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Retrocomputing find of the day. "Apple Pascal: A Hands On Approach" --> web.archive.org/web/2015040500…
This book is especially interesting because it required the reader to have an Apple II with a Microsoft Softcard installed.
The SoftCard was a plug-in board with a Z-80 processor that was used to run the embedded CP/M OS. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-80_Soft…
The SoftCard was Microsoft's first hardware device and used some clever hacks to allow CP/M to leverage the Apple II hardware.
The card was developed by Tim Paterson of QDOS fame (Quick and Dirty OS)... the OS that eventually became MS-DOS.
If you'll recall, QDOS was created by Paterson by reading CP/M API specs and implementing them for the 8086 and 8088 CPUs.
In 1980 the SoftCard was Microsoft's #1 source of revenue.
Scratch that... A Language Card was required folklore.org/StoryView.py?s… -- the info about the SoftCard is still pretty cool though. :)
