Motivation

Why develop machine learning on an Apple ][+?

Everyone is aware of the impressive achievements of modern artificial intelligence and, more specifically, machine learning. Achievements.ai chronicles a growing list of AI milestones, but today virtually every industry has benefited from AI in one way or another. From medicine to entertainment to information retrieval to scientific discovery to agriculture, machine learning algorithms, powered by massive amount of data and computational power, have delivered unprecedented gains in efficiency and user value.

Chip shortages, however, exacerbated by the pandemic, trade, weather, fires and wars, have severely crimped our ability to deploy the compute necessary to train increasingly complex models. In times of scarcity we need to make the most of whatever resources are at our disposal. This requires creativity and gumption. Wired even recently reported on how some companies are hacking their way around the shortages:

Carmakers are using semiconductors taken from washing machines, rewriting code to use less silicon, and even shipping their products without some chips while promising to add them in later. With the shortage of semiconductors now a new normal, everyone is being forced to adapt.

… one large industrial conglomerate had resorted to buying washing machines just to scavenge the chips inside them for its products.

As such, I am going to see what sort of machine learning I can do on my Apple ][+ computer from high school.

The specifications of the Apple ][+ are somewhat daunting:

• Processor: 6502 microprocessor running at 1.023 MHz
• RAM: 48Kb
• Storage: dual external 5 1⁄4-inch floppy drives, each capable of storing 140Kb per side with DOS 3.3
• Programming languages: Applesoft BASIC and 6502 assembly

Nevertheless, these machines, which launched the personal computing revolution, can add and multiply arrays of numbers. As such, they can do machine learning. It is our duty, for the betterment of humanity, to make our best effort to deploy these machines in the service of artificial intelligence.

Let’s see what I can do…