My first Apple IIc

[re4mat]

So I started cleaning and taking apart the IIc. Some things to notice:



Apparently someone had removed the serial sticker, so I have no clue what the serial number is for this machine. Is there any other place beside the box (which is also gone) that lists the serial number?

Also interesting to note is that there seemed to be evidence of someone having opened the case before. Note the marks in the plastic in front of the clip:



Anyway, opening it up, everything was pretty clean. A quick go with some compressed air and it looks like it's in pretty good condition. Probably has something to do with this little filter medium they attached to the top case over the vents:



Is that standard? I don't recall ever seeing anything like that before.

Upon removing the keyboard, I found... a twist tie. Weird.



It looked like maybe something was leaking inside the power converter, so I decided to take a look.



It's an ASTEC unit, btw:



Opening it up, it doesn't look like any of the caps have popped. I just see that bit of schmutz that was visible from the outside. Easily cleaned up.



It's getting late, so I'm going to call it a night.

 

[Gorgonops]

Is that standard? I don't recall ever seeing anything like that before.

I think my unit has it as well. The IIc originally shipped with some measures to make it *slightly* resistant to minor spills and splashes, including a membrane under the keyboard and that filter-like material under the ventilation slots. Later they got rid of the membrane. Apparently it doesn't age well, so if yours still has it and the keyboard feels gross as a result you can remove it.

 

[commodorejohn]

Oh, so that's why the keyboard on my IIc feels so surprisingly crappy. I'll have to get around to addressing that.

 

[re4mat]

Thanks for the link! I just tested all the keys on the keyboard, and they feel quite clicky.

 

[re4mat]

Got the insides cleaned out. Hadn't done the same with the monitor or the PSU before I decided to turn it on and do the PRINT PEEK(64447) command, which returned '0'. The monitor has a great picture, bright and crisp with no burn-in. I did notice when I first turned it on that there were these weird diagonal lines running through it. (Zoom in to see what I mean.)



Oh no! Surely everything is terrible and I should just send the whole thing into the landfill.

... OR ...



Yeah, just needed to turn the brightness down. Now the picture looks perfect!



I'm going to be doing a full recap of everything, because as far as I know the caps in everything are all original. (I believe the seller's grandma was the original owner, and the seller mentioned that he never got around to recapping it.) I want to open up the PSU and the monitor anyway to see what state they're in inside, but I'm expecting those to be the same as the IIc itself—pretty clean. I doubt at this point that I'll be finding anything catastrophic. But, of course, the fact that 40-year-old electrolytic capacitors haven't exploded yet doesn't mean that they won't.

Also, I don't have any 5 1/4" floppies anymore (other than my copies of Wolfenstein 3D and Ultima VI, which are PC-formatted) so I haven't tested the drive yet. I'll probably order one or two from rescuemyclassicmac.com.

I've noticed that the PSU brick remains warm even when the unit is off. (I'm trying really hard not to call it the "CPU", which is what we were told to call it in school in the '80s; clearly the CPU is something rather more specific than the box with the logic board in it. But I digress!) So I've taken to unplugging it after I turn it off. Is it normal for it to be warm when plugged in but turned off?

 

[Gorgonops]

(I'm trying really hard not to call it the "CPU", which is what we were told to call it in school in the '80s; clearly the CPU is something rather more specific than the box with the logic board in it. But I digress!)

Whoever told you to call the power brick the CPU was clearly on crack. (That was a thing in the 80's too...) There's nothing in it other than a transformer and a full-bridge rectifier.

And yes, it's normal for it to be warm all the time; power is running through the transformer whether the regulators in the IIc that take its 15v-ish DC output and turn it into the 5v/12v it actually uses internally are running off it it or not. Switching the whole system on and off with a power strip (or unplugging it when you're not using it) isn't a terrible idea.

(If the brick ever dies apparently most laptop power supplies from the 90's through the 2000-aughts make acceptable replacements, since they also generally output 14-18v DC.)

 

[Gorgonops]

Also, I don't have any 5 1/4" floppies anymore (other than my copies of Wolfenstein 3D and Ultima VI, which are PC-formatted) so I haven't tested the drive yet. I'll probably order one or two from rescuemyclassicmac.com.

Requisite link to ADTpro for generating your own floppies via a serial cable connected to a modern computer. The trick, of course, is the IIc has those *very* proprietary serial ports. The ADT site has links to buy the appropriate cable, or you can make your own. (The nice thing about the IIc's proprietary ports is they use a *very* common DIN connector, unlike the 8-pin mini-din on the IIc+ and IIgs.)

 

[re4mat]

Whoever told you to call the power brick the CPU was clearly on crack. (That was a thing in the 80's too...)

haha No, not the power brick; the base unit! You know, the thing with the logic board in it! It did seem like a fairly widespread thing at the time. I figure it was probably just that desktop computers were still new to the teachers, too, so they weren't all that savvy and probably one teacher called it that and then it spread throughout the school district. It wasn't until my Multimedia Tech class in high school that I learned what all the components inside of a typical desktop computer were. But for some reason I still have this urge to call the old Apple II desktops "CPUs" because of that old association they created in my brain.

There's nothing in it other than a transformer and a full-bridge rectifier.

And yes, it's normal for it to be warm all the time; power is running through the transformer whether the regulators in the IIc that take its 15v-ish DC output and turn it into the 5v/12v it actually uses internally are running off it it or not. Switching the whole system on and off with a power strip (or unplugging it when you're not using it) isn't a terrible idea.

That makes total sense. Thanks!

Requisite link to ADTpro for generating your own floppies via a serial cable connected to a modern computer. The trick, of course, is the IIc has those *very* proprietary serial ports. The ADT site has links to buy the appropriate cable, or you can make your own. (The nice thing about the IIc's proprietary ports is they use a *very* common DIN connector, unlike the 8-pin mini-din on the IIc+ and IIgs.)

That's a great link! I'm not averse to making my own cables, but I'll probably just buy one pre-made in this case. That's a super cool tool, though! I can see myself getting quite a bit of use out of that. Now I just need to get a floppy to use it on!