Apple DOA

[potatohead]

Recently decided to purchase a IIe Platinum off of e-bay. Almost never use e-bay for a whole lot of reasons, but it made sense to get one of these machines. Paid $40. Not unhappy with that, nor the shipping effort, which was actually quite good. Somebody cared about it getting there. The cost for shipping was more than I would have liked, but they did work for it. No worries on that.

 

Seller claimed it was guaranteed to not be DOA, and it was. Did all the usual things before powering up. Looked for loose screws, seated things, and it powers up, with some video noise, and on power off, with all cards removed, power stabilizes long enough to get the boot beep.

 

I believe I need a new power supply, and or potentially to fix the one that's on the machine.

 

Question here is, what to do with the seller?

 

I've sent them a note detailing the DOA condition, what I did, and asked for options.

 

What say you all? (And does somebody have a power supply, or source that's cheap?)

 

Got a disk with it. Where does one get a small supply of floppies? I don't need many. Would like a test DOS disk, and a place to store a few development efforts, and one for a player disk for Ultima V

[JamesD]

DOA is DOA but it might be cheaper to replace the power supply than send it back.

Some time ago I ran across a web page that talked about trouble shooting Apple II power supplies but I've long since lost track of it. You might google for it.

[JamesD]

Apple II power supply info

 

Troubleshooting

[potatohead]

Thanks!

 

Yeah, I got there too. Put out queries for a working supply just a hour ago. I'll work through fixing the dead one as time permits. Probably will need it someday.

 

Now, I've got all three of my favorite 8 bitters! I'm stoked! Atari 800 XL, CoCo 3, and now a nice iie Plat! (The game port on that one has annoying caps, but I don't think I'll be doing anything right away that will be impacted by that. What I like is how new the Plat is.

 

Came with a Super Serial card too. Perfect for some of the hardware projects I'm thinking about.

 

Now I wait...

 

Still annoyed, but maybe that seller got the last boot. Will see what they say before doing anything else. No feed back though, until they say something.

[JamesD]

I'd run through some of the steps on the troubleshooting page. There's also a place that will repair them for $20 so don't go too high on a replacement.

 

Well, if you have a super serial card then you can use Apple II Game Server and ADT (Apple Disk Transfer).

[potatohead]

I plan to, particularly given that I cannot get a replacement in a week or two. Found somebody doing $15-20 on a tested good supply. I'm pretty confident the Apple itself is fine.

 

Just looked ADT over, and that looks like a great starter solution. Since I have a disk, I think I'll buy some floppies to make a bootable disk with. Maybe a couple. Then I'm set for lots of tinkering.

 

Either way, I'll troubleshoot the supply I have, hopefully getting it working. Good tips in those links, and not too much trouble. Need a multi-meter though. Mine crapped out, leaving me with just the scope. Could use that, but always hated powering up a nice Tek scope for just voltage checks!

[potatohead]

Well, sweet!

 

Seller is easy to work with. I feared the worst. Turns out, they have another power supply. It's being shipped to me, no worries.

 

Also found a replacement for about $20. Looking like a good resolution!

 

Now I gotta visit the surplus store and get some cables.

 

Was looking at floppydisk.com, or something like that. Not on that machine right now. Anyone buy floppies these days? Are they good, or what? I need a few for development and general computer use.

 

Secondly, if I have them, can I use ADT to write out some DOS or PRODOS boot disk images?

 

One of the things I plan to do is just do some writing. Love that //e keyboard, and I can't wait to write on it. That was the first machine I ever wrote anything of substance on. Hoping it sparks some good memories.

Edited May 14, 2011 by potatohead

[magnusfalkirk]

Well, sweet!

 

Seller is easy to work with. I feared the worst. Turns out, they have another power supply. It's being shipped to me, no worries.

 

Also found a replacement for about $20. Looking like a good resolution!

 

Now I gotta visit the surplus store and get some cables.

 

Was looking at floppydisk.com, or something like that. Not on that machine right now. Anyone buy floppies these days? Are they good, or what? I need a few for development and general computer use.

 

Secondly, if I have them, can I use ADT to write out some DOS or PRODOS boot disk images?

 

One of the things I plan to do is just do some writing. Love that //e keyboard, and I can't wait to write on it. That was the first machine I ever wrote anything of substance on. Hoping it sparks some good memories.

 

I'm not sure about ADT's ability to transfer Prodos disks but if you download ADTPro from here: http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/ you can transfer just about any type of disk image from a PC/Mac back to an Apple II. About the only thing you can't transfer is a .nib image. As far as 5.25 disks for the Apple II I've found some good deals on eBay but they are far and few between.

 

Dean

[potatohead]

Well, I only need DOS 3.3

 

And the machine is up and running now. Booted Ultima V off my original game disks from that time period. (don't have a player disk, so I could not play a game)

 

I think there are some "make a disk" from a disk image programs out there too.

 

More this weekend when I can fire it up proper and spend a little time with it.

[The Usotsuki]

ADT handles disks at sector level. And at that point there's no difference between a DOS 3.3 disk and a ProDOS disk.

 

I bootstrap my Apple //e, sometimes, with a cell phone... I really should see if I can't get ADTpro to work with my bootstrap stuff, so I can just type LOAD and get it running. xD I did it with a couple other ProDOS apps.