tree from II to IIGS, and a guided tour of what's on the motherboard.
The 6502 CPU
Registers, the fetch–decode–execute cycle, addressing modes, and why a $25 chip changed the industry.
Memory Map & Soft Switches
The 64K address space: zero page, screen memory, I/O space, ROM — and how POKE-ing an address flips real hardware.
Graphics & Sound
Text, lo-res and hi-res modes, Woz's famous interleaved screen memory, color artifacts, and the one-bit speaker.
Applesoft BASIC
The language in ROM: variables, loops, graphics commands, PEEK/POKE/CALL, and structuring a real program.
6502 Assembly on the Apple II
The Monitor, machine language, calling ROM routines, and writing your first assembly program at $300.
Practice & reference
Exercises
Graded exercises for every lecture — from your first PRINT loop to an assembly screen-fill — with hidden solutions and self-check quizzes.
Diagram Gallery
Every diagram in one place: static reference charts plus animated, step-through diagrams of the CPU cycle, the bus, and screen memory.
Getting Started
Set up an emulator in two minutes, type your first program, then graduate to a modern cross-development toolchain with ca65 and disk images.
How to use this course
- Set up an emulator first. Open Getting Started and get an Apple II running in your browser — it takes two minutes and every lecture assumes you can type things in and see what happens.
- Read the lectures in order. Each one builds on the last: the CPU lecture assumes the overview, the memory lecture assumes the CPU, and so on.
- Do the exercises. Reading about POKE is nothing like watching the screen change because you wrote a byte into it. Solutions are hidden behind a click — attempt first.
- Play with the animated diagrams. The gallery lets you step through a 6502 instruction cycle-by-cycle and watch hi-res screen rows land in memory.