IIe Enhanced repair and upgrade log

[Skate323k137]

I recently got a great looking IIe from @LaPorta and took some time to get it up and running. The machine was in unknown/untested condition and I was perfectly fine with this, knowing there may be faults.

Here is the system stripped down to start. An Apple IIe doesn't need any cards to boot up from the ROM, so I removed the included 80 column card, parallel, and disk interface cards.

My first step with any Apple II, working or not, is to replace the power supply. In a lot of my other hobbies I might recap the power section of a board, but given the availability of the ReActive Micro PSU PCB Kit, and since it fits in the original PSU enclosures leaving the machines looking original, I opt for a full on replacement. The main reason aside from age is that many of the apple II PSU's were not rated for many mA on the expansion slots, so replacing the PSU gets cleaner power with more available amperage. A win / win.

My order from ReActive Micro for this build; a RamWorks IIII, MicroDrive Turbo, and the power supply kit.

Inside of the original PSU

PSU Disassembled

Step 1 of fitting the ReActive Kit; put the PCB in the enclosure.

Mounted the PCB down, and then mounted the PSU to the PCB. Checked continuity of earth/ground points.

Wired up, and ready to put the lid back on.

An original looking, but very not original PSU.

BASIC fired up. A good sign, the ROM is working. Lets add some RAM and a storage device...

Well, this is not good. Very not good. At this point the troubleshooting begins. Not only will it not boot from the MicroDrive, I put in a normal 5.25 card and floppyEMU from a working Apple II build, and it also failed miserably to boot properly. I replaced the CPU and CD/EF ROM chips with known good ones. Still no luck.

In that situation, my gut instinct told me that one of the RAM DIP ICs on the logic board had to be bad. I have a 4116 tester for older Apple II RAM, but not an easy way to test these DRAMs without at the very least fashioning an adapter. But as fate would have it, luck was on my side at this point. The 80 column card was one of the socketed ones! And the RAM IC's on it have a pretty good reputation. Time for a wholesale swap between the 80 col card and the logic board!

Everybody out! I put the RAM from the 80 col card in the logic board, and set aside the socketed 80 col PCB and extra RAMs, for later testing of the RAM ICs.

Diagnostics; Instead of the fancy RAMworks IIII card, I put in a different known good 80 col card for the ram expansion, and ran the IIe diagnostic floppy.

So far, so good.

Monitor test

Everything passed!! At this point it was time to get back to the fun stuff. So I put in the RAMworks and MicroDrive card, and fired it on up.

Next was the Mouse card. I have no room for it in my other IIe, so I am happy to give it a home. I deleted the 3rd volume of the MicroDrive Turbo so that the MicroDrive only occupied S7D1 and S7D2 (the next disk mapped to S4D1). I put my mouse card in slot4, and was happy to see it working.

Next up, the Uthernet II! Well, it wasn't supposed to be next... I had an untested super serial card for this build, but I wasn't able to revive it today. So instead of heading off to the Captains Quarters, it was off to Github for Contiki and A2stream for the Uthernet II card

I think this is the first time I've browsed HTTP on an 8 bit Apple II. The Contiki Web browser in action. (sorry for the distortion at the top, my upscaler doesn't like some video modes).

I replaced the GSOS partition on the MicroDrive with Total Replay. Ciderpress lets you restore the Total Replay disk image to a partition of the MicroDrive Turbo.

A2stream works. And it's glorious. I'll try to make a video sooner than later, I saw this at KansasFest and absolutely HAD to try it out. It's a program which performs streaming of audio over HTTP to an Apple II speaker, and it sounds great. There is an option to route sound to the cassette tape output which I have still to try.

The finished product, for now anyway. I will probably try to squeeze a super serial in for BBSing, even though I have an IIe Platinum with one. Now I can finally try out all the old mouse apps that I've never gotten to play with; this is the 1st time I have had the mouse card in action

I wanted to put a UltraWarp accelerator in here, but it seems happier in my II Plus. I am sure some day I will find the use for that card which it deserves.

If you are an Apple II user or fanatic, I strongly recommend the book in this photo, "The New Apple II User's Guide" by David Finnigan. It covers the systems and upgrades available in a sane and comprehensive format, and as much as I love google, this is a fantastic reference text to own.

Thank you for reading; questions or comments are always welcome.

 

[LaPorta]

This is great! I am glad it was a fairly easy fix: I can actually give you the background on that machine. I personally obtained it (per my records) in May, 2001. It came from my high school, St. Anthony's, in the town of South Huntington, New York. I believe it to have originally been purchased by the school back in the 1980s - to my recollection, I was given access to a storage area by the head computer teacher at the school who I was friendly with, and he allowed me to take whatever was deemed to be too old of use. The power supply is not original; I replaced it from another Apple IIe, 3A2S2-E63107L-A2S2064 (and now gutted!). Other than that, I never replaced anything, it was all original to the machine. In the 21 years that I had it, I probably started it up three or four times. My interest has always been in Macs, not Apple IIs, so it sat there unused.

I am very happy that it has a new home, and now is working well yet again!

 

[Skate323k137]

This is great! I am glad it was a fairly easy fix: I can actually give you the background on that machine. I personally obtained it (per my records) in May, 2001. It came from my high school, St. Anthony's, in the town of South Huntington, New York. I believe it to have originally been purchased by the school back in the 1980s - to my recollection, I was given access to a storage area by the head computer teacher at the school who I was friendly with, and he allowed me to take whatever was deemed to be too old of use. The power supply is not original; I replaced it from another Apple IIe, 3A2S2-E63107L-A2S2064 (and now gutted!). Other than that, I never replaced anything, it was all original to the machine. In the 21 years that I had it, I probably started it up three or four times. My interest has always been in Macs, not Apple IIs, so it sat there unused.

I am very happy that it has a new home, and now is working well yet again!

Nice, thank you. I actually very much appreciate knowing the backstory of my machines, most of them I can still track back to the original owner... Usually schools, teachers, or more schools. A couple from original owners who just donated them to me knowing I would keep them.

I keep a spreadsheet on my systems but mainly just what cards are in them, when a recap, PSU service, or battery was done, what's due/dire (i.e. known issues). I should probably add the history of them source wise while I still remember.

If I can ever help you with anything on the Mac side of things by all means don't hesitate to ask.

 

[olePigeon]

@Skate323k137 Can't go wrong with a minty fresh power supply.

By the way, Control + Open-Apple + Closed-Apple + Reset will break into the built-in RAM diagnostic.

I always thought it was funny that you still needed to buy an Enhanced Kit for the early Apple //e.

 

[Skate323k137]

Control + Open-Apple + Closed-Apple + Reset will break into the built-in RAM diagnostic.

Aha! Thank you!