I am awaiting delivery of this Apple II plus.
I have a IIE but don't know much about the II Plus.
1. What were the purpose of the holes drilled in the bottom of the case?
2. I see it has a 16k memory card by COEX. Is this only a memory board and not a language card?
2a. Is a language card beneficial to have? I used to have one but I sold it thinking I didn't need it for a IIe.
3. Should I assume this unit has 32k of memory?
4. Are there any must have cards to get this unit to be awesome? Minus the floppy controller and possibly a serial card. I have a serial card in my IIe.
The COEX card is a clone of the Apple language card.
That Apple has a "RFI" motherboard, which only accepts 16K memory chips. So with all sockets filled with RAM, the memory on the board must be 48 KB. With the language card included, it has 64 KB.
What cards you want to use depends on what sort of software you want to run. A Videx 80-column card, or a CP/M card, or even a RGB color card could be interesting. Speech and music synthesizer cards were made for the II+.
I have no idea about those drilled holes.
My guess is one of the previous owners wanted to attach something using weld screws: click!
The holes might have been for security. After our first Apple II Plus was stolen by burglars, my dad built a computer desk that secured the computer and disk drives with clamps and bolts and involved drilling holes in everything.
Thanks, I wasn't aware of an REI board, good to know. Any additional info is appreciated.
I was wondering if it may have been bolted to a desk or something, those welding screws seem to fit the bill. I knew I'd seen a fastener like that before but had no idea what they were called.
So even if the bottom of case shows it was a 16k system, there were still empty sockets to add additional RAM?
Are the Disk II drives the most appropriate for this model?
Is there anything else that came standard with these machines I am missing?
I agree that those holes look like they were used for screwing the machine down to a desk or maybe into a portable box or rolling cart (they did that to a lot of the B&H Apples in AV departments at schools).
A lot of people bought a 16K ][+ and then bought the chips to upgrade to 48K on their own in order to save money. All the ][ and ][+ motherboards came with sockets to fit up to 48k. The additional 16k to get to 64k was on a "language card" or "RAM card" that plugged into slot 0. Those will usually have a jumper cable that connects to the closest DRAM chip socket. Some 3rd party cards omitted that jumper because they did their own RAM refresh.
Your machine obviously was upgraded with 3rd party parts like this. In those days it might have saved a couple hundred dollars compared to what Apple charged for a 48k system with their Language Card.
Disk ][ drives and the Apple Disk ][ Controller card are period correct for a ][+. Lots of these machines were used with 3rd party drives and/or controller cards of which there were dozens of makers. The newer Unidisk 5,25, Apple 5.25 Drive and the Duodisk will all work just fine with a ][+ (with the right DB19 style controller card or adapter cables). However most people identify the Disk ][ as "the" drive for the older machines and normally expect the newer drives with a //e.
Thanks! I definitely remember the Disk IIs in elementary school. My IIe came with a duo drive which isn't as cool.
For the language card, is the socket that the ribbon cable plugs into normally unpopulated if there is no language card? Or does the IC that was plugged in there go into the language card?
Just wondering in case I decide to remove it, if I need to put an IC back in that socket or not.
The 9th chip on the RAM card needs to go in the motherboard socket. I would recommend not removing the card if it is working because a lot of software even on a ][+ needs 64k to run. Like just about anything that uses ProDOS. And if you want to run anything that uses Integer BASIC, or Apple Pascal or if you get a CP/M card, all those require 64k.
I got the computer and disk drives today.
I was going replace the rifa, but wanted to test the system first. The keyboard is sketchy I had to pound repeatedly on the keys to get them to register. Anyone have any cleaning tips to get it more reliable?
When I was playing with the keys, I heard a strange sizzling noise and instantly unplugged the computer and ran outside. I popped the cover and sure enough, the rifa blew within 30 minutes of power on. I figured that's what happened and wanted to minimize the stink in the house.
I replaced the rifa and started on the drives. They were called in dirt and cig tar along with the disk controller card.
I cleaned the filth from the controller and sprayed deoxit and reseated the chips as they looked corroded on the pins. I disassembled one of the drives and cleaned and lubed it.
Now the drive makes a sqealing noise when spinning and won't boot. Maybe it's not up to speed or something. Anyone know of any tips for the disk II?
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After messing with the drives, they are good.
I managed to fry an IC on one of them, I sprayed some Deoxit on the cable pin connector then smoke came from the drive. Guessing that shorted something out.
I put the card and drive in my IIe and it booted fine with both drives, after swapping the good IC between them.
Turns out I have some massive RAM problems with this Plus.
I ran this test and it spit out a ton of bad addresses.
I had already cleaned and reseated all the ram on the board. :(
I just stumbled across this shelf on a FB group, I bet it was attached to something like this.
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I've made some progress with this board, although in haste, I've purchased another II plus board on eBay.
I did find 3 bad RAM chips and the board appears to be working now, passes memory tests I can boot from. I ordered some RAM from AliExpress but I was thinking there were going to be more bad ICs on the board. Some had the legs just fall off when I pulled them to reseat them due to corrosion. Some chips I put in a socket and soldered jumpers to the pins since so many legs came off. I had two different Ics where I had to solder on a new leg.
However, the problem must have been two fold. Since I burned the IC on of disk drive#1 (I am assuming it shorted when I sprayed deoxit in the ribbon cable connector), I've been using disk drive #2 and it is failing diagnostics. I can boot some disks, but not all. Still waiting on that replacement IC.
The MECC inspector software shows that there is a problem with the drive and reports the RPM is 618. I assume that is the max value the software can store since I doubt it's actually running that fast.
Another software program is reporting 500 some rpm.
Anyway, at the present time, it appears I have two fully functional ii+ motherboards. Just need those replacement RAM chips to arrive.
Starting to wonder if I should just find an empty case for this other mobo. I bought the unified mechanical keyboard, so I may be getting into Territory where I may as well complete the other computer. I would probably use a modern PSU for that machine.
The issue with the disk drive seems to be resolved by replacing the CA3146E chip. Speed now reports normal and drive passes tests.
Cleaned up the old keyboard some. Had to tap a few keys a bunch of times but seems better after a cleaning.
I managed to break the bulb though :(
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