Defective Language Card?

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Defective Language Card?

Hello:

I'm hoping to get some assistance on this forum for a situation I am having with a recently purchased Apple II Plus from eBay. It came with a DOS 3.3 diskette and that boots without issue.

Here is the what I noticed: After my DOS 3.3 disk boots, I see the message 'Loading Integer Basic into Memory'. Then the systems goes into Applesoft Basic as I see the ']' prompt. No errors during this boot up. Now I would think I should be able to type 'INT' and go into Integer Basic isn't it? But when I do that, the disk drive actually fires up for a moment and then the system hangs. All I can do is reboot. I've seen someone else do the same thing on a youtube video and when he typed in 'INT' it goes right to the '>' prompt. So this is my first issue. Could it be a bad Language Card? This Apple II Plus *does not* have a genuine Apple Language Card but some 3rd Party card.

The next odd behavior is many of my older Apple II games are not playing properly and just hang at some point. These disks have been kept in very good condition and in a very clean environment. I believe the games that are for 64K are not working, but games copyrighted 1981 seem to work (perhaps they needed only 48K of memory?). I booted a program called Creative Writer that asks you in the beginning if you want 48K or 64K mode, and when I pick 48K it works as expected but when I select 64K I don't see the menu and the system has to be rebooted.

So in my limited understanding I would have ventured to guess that I either didn't have a language card or that it was defective, but as mentioned, when booting from the diskette, it does say Integer Basic was loaded into Memory...and it didn't hang while doing that. Further I seem to have all the Autostart ROM features such as enhanced editing and such. So then maybe its not the 16K Language Card??

Anyway, do you have any suggestions. Are any programs I can run to test the 16K card? Or maybe it is best to buy a genuine Apple Computer Language Card from eBay? Those are expensive and most say sold as-is and no refunds so I would not want to do it unless I had to.

Anyway, any help or guidance you can offer will be most helpful to me. Thank you in advance.

Amar

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Re: Defective Language Card?

download a copy of dealer's II+ diagnostic and run ram test. it'll identify bad ram for you.

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Re: Defective Language Card?

Thank you so much for your suggestion and reply. I'm afraid I have to ask a follow up question on where one downloads this software? And how do I run it on my Apple II+?

Thank you kindly.

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Re: Defective Language Card?

You can find it on Asimov FTP. Just google for it.

However to get it onto a floppy on your machine you will need a serial card and adtpro.

Do you have a serial card on your machine? Maybe someone here is located near you and and give you a copy of the dealer disk.
I do suggest though if you don't have a serial card or a CFFA3000 card that lets you use a USB key for disk images you get one so that you can have access to the vast amount of software out there on the Internet for the Apple II.

Good luck,
Cheers,
Corey

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Re: Defective Language Card?

However to get it onto a floppy on your machine you will need a serial card and adtpro.

If that machine is the only II OP has, it's going to be tough since ADTpro runs on ProDOS, a bad 16k card kills any chance of getting it to run.

That said, do search for ADTpro and Dealers II+ Diagnostics.
OP, drop me a note if you have difficulties.

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Re: Defective Language Card?

Here is the diagnostics disk
http://macgui.com/downloads/?file_id=9615

Here is ADTPro
http://adtpro.sf.net/

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Re: Defective Language Card?


Here is ADTPro
http://adrpro.sf.net/

Be sure to replace the 'r' with a 't' above...
http://adtpro.sf.net

But it doesn't sound like the OP is ready for that just yet. I'd suggest starting by looking at the internals of the machine. Is there a jumper cable going from the faux language card down to the motherboard? (This will depend on the kind of card you have...). A picture is worth a thousand words here.

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Re: Defective Language Card?

My dear friends on AppleFritter, thank you so much for you replies and interest in my problem. I am very appreciative of this. This all sounds so very interesting what you guys have updated me on. I had no idea that things like this was possible such as using a USB to transfer media from Asimov FTP to diskette that can work with my computer. I'm not even sure if that is really what you meant, but I anyway, lots of cool things await me. Well, one day I will work on that but as Mr. Schmidt concluded maybe a bit too much for me right now. But regardless, Corey, thank you!!

Dorkbert, also, thank you for allowing me to drop you a note as needed!

With regards to my issue and some questions posed, yes, there is a cable that seems to be plugged from this possible defective card to the motherboard.

I will take some pictures with hopes that that might help diagnose my issue and I will learn more about ADTPro (thanks for the links Dog Cow) in the meantime as well.

So thankful for this community!

I will post again soon with pictures.

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