Apple IIe - Finally!

[PB145B]

Even though I have a “finds” thread, this is really special to me, and I feel it deserves it’s own post (I’ll add a link to it in my finds thread).

I’ve finally acquired my all-time favorite 8-bit computer! An Apple IIe! These certainly aren’t rare by any means, but I have wanted one of these things for about 9 years. I’d look on eBay for them off and on, but every time I would look it was mostly just “buy it now” listings for insane prices.





Recently, I looked on eBay and found this one with a very reasonable starting price, and got it for $52 which I think was pretty good considering it was tested working, had the Super Serial card, I/O card (disk controller), and the 80-column card. It was, however, missing 5 keys, but the parts to fix this are available extremely cheap, so that was no big deal.

Cosmetically, it’s not perfect, but I don’t care.

The pics above are after cleaning and repair of the keyboard; here’s what it looked like when I received it:



It was definitely needed some help!

This machine has been fantastic so far. I’ve even been reading up on Apple Basic a bit! Also, Mario Brothers for the Apple II (which is actually a leaked beta I believe) is the funnest Apple II game I have ever played! I’m not sure why they never released, because it’s great.

I already had a Duo-Disk, so my disk drive situation is covered, but I’ve got to get the Apple IIe monochrome monitor! It will be the next addition to this IIe setup. For now, I’m using my Commodore 1702 monitor which looks okay, but looks like crap in 80-column text mode. Clearly wasn’t made to be used with an Apple II. 

I had an Apple joystick IIe already also! I got that years ago, even before I had my IIgs.

I also want to get the mouse interface card for this at some point. 

I may also get a set of Disk ][ drives for it at some point, because I love the look of those. Having the disk drives under the monitor is pretty nifty though!

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this, and I’m sure anyone one who knows their IIes will have noticed already, but this is an enhanced IIe.

Upgrading a regular IIe it an enhanced IIe is incredibly simple though (just the ROMs and CPU I believe). There are still people that sell kits (just as Apple did back then) to upgrade a regular IIe. My one is from 1986, so it was an enhanced from the factory.

Anyways, that’s all for now.

 

[PB145B]

I got the Apple Desktop running on this thing! I wasn’t sure if it’d start without the mouse interface card, but it will! And you can even navigate the cursor with the keyboard! You hold down Control, open apple, closed apple, and then release closed apple and (while still holding Control and open apple, use the arrow keys to move the cursor! Pretty neat! And to select stuff, you use the closed apple key (while still holding Control and open apple).

Here’s a pic of it running:



Doesn't look the best on this Commodore color monitor, but this is soon-to-be-replaced with an Apple monochrome green monitor, which will improve text dramatically (games should also look really cool in monochrome green). I prefer monochrome on the pre IIgs Apple IIs. The text looks better, and It’s just a more authentic retro feel to me. One of the actual Apple composite color monitors would be pretty sweet though. I’d also like to have one of those amber Amdek monitors.

 

[Gorgonops]

Apple's composite color monitors are sort of interesting. They apparently play some games with the NTSC standard to knock down some of the color fringing that you normally get when trying to run 80 column resolutions, so on them the 80 column modes merely look "not great" as opposed to "almost completely unusable" in color. The downside, at least to my recollection, is that the colors on them were a little muted compared to most other composite monitors or TVs. (Granted my recollection is based on only one well-used monitor, which I owned for a while 10 years after they were made.) They also had a "white mode" button to emulate a mono monitor, which I imagine saw a lot of use.

If my school lab experience was typical any sort of color monitor was pretty darn rare on an Apple IIe during their heyday.

Just out of curiosity: if you hook your IIe up to the 1702's "LUMA" jack on the back do you get a black and white rendering that's any clearer.

 

[PB145B]

Apple's composite color monitors are sort of interesting. They apparently play some games with the NTSC standard to knock down some of the color fringing that you normally get when trying to run 80 column resolutions, so on them the 80 column modes merely look "not great" as opposed to "almost completely unusable" in color. The downside, at least to my recollection, is that the colors on them were a little muted compared to most other composite monitors or TVs. (Granted my recollection is based on only one well-used monitor, which I owned for a while 10 years after they were made.) They also had a "white mode" button to emulate a mono monitor, which I imagine saw a lot of use.

If my school lab experience was typical any sort of color monitor was pretty darn rare on an Apple IIe during their heyday.

Just out of curiosity: if you hook your IIe up to the 1702's "LUMA" jack on the back do you get a black and white rendering that's any clearer.

Cool stuff Gorgonops! Thanks for the info!

I actually haven’t tried the IIe on the LUMA port yet! I’ll give it a shot!

 

[Gorgonops]

I'm genuinely curious what you get; I have a 1702 that I was using on my II+ but I never performed the experiment and both are put away at the moment. Granted the II+ is only forty column so there's not a whole lot of advantage to going mono on it... but it could be useful if I want to play games in color on the IIc.

 

[PB145B]

@Gorgonops Here is what Apple Desktop look like running on the LUMA connector. I think it’s a *little* bit better, but not by a whole lot.



One thing i have found that make GEOS and Apple Desktop look better is to turn the color knob on the monitor all the way down. Stuff like Apple works still look terrible no matter which connector you use.

 

[PB145B]

80-columns is looking pretty sweet now  

So glad it made it in one piece. 

 

[TechEdison]

Woah. This is exactly the sort of setup I’ve got my eye out for. 

Clean setup!

 

[olePigeon]

Exceptional job on cleaning up the //e.

I fully recommend you check out ADT Pro so you can transfer disk images back and forth.

I also recommend checking out a2heaven if you feel like you need to spend another $1500 on your Apple II in aftermarket upgrades and gizmos. :lol:

Just off the top of my head, I also fully recommend the following games in no particular order:

Conan

Montezuma's Revenge

Miner 2049er

Pitfall II

Ultima III

Ultima IV

Ultima V

Bard's Tale I

Bard's Tale II

Bard's Tale III

Dragonwars (was originally Bard's Tale IV, changed at the last minute)

Wavy Navy

Maze Craze Construction Set

Pinball Construction Set

Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves (aka Age of Adventure)

Minuteman

RescueRaiders

The Bilestoad

Stellar 7

Impossible Mission

Impossible Mission II

Epyx Summer Games

Castle Wolfenstein

Beyond Castle Wolfenstein

Well, I'll be here all day recommending all the great games for the Apple II.

 

[PB145B]

Clean setup!

Thank you!

Exceptional job on cleaning up the //e.

I fully recommend you check out ADT Pro so you can transfer disk images back and forth.

I also recommend checking out a2heaven if you feel like you need to spend another $1500 on your Apple II in aftermarket upgrades and gizmos. :lol:

Just off the top of my head, I also fully recommend the following games in no particular order:

Conan

Montezuma's Revenge

Miner 2049er

Pitfall II

Ultima III

Ultima IV

Ultima V

Bard's Tale I

Bard's Tale II

Bard's Tale III

Dragonwars (was originally Bard's Tale IV, changed at the last minute)

Wavy Navy

Maze Craze Construction Set

Pinball Construction Set

Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves (aka Age of Adventure)

Minuteman

RescueRaiders

The Bilestoad

Stellar 7

Impossible Mission

Impossible Mission II

Epyx Summer Games

Castle Wolfenstein

Beyond Castle Wolfenstein

Well, I'll be here all day recommending all the great games for the Apple II.

Thanks!

Yep, I’ve already been using ADTPro, and it is absolutely fantastic!

I’ll make sure to check out a2heaven. I’ll try not to spend $1,500 though.  :lol:

Thanks for the recommendation on the games. I was always slightly overwhelmed at which ones to try because there is a BUNCH!