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deepthaw

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  1. deepthaw
    After a month or so of waiting, the enhancement kit (consisting of four replacement roms and a 65C02 CPU) for my Apple IIe arrived. I decided to save a bit over ordering from Reactive Micro by buying it from a seller on Ebay, which was a mistake. It certainly appears to be vintage (which I honestly don't care about) but it took a month to arrive and was packed in such a way that the pins on half the ROMs were badly crushed. I'm shocked I was able to bend them all back into place without snapping any off.
     
    The enhancement kit made the IIe a bit more compatible with the IIc. It adds new characters (MouseText), a CPU upgrade (65C02 from 6502) and some other minor tweaks. The big deal for me was compatibility with ProTerm, a terminal software. I was ready to plug the WiModem232 in and flash back to my prime BBSing days when ... I realized I need a gender changer.
     
    Change of plans. I already have the IIe hooked up to my Raspberry Pi for ADTPro so I figured I'd get the Pi to act like a modem. This was much easier than I expected (so easy, that in retrospect I kind of wasted my money on the WiModem232) and basically consisted of using the serial <-> usb cables I already had hooked up, doing a quick compile from a git repo and running "tcpser -s 19200 -d /dev/ttyUSB0."

    And success! Spent a bit of time poking around the Captain's Quarters BBS, which I believe is running from an actual Apple II. I also tried visiting a few other BBS's I frequent (The Agency and The Black Flag) but none of them really work well from an Apple II. They're targeted towards the ANSI-heads of the mid 90's, and the poor Apple IIe just can't display or send the characters their menus expect. Tonight or tomorrow I'll telnet into the Pi and try using Alpine, Lynx and other tools to browse the Intarwebs.
     
    Next up on the TODO list: I have a BOOTI preordered, which will let me mount a USB drive as a hard drive (and then I can run stuff like the Total Replay game collection.) Then I need to get a Mockingboard or Phazor for sound. I'm still slowly playing my way through Wizardry too - don't want to jump to Ultima III before I have a Mockingboard.
     
  2. deepthaw

    Apple IIe Repairs

    By deepthaw,

    I'd been seeing some weird crashes and refusals to boot from ProDOS on my Apple IIe, so I decided to run some tests. The built in diagnostic said everything was fine. Using the Apple IIe Diagnostic Software, it said there was a main memory failure, and running MECC's (the people who made Oregon Trail) Computer Inspector told me there was a problem in the auxiliary memory but main memory was fine. Ugh.
     
    I ended up using RAM Test Utility and it gave much better information. It was able to tell me that the problem was a stuck bit in my auxiliary memory, and even which chip it was. I swapped the chip with another one on the board to test, and the error moved to that socket so I knew I'd found the problem. I really lucked out in that all the DRAM was both socketed and the sockets were numbered.
     
     
    Problem. This board uses 4264 DRAM, and that's scarce on eBay or otherwise. Google told me that 4264's are backwards compatible with the more common 4164, but not vice-versa. I decided to risk $20 and ordered a big ol' tube of 4164 chips in the hope that they used 4264's because they were cheaper or more available at the time. Swapped the chip out, and success! Fixed all the sporadic problems I'd been having.
     
    Next up: Have a IIe enhancement kit on order, and once it shows up I'll be able to run ProTerm with the WiModem232 that came in last week. I'm already active on a few BBS's, so I look forward to checking into them from the IIe rather than SyncTERM or DOSBox/Telemate. I ordered a 3D printed case for it, but I'd love to get an old 2400 baud modem and replace its guts with the WiModem. But those are actually more expensive than I'm willing to pay, so itty bitty 3-D printed for now it is.
  3. deepthaw

    Trinitron Pickup

    By deepthaw,

    It's been a good week for retro pick-ups.
     
    Snagged a 27" Trinitron (KV27S42) off FB Marketplace for free. Several people have done RGB mods on this set, so there's plenty of diagrams out there to use. The retro-nook is coming together faster than expected.
     
    I prefer the older curved models over the WEGA, mainly for weight and aesthetic reasons. (I think the WEGA sets are frankly ugly.)
  4. deepthaw

    Apple IIe

    By deepthaw,

    Saw an Apple IIe on Facebook Marketplace, and was mildly surprised. Vintage computers don't show up locally all that often, so I kept tabs on it. It started at $300, then rapidly went down to $70 over a few days. Christmas I decided to pick it up.
     
    It was advertised as non-tested but made noises like it worked. Figured even a broken Apple IIe for $70 wasn't a bad deal (especially since I wouldn't have to pay shipping) so I snagged it Christmas day.
     
    Turns out my haul was:
     
    Apple IIe 128K with 80 column card, super serial card. (works fine)
    DuoDisk (working fine)
    Apple Monitor II (monochrome green, working fine)
    Image Writer II (missing a piece on the back, haven't had a chance to test it.)
     
    I borrowed some Apple floppies from a friend to test the unit, and so far as I can tell it all works fine. Used the outstanding Apple Disk Server to create a ProDOS floppy with utilities via the cassette port, and even the disk drives are fine (CopyIIPlus says they should read 200ms, both are within 1ms of that.)
     
    The real score is that a friend's kids have been staying with us a few nights a week while they handle some issues at home. One of them is a typical preteen boy video gamer, and he showed some interest in "that old computer." Powered it on, showed him BASIC, and had him writing his own programs by the end of the night. Despite being brought up on Minecraft and Call of Duty, that monochrome green screen was still addicting as hell because *he* was writing the programs that ran on it.
     

     
    I've already ordered a sealed box of floppies, serial cable, and serial<->usb adapter. My next plan is setup A2CLOUD and/or ADTPro so I can get it online and start grabbing more software. There's some BBS's (yes, as in dial-up, except they all use telnet now) I visit, so it'd be nice to try and get onto those with the Apple IIe. Of course there's games to play (I'm a huge Wizardry nut, and have been fiending to play it on the original hardware.)
     
    Reproduction Mockingboards aren't unreasonably priced, so I'll have to get one of those before moving onto Ultima. Also want to get the IIe enhanced kit, and an "official" color monitor. I'm using a small Trinitron when I need color, but I honestly prefer how sharp things are on the monochrome green screen.
     
    I'll keep everbody posted.
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