I have noticed that I have never had the standard _@_@_@_@ start screen. There are always gaps or other characters inserted. Is this a symptom of a bad or failing component? I have never observerd issues with the computer otherwise.
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I think it is completely normal. Specs on components are not 100% uniform, especially 40+ year old stock.
The "start screen" is not guaranteed to have the "_@" pattern, although many machines will provide it. But not every time. If you startup a "cold" machine, you might get one. But if you turn off that machine and then turn it on again, you will see all sorts of patterns.
So, in a nutshell: Unless your Apple-1 behaves oddly, there is nothing to worry about.
As the other guys correctly said above this is not a problem if everything else, say the Apple30th graphics test works correctly. Although I'm a bit concerned about those 6 characters at the top, it looks like they are outside the 40x24 grid....
I also had a "wrong grid" on one of my boards and was able to get rid of it. If I remember correctly I put a different 7432, maybe 7404/7408. I'm a bit of a perfectionist after all, I wanted everything to work properly like the other guys.
This applies only to starting from a "cold board", if you turn off and immediately turn on the power, the grid can be any and it is not worth it to try to fix it somehow. Stuck characters in one of the 2504/1404, I think that's what it's called.
There are 24 lines in the picture, so I do not think the first line is out of the grid. Or what did you mean by "looks like they are outside the 40x24"?
I count 24 lines also, so I see nothing wrong. It looks a little weird maybe because there are mostly spaces on the top line.
You got me right, I was wrong. Then it turns out that tasa has almost the correct starting grid of 40x24 characters and is happy with everything. I think that's the end of it. If it were line 25, it would be much more interesting.