![\"Nasty](\"\/wp-content\/images\/nastyapple\/nasty_keyboard_large.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nNasty<\/em> is the keyboard of my well-loved 29 year-old Apple II Plus.<\/p>\n It’s always a bad sign when a keyboard that’s been sitting untouched for ten years in climate-controlled storage is wet beneath the keys<\/em>, coated with a glistening, gooey gunk of unknown origin. Mix in two decades of fuzzy dust and moldy cat hairs, and you have yourself a potent cocktail of pure, unadulterated Nasty<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n One cleans Nasty<\/em> with a vengeance. Key by key, if one has to.<\/p>\n In this case, I got lazy and just washed all the keys in a plastic colander.<\/p>\n Time for a complete tear-down and clean-up. I wanted this unit to be as close to new as possible, although I decided to leave my customizations — the pressed four-leaf clover and red novelty “panic button” (in place of the reset key) — as they originally were. Those add what we call character<\/em>.<\/p>\n All better now.<\/p>\n (Here’s what it looked like before.<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n This computer deserves as much. It was on this computer, some eighteen years ago, that I first studied the arcane art of BASIC programming. I spent countless days of my pre-teen years delving into AppleSoft<\/em> manuals, wholly gripped by my quest to craft new and better software diversions. I loved this machine, and I still do.<\/p>\nWhat Does One Do About Nasty?<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nWhen Vengeance Isn’t Enough<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nCharacter Generator<\/h3>\n
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