Apple II Clone probably RedStone

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Apple II Clone probably RedStone

Recently I won eBay auction for two Apple II one was Apple II Europlus into the wrong case and second one was in the Europlus case but defenetly somebody swap for some reason I suspect this one are RedStone but I can't find much information online. If anybody know anything or have any information please help. Thanks

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That case, and keyboard, are

That case, and keyboard, are also clones, so it is an entire clone system, from 1984-ish, based on the 6502 date code. 

 

It may be a UniTron system, but could also be by Redstone or a few others.

 

I can't say that I have seen Redstone machines with white ceramic, gold PIN ROMs, nor numbered that cleanly.  Then again, UniTron boards were usually blue, so that might rule them out, but it's genuinely hard to say. 

 

Here is a handy image ref from a now dead site. 

 

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Found some info that might be helpful

In searching for something like the photos you posted, I found a website with photos of a motherboard similar to what you posted. Here's the link:

https://finapple.hho.fi/finapple/index.php/2018/11/20/once-there-were-apple-ii-clones/  (Although the wires to slot 7 do not exist in your photo)

 

The motherboard and the case could have been made by Jiama (Chia-ma)  in Japan during the 1980's and labeled it as the SPS-109. They apparently made them for European markets. Here's the refernece link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_series

 

Here's the link to an Apple II clone database: http://www.epocalc.net/php/liste_models.php?texte=&look=All+fields&yearmax=2018&nocomp=pc&cat=Apple+2+clone

 

Good luck!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Unknow Apple II clone

Hi, thanks alot for the information you provided, i will do more investigation, what i forgot to mention this machine it's boot with short beep but nothing shown on the screen (for test i use an Eyoyo little monitor witch works with my Apple II Europlus or //e) just "No Signal" so no indication on splash screen Apple ][ or something else.

We all agre it's an Apple II clone so what do you think about crezzy ideea to pull out the ROM's and try to put in my Europlus ? If i go to do that i will save the Bin files before . What do you think ? If you own this machine where you start ? Regards

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nice

nice.

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Clone, but who copied whom?

That motherboard is an amost exact copy of my Unitron (Taiwan) clone.Note the locations of the two prototyping areas.

 

It's unknown at this point wheter the Japanese copied the Taiwanse board or vice versa.

 

 

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Unknow Apple II clones

Hi, very nice , i love the blue PCB , and yes Both copied Apple that's for sure. Yes the two boars are twins green MCA Made in Japan and blue UNITRON Made in Taiwan one of the two was first witch one ? It's yours still work ? Thanks

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DanielIRL wrote:Hi, very nice
DanielIRL wrote:

Hi, very nice , i love the blue PCB , and yes Both copied Apple that's for sure. Yes the two boars are twins green MCA Made in Japan and blue UNITRON Made in Taiwan one of the two was first witch one ? It's yours still work ? Thanks

Yes, mine still works and I use it all the time.

This was the "APPLE" that I had as a kid that my dad and I built from a bare pcb.  You used to be able to buy bare boards from local electronics shops for $10 or something like that.

 

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DanielIRL wrote:Hi, thanks
DanielIRL wrote:

Hi, thanks alot for the information you provided, i will do more investigation, what i forgot to mention this machine it's boot with short beep but nothing shown on the screen (for test i use an Eyoyo little monitor witch works with my Apple II Europlus or //e) just "No Signal" so no indication on splash screen Apple ][ or something else.

We all agre it's an Apple II clone so what do you

 

Only if you want to fry them. The clone system ROM pinouts do not match factory board ROM pinouts. I would absolutely not expect those to be MASK ROMs, and even if they were, they are potentially the EPROM pinout. 

 

It certainly lookd like a UniTron to me, except for the obvious colour difference and the MCA marking. There were clones of clones of clones, so it is quite hard to say. The only thing that |I can say for certain is, that, unless the CPU was swapped, it is from late 1983 through 1985. This clashes with the ceramic white EPROMs, although being made in Japan, perhaps they had a stock of them from arcade machines / clones that they needed to use up?

 

Insofar as a beep with no signal: First thing, turn the video amp trim pot clockwise. \it's the big, square-ish white pot on the top right.

 

 Also, are you using a CRT or an LCD? NTSC display, or PAL?

 

If you have a scope, see if there is a signal generated on the four pin (on this board six, as the left two seem to be for the speaker) video header. This could be an NTSC/PAL display issue, it could be that you are trying to use a wholly incompatible display, it could be a video trim issue, or it could be a fault in the video circuit.

 

If that 6-pin header is merely the speaker and video all iun a row, then I woould expect this pinout

 

6 5 4 3 2 1

 

(6) Speker, (5) Speaker, (4) VCC, (3) N/C, (2) Composite, (1) Earth

 

Isolate VCC and Earth first.

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It’s working

Hello to everybody , just a quick update, I finally got time today to have a look at my Apple Clone and thanks to Timelord I start by swap the monitor with my Sony DM2112 Display Monitor and ..... it's still working. I hope I can manage to upload more pictures the logo it's say COMPUTER instead of Apple II. I start by testing this machine using Apple II Diagnostic V4.7 and was identified to be an Apple II plus with 64K of  RAM thanks to the 16k RAM Card all the test pass but I discover some key didn't respond 1,Q,A,Z and on the other side 9,O,L,. I test this switch's with my multimeter and no problem then I use some contact cleaner to clean the keyboard encoder and now everything work perfect so I'm a happy owner at one uncertain Apple Clone. I do have an Apple II Europlus , one Apple II and of course an Apple //e. That's the story of my Apple Clone please if anybody have any link or an similar computer let me know I'm happy with but I still want to know his name and may be the year of birth. I will try to upload more pictures  if I manage to. Thanks a lot for all the comments . Daniel 

 

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Apple Clone on test
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DanielIRL wrote:Hello to
DanielIRL wrote:

Hello to everybody , just a quick update, I finally got time today to have a look at my Apple Clone and thanks to Timelord I start by swap the monitor with my Sony DM2112 Display Monitor and ..... it's still working. I hope I can manage to upload more pictures the logo it's say COMPUTER instead of Apple II. I start by testing this machine using Apple II Diagnostic V4.7 and was identified to be

Good to hear that I could help. What part of my advice was useful? The trim pot, or the header information?

 

Also, WOW! The char-gen ROM is also ceramic?!

 

I am doubly curious on the origin of this. I have my own clone to restore: The PSU is toast, and I think that the main transformer is the culprit, but that is for another month. I am restoring a Videx for another forum member as part of a lengthy multi-card restoration process, and I finally finished the softswitch. I decided to hot glue the cables quite liberally, as they tend to break, which while ugly, will keep it running for decades. I need now only test it and if it works, clean off the flux. 

 

He bought all of his cards (Videx, Softswitch, Softcard) off eBay, and surprise (to no-one), none of them were functional. I have repaired the Videx, and hopefully) the softswitch, and I subbed in a spare softcard of my own and will diagnose his later: This is to save time, as the repairs on the softswitch and the Videx itself took up a lot of time--there were no window covers on his Videx EPROMS!!!--so, I just want to get it all back to him.

 

He also sent a Rev 04 Apple II mainboard that is in the worst operable state that I have ever seen: I get a brief video pulse and nothing else. The CPU was inserted backwards, and it likely did not help that it was packaged in aluminium foil when it arrived. :(

 

Once I have his project done, I can dedicate more time to my own systems, and to my clone. I look forward to working on that, as it has hotkeys for a lot of BASIC commands and for some Monitor commands. 

 

Does your system have anything like that?

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Apple Clone on test

Hi, thanks for comeback to me i'm 58 years old and my pasion for vintage computer start about 3-4 years ago when i start to collect everything but nothing newer then 86 (my sun birth year) until last year when i move in the new house. When i start to make the boxes i just realizate how meny i acumulated and i start to think witch direction should i go and of course Apple was the winner.

I never own an Apple computer before, but about 3 years ago i won an auction for 3x Apple IIe, i manage to fix all of them, i sold 2 on eBay and i invest the profit exclusivlly on Apple II's ,so with  not to much experience i start to buy cheap brocken, for parts computers and try to refurbish thats the moment when i register on Applefritter comunity where i find so much information about the problem i have.

With this RedStone i have to ask because i can't find anything about and then Timelord user point me where to stsrt :

"Insofar as a beep with no signal: First thing, turn the video amp trim pot clockwise. \it's the big, square-ish white pot on the top right.Also, are you using a CRT or an LCD? NTSC display, or PAL?"  oh man i'm blonde this clone wasn't made for Europe so isn't aPAL it must be NTSC ,i just replace my little LCD monitor with an Sony CRT and when i turn rhe trim pot cloockwise bumm splash screen logo COMPUTER shown on my screen. Thanks again for your usefull information.

P.S. The char-gen ROM is also ceramic and it's marked number  "0"

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