Hello. I bought an Apple IIe at a garage sale, and I am having trouble setting it up. Please help. I can hook up the monitor and the keyboard/computer unit OK. I turn on the monitor and it says "Apple IIe", so I know that works OK. And I can type on the keyboard fine. But the problem is can't seem to get the floppy disk drives working. I put in a floppy disk and I press down, and nothing happens. I have two floppy disk drives, one labeled "1", and one labeled "2". Each floppy drive has a connector cord, as well as a port to plug in. How am I supposed to hook these up? Which disk drive should plug in to the computer, and which one should plug into the other disk drive? Also, which drive should I put the floppy disk in?
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Snrub,
One thing at a time...
1. What type of disk Drives do you have? (5.25" Disk II's, Do the have a Black Face on them)
2. What type of Adapter Card do you have? Look to see if there are two sets of pins (Upper and Lower) on the rear of the card.
You can pop the top and see the card.
Steven
Hello.
1. The floppy disk drives are not black; they're white.
http://oi41.tinypic.com/4kbj3k.jpg
2. It looks like there is only one set of pins.
http://oi44.tinypic.com/mtrmmd.jpg
I'll try and write something up to help you out with your disk drive issue.
However according to the pictures above that you posted, It appears you have a transwarp card installed. This is a very nice card that accelerates your computer from 1 MHz to 3.5 MHz. Figured I would point that out if you didn't already know.
First off what all have you tried to get this computer hooked up?
Here is what I would do as soon as I got the computer home and plugged in. I would take the drive labeled "drive 2" and set it aside. I would then take drive 1 and plug it into the 19 pin serial plug on the back of the computer. The 19 pin serial connector should be attached to the 5.25 disk controller card you show in your second picture.
The 5.25 disk drive controller card should look like THIS
Tell me what happens after you do hook them up and turn the computer on.
IF you have already done what I just listed above then you should try removing the 5.25 card and re-seating it into it's slot. Make sure you ground yourself by touching the power supply so you don't zap any of the chips on your computer / cards.
BTW: The 5.25 card should be in slot 6. If it's not some programs will not function properly.
Also could you take a picture of the whole motherboard/cards from the right side of the computer so I can see what kind of peripheral cards you have please?
Disk Drive 1 is plugged in to the controller; Disk drive 2 is unplugged and set aside. I turn on the monitor and the computer. Unfortunately, it still does not work; I still get just the "Apple //e" screen, and no signs of activity from the floppy disk drive. I try turning it on both with and without the "Apple Presents the IIe: An Introduction" 5.25 floppy disk inserted into the drive.
Here is a picture of my motherboard: http://oi44.tinypic.com/dvlshi.jpg
Keep in mind that I am a total novice to the Apple IIe and have never used one before. Is there some special keyboard combination I need to do to load it up?
Type "IN#6" where #6 equals the slot your drive is in. It should spin up. I believe in slot 7 you have a hard drive card which is most likely interfering with your disk drive.
Nice computer by the way. You have a loaded IIe with lots of nice upgrade cards!
Do tell what happens after typing "IN#6". If it does not turn on the drive then you may need to remove all the upgrade cards. It's easy and will not be hard to do. You would start with the card in slot 7 (far right) and then turn on the computer to see if anything happens; and so on and so forth.
Anyways I think it's just the hard drive card in slot 7 interfering with your disk drive card, It's more than likely trying to boot from a hard drive instead of from your disk drive.
It works!! Well, sort of. After turning the power on I got the standard blank "Apple //e" screen until I pressed CONTROL + RESET to get a bracket symbol, but I guess that's the Apple version of the prompt. But after I got the "bracket prompt" I type "in#6" and then hit RETURN, and then my floppy drive starting making noise and then it loaded! Thank you! OK now I have a couple questions:
1. By pressing CONTROL+RESET, does that negate the processing of the Transwarp card? And if so, how are you supposed to process both the card and the floppy drive?
2. Is there any danger in putting the two floppy drives on top of the keyboard/computer? What about putting the monitor on top of the floppy drives on top of the keyboard/computer?
3. Is there any danger in turning off the power of the keyboard/computer while I'm in the middle of using a floppy disk? If so, then what is the preferred way to turn off the computer safely?
Thanks very much for your help. This is great!
I'll answer your questions in order.
1. No. There is a way to turn off the transwarp and to slow it down. I can not remember off the top of my head how though.
Here is a manual for the Transwarp: Transwarp
Also, By pressing 0 and or 9 several times on boot up the Transwarp will enter it’s built in test program.
2. No danger what so ever. I've had mine stacked like that since it was new.
3.Not that I know of, however I honestly don't know. I've turned my IIe off while it's in the middle of booting a disk many times without an issue.
*one more thing* If you remove the hard drive card from slot 7 you should be able to turn your computer on and boot directly from your 5.25 disk drive. In other words you will not have to type "IN#6" every time you want to boot a disk from your floppy drive. It will instead just spin up as soon as you flip the power switch on. The reason you have to type in "IN#6" right now is due to your hard drive card being the first thing the apple IIe want's to boot from. Once you remove that obstacle it will boot directly from slot #6 which is where your 5.25 drive is located.