Apple //e Overload

[Koopa64]

I'll just keep this short so I don't bore anyone. This Christmas, I didn't receive sweaters from my Grandparents... No no, I got a boat-load of Apple ][ related stuff! It's a little hard describing the magnitude of this stuff, so I'll just provide a picture instead:

 

 

I will be going through each box later today (probably in the evening). I will try to post lots of pictures so you guys can partake in the fun too. I don't know what is exactly in all the boxes, but I do know it's Apple //e related.

 

Merry Christmas... MERRY CHRISTMAS INDEED!

[BydoEmpire]

Wow, I can't wait to see what's in all those boxes. It's gonna be fun!

[madmax2069]

wow really nice. i cant wait to see what you got.

[Koopa64]

Alright, here's a load of pics for you guys to enjoy. Keep in mind most of these pictures just scratch the surface of the entirety of this mountain of Apple ][e treasure. Quite literally actually, because I usually just snapped a pic of stuff sitting on top. Who knows what's underneath, near the bottom of all these boxes.

 

One last note, I apologize if some of the pics are bad. My camera is starting to become a dinosaur on me and I was in a hurry.

 

 

First boxes out of the pile, wonder what's in them.

 

 

A nice tall stack of documentation. Probably some good stuff in there going by what I saw near the top.

 

 

This is an external keyboard. Uses a DB9 plug (like the Atari/Sega consoles). Looks to be in pretty nice shape.

 

 

Quite a bit of different stuff in this box. There's the keypad (sadly missing a key), more documentation and some other cords I think.

 

 

More documentation inside a different box.

 

 

This was inside the box that was originally for a widescreen LCD monitor (you can see it in pic 1 of this post). It's a little dirty looking, but from what I'm told it was well used. What a classic.

 

 

Again, box full of printed paper. I would show more of what's inside, but that would get messy.

 

 

Another box with loads of manuals and related papers. The one book on the left is for Apple ][ programming. Pretty sweet looking.

 

 

Manuals! Also a box for Enchanter by Infocom.

 

 

Some more hardware this time. Here you can see the printer (no idea what kind), a two button joystick (probably for left or right handers) and more documentation.

 

 

Some of the GOOD stuff. There's a disk drive, an unopened box of blank floppies and a bin full of games and business programs.

 

 

Kinda funny how this box has almost the exact same kind of stuff in it as the last box. There's probably loads of timeless classics in that disk bin.

 

 

One lone box full of more floppies. I assume they have stuff on them.

 

 

More floppies and documentation.

 

 

Man that's a lot of paper.

 

There's also box that says "80 column card". What is that for anyway?

 

 

Manuals!

 

 

I'll be honest here. I'm stumped as to what that drive is. The only thing I've got is it's maaaybe a tape drive. But I don't know if Apple made one or not.

 

 

I can't help but feel this stuff is gonna be required at some point...

 

 

MEMORY EXCELLENCE

 

Also another machine programming book.

 

 

Last but not least, here's a big overview of what you just looked through above. It's gonna take a long time to get all this set up and functioning for sure.

[potatohead]

Nice setup. You are gonna have fun. The 80 column card is probably already fitted inside the Apple, along with disk controllers and your printer interface. A lot of the 80 column cards had the language card functionality built in, as well as RAM.

 

Before you power that up, pull the top cover, take a nice inventory of the different cards, find their documentation and look it over before connecting stuff. Some things, like the disk controllers can be done wrong.

 

Not a bad idea to seat the chips and cards gently before first power up. Get yourself a color TV / monitor, if you don't have one. Keep the green screen, if you have one, for the word processing / productivity applications, which will most likely use the 80 column card.

 

If I had the room, I would do a similar thing. I really liked the Apple computers.

[Koopa64]

Nice setup. You are gonna have fun. The 80 column card is probably already fitted inside the Apple, along with disk controllers and your printer interface. A lot of the 80 column cards had the language card functionality built in, as well as RAM.

 

Before you power that up, pull the top cover, take a nice inventory of the different cards, find their documentation and look it over before connecting stuff. Some things, like the disk controllers can be done wrong.

 

Not a bad idea to seat the chips and cards gently before first power up. Get yourself a color TV / monitor, if you don't have one. Keep the green screen, if you have one, for the word processing / productivity applications, which will most likely use the 80 column card.

 

If I had the room, I would do a similar thing. I really liked the Apple computers.

 

Not to argue against your much needed help (and is greatly appreciated), but I feel some backstory would be useful here. This Apple][e saw a lot of use, mostly from grandkids (lots of them where my grandparents are). When it no longer was needed, it was packed up and sat in a dry closet for probably 10 years.

 

With that said, is it really necessary to open the //e up and make sure the cards are compatible with x drive and such? I can't imagine them changing over the years. Reseating of chips and cards, I can understand, but checking to see if the card are compatible with such and such? Why would I need to do that if it was already working just fine with the external components that are in the other boxes?

 

Concerning your other notes, no this did not come with a monitor, so no green screen for me. I already have a small color TV that'll work alright. Also, you didn't quite fully explain what an 80 column card does. Is it used in games? That's really all I need to know. Sure the business tools will still work fine, but how many people do business on an Apple][e these days??

[Retro Rogue]

Concerning your other notes, no this did not come with a monitor, so no green screen for me. I already have a small color TV that'll work alright.

 

 

You can't hook it directly in to a TV unless the TV has composite (i.e. RCA) inputs. The Apple II's output a composite video signal for monitors, not an RF signal for standard televisions.

 

With that said, is it really necessary to open the //e up and make sure the cards are compatible with x drive and such? I can't imagine them changing over the years.

 

He didn't say anything about making sure cards are compatible with x drive. He said some things like disk controllers can be done wrong. I.E. the floppy controller in the IIE is supposed to be in Slot 6. And yes, it could have wound up being stuffed in to a different slot over the years.

 

Here's an faq to get you started:

 

http://home.swbell.n...s5MAINHALL.html

Edited January 3, 2011 by wgungfu

[potatohead]

Yes, exactly.

 

I seriously doubt it's in the wrong slot. If the machine was in use, then packed away, it's really just all about connecting the disks correctly --and potentially other things. It's just important to know Apple connectors were not always safety keyed, meaning the first step was to just look at the docs to verify correct connections before power on.

 

The 80 column card outputs a composite video signal. A TV with a RCA input will display it, though it might display it poorly.

 

I think you get double high res on that one too. If so, that's some nice 16 color graphics! Not sure whether or not the 80 column card plays a part in that or not.

 

Without that card, your Apple will display a 40 column display, which will look pretty great on the TV. With the card, it can still display 40 columns, but can also do 80. (which was a nice option at the time, keeping the Apple relevant for business / productivity / publishing applications long after it should have been) 80 column display is probably readable on modern TV, though you will want to turn the color either off, or way down when viewing.

 

The expansion card capability really extended what Apple computers could do. A fully equipped one was quite a nice 8 bit workstation. Before I stepped away, I was running one that had 80 columns, extra RAM, printer, serial, mockingboard, and several disk drivers. Great machine.

 

The two button joystick is just two button, BTW. Be sure and find a copy of ROBOTRON. You will enjoy that with that joystick.

 

I mentioned re-seating everything, because heat / cold cycles over time will unseat the cards and the chips. Doesn't always happen, but could happen. If you look through your Apple docs (and I see you've got a ton of them), somewhere, in one of them, it will actually say that. At the time, I was always very impressed with the quality of documentation that came with those machines.

 

Anyway, have a lot of fun. Didn't mean to put a damper on that. Once it's hooked up and jamming, you've got a lot to explore.

Edited January 3, 2011 by potatohead

[Koopa64]

You can't hook it directly in to a TV unless the TV has composite (i.e. RCA) inputs. The Apple II's output a composite video signal for monitors, not an RF signal for standard televisions.

 

That's why I have one of these:

 

 

In other words, it gives my RF TV some RCA inputs. The picture still looks like a composite TV, even though it uses RF.

 

He didn't say anything about making sure cards are compatible with x drive. He said some things like disk controllers can be done wrong. I.E. the floppy controller in the IIE is supposed to be in Slot 6. And yes, it could have wound up being stuffed in to a different slot over the years.

 

So are there setting and such on the card one needs to configure as well? Or is it just a matter of making sure the card is stuck in slot 6?

 

I seriously doubt it's in the wrong slot. If the machine was in use, then packed away, it's really just all about connecting the disks correctly --and potentially other things. It's just important to know Apple connectors were not always safety keyed, meaning the first step was to just look at the docs to verify correct connections before power on.

 

I still don't know what could be set up wrong with this disk controller card. That would be a start. Knowing is half the battle. In other words, knowing what exactly I'm suppose to be doing would greatly help get this machine started up.

 

The 80 column card outputs a composite video signal. A TV with a RCA input will display it, though it might display it poorly.

 

I don't understand. What would be poor about the picture? Does the 80 column card up the resolution from 240 to 480 or something? If so, that's incredible for a computer this old.

 

I think you get double high res on that one too. If so, that's some nice 16 color graphics! Not sure whether or not the 80 column card plays a part in that or not.

 

Does this have anything to do with playing games?

 

Without that card, your Apple will display a 40 column display, which will look pretty great on the TV. With the card, it can still display 40 columns, but can also do 80. (which was a nice option at the time, keeping the Apple relevant for business / productivity / publishing applications long after it should have been) 80 column display is probably readable on modern TV, though you will want to turn the color either off, or way down when viewing.

 

Well that's nice to hear, but what would be wrong with the color? Is it optimized for a green monitor or something? How can color be a problem?

 

The expansion card capability really extended what Apple computers could do. A fully equipped one was quite a nice 8 bit workstation. Before I stepped away, I was running one that had 80 columns, extra RAM, printer, serial, mockingboard, and several disk drivers. Great machine.

 

Workstation as in what kind of work? Did an increase in resolution (I think) really make that big of a difference? That it extended the ]['s life to an unhealthy level?

 

The two button joystick is just two button, BTW. Be sure and find a copy of ROBOTRON. You will enjoy that with that joystick.

 

Sweet! Here I was thinking the Apple][ could only support a single button joystick, sorta like the 2600.

 

I mentioned re-seating everything, because heat / cold cycles over time will unseat the cards and the chips. Doesn't always happen, but could happen. If you look through your Apple docs (and I see you've got a ton of them), somewhere, in one of them, it will actually say that. At the time, I was always very impressed with the quality of documentation that came with those machines.

 

Well that shouldn't be a problem. Cards are easy to reseat. Not so sure about the chips though. Given that they're chips, they will be in sockets, and I've heard socketed chips are a pain to remove. If they are stuck in there pretty good, I don't really get how they couldn't have a proper connection anymore.

 

Anyway, have a lot of fun. Didn't mean to put a damper on that. Once it's hooked up and jamming, you've got a lot to explore.

 

Thanks. It's gonna take sooooo long to get everything sorted out, I don't know how my grandparents (and anyone else involved) were able to manage this mountain of computer stuff.

[Ransom]

Sweet! Here I was thinking the Apple][ could only support a single button joystick, sorta like the 2600.

 

[cliff claven voice]It's little-known fact that the Apple ][ doesn't actually support a joystick. Its game port is actually for two potentiometers (paddles), each with its own button. Put the two pots on a stick and you've got yourself a joystick...with two buttons.[/cliff claven voice]

[potatohead]

(snicker)

 

Re: Color.

 

Ordinary NTSC TV color resolution tops out somewhere around 160 pixels. Apple computers generated color by outputting pixels smaller than that, which will render colored.

 

Yes, the resolution goes to 480 pixels for text, and if you've got the double high-res option, for graphics too. Effective resolution is still about 140 pixels or so, because of how the TV does color, but monochrome displays can be 480 pixels!

 

Short story, running 80 columns on a TV will appear as a mess of color pixels. The green screen monitors were monochrome, and often used in tandem with a TV, for both gaming and business. Used to run a splitter on my machine back then.

 

In any case, no worries. There are options for display. These days, you can also run the apple video into a S-video capable TV, and it's going to look great for high resolution monochrome.

 

There were sometimes jumpers on the cards. Been a while. Somebody else can chime in on that, and the install docs detail these clearly.

[S1500]

Sweet! Here I was thinking the Apple][ could only support a single button joystick, sorta like the 2600.

 

[cliff claven voice]It's little-known fact that the Apple ][ doesn't actually support a joystick. Its game port is actually for two potentiometers (paddles), each with its own button. Put the two pots on a stick and you've got yourself a joystick...with two buttons.[/cliff claven voice]

 

IIRC it uses the same joysticks as the IBM compatibles of its day, just as you described: analog stick with 2 buttons. The harder part is finding one with a throttle control and finding any games that used it.

 

Apple also had paddles available.

[Keatah]

Yes, exactly.

 

I seriously doubt it's in the wrong slot. If the machine was in use, then packed away, it's really just all about connecting the disks correctly --and potentially other things. It's just important to know Apple connectors were not always safety keyed, meaning the first step was to just look at the docs to verify correct connections before power on.

 

The 80 column card outputs a composite video signal. A TV with a RCA input will display it, though it might display it poorly.

 

I think you get double high res on that one too. If so, that's some nice 16 color graphics! Not sure whether or not the 80 column card plays a part in that or not.

 

Without that card, your Apple will display a 40 column display, which will look pretty great on the TV. With the card, it can still display 40 columns, but can also do 80. (which was a nice option at the time, keeping the Apple relevant for business / productivity / publishing applications long after it should have been) 80 column display is probably readable on modern TV, though you will want to turn the color either off, or way down when viewing.

 

The expansion card capability really extended what Apple computers could do. A fully equipped one was quite a nice 8 bit workstation. Before I stepped away, I was running one that had 80 columns, extra RAM, printer, serial, mockingboard, and several disk drivers. Great machine.

 

The two button joystick is just two button, BTW. Be sure and find a copy of ROBOTRON. You will enjoy that with that joystick.

 

I mentioned re-seating everything, because heat / cold cycles over time will unseat the cards and the chips. Doesn't always happen, but could happen. If you look through your Apple docs (and I see you've got a ton of them), somewhere, in one of them, it will actually say that. At the time, I was always very impressed with the quality of documentation that came with those machines.

 

Anyway, have a lot of fun. Didn't mean to put a damper on that. Once it's hooked up and jamming, you've got a lot to explore.

 

 

I pretty much endorse all this info that has been presented so far. Adding in that the disk controller card will work in many slots, but it is "Expected" by most software to be in slot-6. And that green and yellow Apple II User's Guide will be useful, read it!

 

There are two classes of 80-column cards for the //e. One just provides 80-columns, and has a few logic gates.

The second one has those same logic gates, so to speak, + and additional 64k of memory. It is this style of card that gives you the double hi-res graphics + 80-col. The extra memory makes a difference.

 

Once you get all this stuff sorted out and settle down with it (it *IS* a great starter collection) I will be most happy to answer specific how-to questions, just post here or pm me. It is widely recognized that the apple ][, ][+, //e systems are hobbyist computers and made to be opened up and played with. Especially the ][ and ][+!

I've always broken them down into a few major parts, the case and keyboard and speaker, power supply, motherboard, expansion cards, memory, modems, drives, monitor, and controllers. All my activities tended to focus on one of those "blocks". My more nefarious activities surrounded the hard disk and modem! Uhm maybe that describes the entire setup, but still. hmmm.. Well anyways, have fun!

 

note:

First of all, do us this favor here at atariage. Take a picture of the inside of the computer, then all the expansion cards, then the drives, and perhaps cables. This way we will have an idea of what you got and we can advise you on what is good or what you need to purchase. It will also enable us to help you out more efficiently and correctly. Did you know there are over 9 classifications of drives for the II series. AND I know of 12 different types of controller cards.

Edited January 3, 2011 by Keatah

[Keatah]

This is a very comprehensive how-it-works manual for your //e

http://213.174.143.38/download/understanding-the-apple-iie-pdf-10253754.html

 

This is your original reference manual

http://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20Project/Computers/Apple%20IIe/Manuals/Apple%20IIe%20Reference%20Manual.pdf

 

And here is a good resource of documentation to download

http://mirrors.apple2.org.za/

 

Between that and atariage, you should be able to get all your questions answered!

[Koopa64]

Wow, lots of information from reading over these new posts and those links Keatah linked to. Thanks a ton guys! Greatly appreciate it!

 

For right now, here's what I plan to do. First, put all the documents into plastic bins for easier, dust-free access (using the right kind of bins of course). Second, go over all the hardware with some rubbing alcohol and Q-tips to get things cleaner. Third and lastly at the moment, I will open the Apple //e up, take pictures of the inside circuit board and the other stuff you guys told me to photograph, then post all the pictures on AtariAge for you all to assess. This will likely happen tomorrow because that's when I'll get some plastic tubs.

 

EDIT: Return to the world of Apple][ shall continue... (I did use/watch others use an Apple //e back in the mid 90s so I'm not a total stranger to it, just with the hardware part of things heheh)

Edited January 4, 2011 by Koopa64

[Hatta]

If you've been away from the Apple II, make sure you check out ADT pro. Great for making disk images of your old software or trying out disk images of games from the net. Hope there's a serial card in those boxes somewhere.

[Keatah]

What I've recently found fascinating is that the Apple II, II+, IIe, and IIc have no graphics chips. Nothing! Except for a timing circuit that "dumped" memory locations to the screen. Like a crude ramdac, scanner, of a sort. You could go through an electronics catalog and build the scanner circuit yourself if you really got into it. All you'd need is a handful of the following parts:

 

74LS161

74LS04

74LS257

74LS32

74LS194

74LS174

74LS11

74LS08

74LS02

74LS151

74LS166

74LS86

..throw in a 555 timer and perhaps a rom *IF* you wanted to count the text/ascii character generator portion. These parts can be found for pennies today, back then they were expensive at $1.50 or perhaps $2.00 or even $3.00!! Don't ask the price of ram chips. I had one replaced in my II+ when I was a kid(I did know enough to fix it myself), and it cost like $150 for the parts and labor. They replaced 1 of the 4116 DRAM chips!

 

Even the lowly Atari-2600 with its TIA was far more complex and sophisticated. It had a real graphics processor. And the same thing goes for sound generation. The Apple II series of computers could only click the speaker, meaning push it all the way up or all the way down. It could do it fast enough to simulate sine waves and other sounds.

 

So in a lot of ways, the Apple II is a lot more like the early S-100 bus computers than it is the likes of the Atari-800 or Commodore-64. And yet, much of same software written for the Atari and Commodore systems was available on the Apple II! And same deal with Intellivision, it had far better capability in the a/v department than any II could ever hope!

 

The Apple II was set-up and designed by like one or two guys. And it was indeed possible for you to go buy one of these machines, and learn everything there is to know about it. You would learn I/O, sound, graphics, controller, memory, storage, disk access, keyboard strobing, video-out, everything about the bus, all the rom info. Indeed! And all that was controlled by the 6502. The 6502 would do memory management, floppy disk timing RWTS, it had to move the disk head stepper motor too, etc.. Graphics, it generates the bit-maps (via your software) so the scanner can put it on the screen. The scanner is rigid and fixed. Any funky graphics tricks you see is purely a result of the bit-map image put into ram via the 6502. The 6502 had to service interrupts and control the expansion slots as well as read the game controllers and click the speaker. It did everything! There were no co-processors or custom chips, unless you count the numerous z-80 boards. But that's a different topic, and they were made for cp/m anyways.

 

Today, it takes a team of a hundred or more people to develop something, and costs millions of dollars. And on the pc, with entertainment titles, no one programmer knows everything there is to know about the system he/she is working on.

 

So as far as classic computers go, this Apple II is "CLASSIC" classic. The last of the no-custom-chip computers.

 

 

 

 

 

Trivia: It was an Atari engineer that designed the II series power supply.

Edited January 4, 2011 by Keatah

[Koopa64]

Alrighty, I've got a ton of progress done today. I moved all the documentation into a couple of plastic bins to keep them dust free, all the floppies and some of the more handy books were put into two plastic cabinets (my Mom figured they would work okay). I've reduced the cardboard boxes to just one now, which is full of random accessories. Things are looking excellent so far!

 

Now then, here are the pics you guys wanted to have a look at. Here's two snaps of the Apple //e's mother board with expansion cards. I already reseated them, but man were they stuck in there tight! I really doubt the chips are in need of reseating to be honest, if the cards are any evidence.

 

 

 

Are these enough to make a good recommendation of use? IMO, it looks ready to go. To me it seems like this Apple][ was running fine before it was shoved in a closet. I don't see any need to fumble around with those cards any further than reseating them.

 

And here's some stuff that could use more precise identification than just "that's a disk drive, that's a cable etc". I would really appreciate the help, thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think the item in the last two pictures is a tape drive. There were even 3 tapes (for camera use from what I saw) in the same box as this drive.

 

Thanks for all the help so far guys, this Apple //e might have blown up at some point if it weren't for all your help.

 

 

 

Oh yeah, about that joystick. Yes it has two buttons (arcade style) and some other functions, but unfortunately I found a note inside the box with the joystick that said something like "Sorry about the joystick, it wouldn't fit in the box with the apple so I had to cut the cord". Yeah, there was zilch room in the apple ]['s box and I can understand my grandma not wanting to open up the //e. Still, it looks like the joystick can be repaired. It's only 6 or so colored cords that need re-attaching. Anybody want to chime in on a recommended way to fix it? Again, thanks a ton.

[potatohead]

Is the other end of the cord still in the Apple?

 

If so, just mark it (it can be fitted backwards), and remove it. Strip all the little wires on both ends, and twist them, ideally solder them, then tape them and you are good to go. No worries. Easy fix.

 

The one card says, "colorado memory systems" I'm pretty sure either Jerry Pournelle, or Don Lancaster did reviews on the streaming tape drives that company produced. Somewhere there should be tapes!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh yeah, about that joystick. Yes it has two buttons (arcade style) and some other functions, but unfortunately I found a note inside the box with the joystick that said something like "Sorry about the joystick, it wouldn't fit in the box with the apple so I had to cut the cord". Yeah, there was zilch room in the apple ]['s box and I can understand my grandma not wanting to open up the //e. Still, it looks like the joystick can be repaired. It's only 6 or so colored cords that need re-attaching. Anybody want to chime in on a recommended way to fix it? Again, thanks a ton.

Edited January 5, 2011 by potatohead

[potatohead]

Re: Classic, no custom chips.

 

Yeah. That's really what helped the Apple out big. It was a simple design, pretty nice for the time. It had character graphics, and a pretty nice bitmap. The color phase bit was a nice touch, giving a multi-color display, and the first color cell type option.

 

Lots of things analogous to the PC. PC's were more complex, but had a very similar overall design, which allowed the various cards to do many things. Apples exposed all the signals to some of the slots, allowing for advanced graphics, input, test / science / development, sound, and other CPU's to be a part of the system. Always thought it would be fun to get a machine today, and build up a card for a modern micro of some kind.

 

The only omission was the lack of a display sync signal the CPU could see. A one wire mod brought it out to some memory location that escapes me. A apple with that mod could mix up the display between high-res, text and low-res, with a loop. Couldn't do much else though.

 

At one point, the school really beefed up a machine. We had CP/M card, several floppy disks, printer port, sound, extra RAM, mouse, etc... Was a very nice 8 bit workstation that I published a fair amount of material on. The CP/M card opened the door for some serious computing at the time. Nice!

 

I think I'm kind of on the prowl for one of these now... By the time I get all the parts, I'll have room to run it!

[Keatah]

The cards appear to be in the correct slots as most software expects. Disk in slot 6, printer interface in slot 1.

The memory card in the aux slot. It is an 80 column + 64k additional ram board, so you have a 128k Apple //e with double hi-res.

 

As far as fixing up the joystick cable, there are really lots of ways. I would remove the outer insulation about 2 inches on either side. The strip 1/4th inch of each wire and tie it together. Wrap each wire with electrical tape, and then wrap the whole bundle. You'll get a nice lump in the cable, unless you trim and stagger the tie points, i.e. make one end shorter, the other end longer. and vary each one. But whatever works!

 

See what kind of processor you got, a 6502 or 65C02. You may have an enhanced //e with mousetext!

 

Retro-Ball is one of the games that made use of that sync mod. You could also do the same thing by having the cassette port sample the video signal!! There were variations on this mod.

 

I clearly remember doing many of the standard video sync mods, one was connecting pin4 of the gameport to pin8 of the IC at B11, taking a PEEK at (-16285) would read the port and tell you presence or absence of a sync pulse. But BASIC (I wouldn't learn assembly till later) was slow and got you 10 frames of good sync out of 30. It was consistent so it was smooth. Assembly (or something compiled with TASC or EINSTEIN COMPILER) would get you 30 measurements a second easy!

 

This is so much more fun than benching crysis on fermi! Don't you think?

Edited January 5, 2011 by Keatah

[potatohead]

Nice he's got double high res. Pretty nice all around.

 

(would it ever do 160 column text??)

 

Didn't know about the cassette, but that makes perfect sense.

[Keatah]

Nice he's got double high res. Pretty nice all around.

 

(would it ever do 160 column text??)

 

Didn't know about the cassette, but that makes perfect sense.

 

No! Absolutely not. Not by the card. Especially in text only mode. There was a card, Ultra-Term from Videx that does 160 columns if I remember correctly? I have one of those boards in pristine condition. The other was I started to hack up to get different color text and matrix patterns in a half-assed attempt to get higher-resolution GRAPHICS in a II+.

 

There may be software that emulated higher column numbers for DHR graphics (similar to getting ANY combo of TEXT and HGR2 by drawing the text itself in the graphics mode. Instead of the 4 lines of hard character rom text at the bottom.) As you can guess, it was processor and memory intensive to draw bit-mapped fonts.

 

So the card won't do it, but I think there was software that let you do bit-mapped characters. Which is essentially graphics to the cpu. Nothing beyond 80-columns with the standard cards.

 

 

Did you know that you could not have a Shift-Key mod AND the VideoSync mod in the same machine simultaneously? You *could* build a switch. Both would not work together. One or the other.

 

The equivalent mod for the //e took the sync signal from slot-7.

 

I edited my previous post, go back and read it.

Edited January 5, 2011 by Keatah

[potatohead]

Got it. Well, I still think it could be done with the cassette. Probably need to read through to find a vsync, then once matched, set a timing loop, so that only a small sample is required to sync up from there. That's still more CPU hungry than the mod would be though.

 

Betcha somebody, somewhere did it at one point. Wish I would have tried that back then.

 

Yes, the mods were one or the other. That I do remember. There was a book too, big size with a bunch of hacks to the apple. That mod, along with quite a few others was in there. A friend had it. Can't remember the title, but there was a lot of stuff one could do to a +

[Koopa64]

I'm loving these posts you guys are writing, very insightful. They help me better understand Apple][.

 

Is the other end of the cord still in the Apple?

 

Yes, thankfully.

 

If so, just mark it (it can be fitted backwards), and remove it. Strip all the little wires on both ends, and twist them, ideally solder them, then tape them and you are good to go. No worries. Easy fix.

 

As far as fixing up the joystick cable, there are really lots of ways. I would remove the outer insulation about 2 inches on either side. The strip 1/4th inch of each wire and tie it together. Wrap each wire with electrical tape, and then wrap the whole bundle. You'll get a nice lump in the cable, unless you trim and stagger the tie points, i.e. make one end shorter, the other end longer. and vary each one. But whatever works!

 

Well, sounds good then. I shall definitely try reconnecting the cut cable, but probably after I've got the //e working.

 

The one card says, "colorado memory systems" I'm pretty sure either Jerry Pournelle, or Don Lancaster did reviews on the streaming tape drives that company produced. Somewhere there should be tapes!

 

Uhh, I already have a few tapes for that drive. They all say data backup on them.

 

The cards appear to be in the correct slots as most software expects. Disk in slot 6, printer interface in slot 1.

The memory card in the aux slot. It is an 80 column + 64k additional ram board, so you have a 128k Apple //e with double hi-res.

 

Yep, as I figured. This Apple //e was reasonably loaded. My grandma (and again, anyone else who used it) knew her way around Apple ][ machines. Probably helps she got all her Apple stuff from some IT Techs who were moving to PeeCee stuff way back in the day.

 

See what kind of processor you got, a 6502 or 65C02. You may have an enhanced //e with mousetext!

 

I wouldn't be surprised if it was a 65C02, I'll have to check later. What is mousetext by the way?

 

This is so much more fun than benching crysis on fermi! Don't you think?

 

Well, considering I've never benchmarked Crysis or had a computer that computer that could run it at medium to high specs (nor have I ever bothered to buy/pirate it anyway), how would I know? ... But yeah, much more fun indeed. Especially when you're working with a computer arch that you're not very familiar with (the games I know forward and back though!).

 

Nice he's got double high res. Pretty nice all around.

 

What is double high-res? How much better is it from single high-res?

 

 

 

 

Anyway, there is some stuff I forgot to mention. In the mountain of manuals and docs I found books on Fortran, Pascal and Basic, can't say I saw any disks that let you work in those languages though. They might have been tucked inside those books. I also found lots of issues of Computerist magazine, most are in not too bad of condition. And yes I even found the Apple //e's reference manual, it looked exactly like the PDF Keatah linked for me (thanks again Keatah), but it doesn't appear to be official Apple. It's a professionally published book though, however there is no text on the outside covers. Perhaps it had a jacket?

 

EDIT: Oh yeah, neither of you said if the Apple //e appears to be in working order. IMO everything seems to be in order, but I thought I'd get professional word before I wreck something. I've had a history of inadvertently breaking PeeCee related things.

Edited January 5, 2011 by Koopa64