So someone brought me a Franklin 1000 in a very sad state to have repaired. Seems they connected up the keyboard cable backwards and did some damage. They did add new foam capacitive pads first but never got the chance to test them.
The long and short of it is I needed to replace a couple diodes and capacitors on the keyboard PCB as well as some TTL logic. The keyboard decoder IC was also bad. IT was impressive the damage caused by connecting a cable backwards considering the cables had no connector or key; its easy to put in wrong!
Once I made those repairs I still had lots of problems. I suspected the Eprom on the keyboard PCB was bad. I finally found someone with Franklin 1000 to dump the ROM and I was able to test it in the machine. The keyboard was now working again! I had to adjust a bunch of the foam pads but the keyboard works again. Phew.....
Anyway I dont own a Franklin and have no real experience with them besides this repair. My question is are there any Diagnostics from franklin to run on this system? I know its an Apple II plus clone so do you just run Apple II plus diagnostics on it? Are there any disk images meant for the Franklin PC series? Specifically the 1000 or 1200 series? Hope some of you know a bit more about these system.
The Franklin Ace 1000 and 1200 are pretty much Apple ][+ clones. Most diagnostics will work with the exception that the ROM tests will usually fail due to the (tiny) differences. You might look on the Asimov archive to see if there are any Franklin specific diagnosics, but not having one, I've not paid close attention.
I have checked Asimov and scoured the Net for more info but I couldnt find much. Just a couple Franklin DOS disks. I will try the disk and II plus diagnostics. I just figured a company like Franklin who made so many successful Apple clones would have had more software and utilities to run on thier machines.
They didn't really expect anyone to develop or run any Franklin specific stuff, they just assumed everyone was buying an Apple clone. They did offer their own DOS, but really nobody used it. And they re-sold some software, but it was stuff originally developed for the Apple ][.
So I tried all the disks I could find labeled FRanklin or ACE and only two work: Both on Asimov
franklin ace dos.zip and ACE-1000.dsk
Both Are DOS disks and both have a Diagnostics program you need to BRUN within them. Just a heads up for anyone in the future. It can test the RAM, ROM, and CPU which is handly. I found PC Cillin II works also but thats it for Diags. Apple II plus diagnostics DOES NOT WORK on the Franklin 1000.
Something to note unlike the Apple II and II plus which goes up to 48KB MAX. The Franklin Ace 1000 has 64KB on the board in 16kb chips in 4 rows.
The Franklins are good machines. A friend of mine had one back in the day and I always kind of wanted an Ace 1200. Never got one though.
Yeah I have been on the lookout for a clone of my own for years now. I guess there arent many in the northeast here. Id be happy with one of those super generic Taiwan models, like "pineapple" or "orange" branded computers.. Maybe one day. Other than the keytronic keyboard (which I am really tired of rebuilding at this point, I hate those things) its a good unit.
The Keytronic keyboards are pretty good when they are working, but they are a pain to deal with rebuilding as you noted.
I have one of the generic Tiawan/Hong Kong built ones. It is so generic it has no label at all, just an empty space where the plate would go. It's a very typical unit of that era, late pre-RFI model ][+ motherboard clone.
I know most are II and II plus clones. Are there any clones of the IIe or the IIe enhansed?
There were //e clones and the Laser 128 is more of a //c clone, but sort of a hybrid because it does have a slot on the side (can be broken out to 2 slots with an extender).
The //e clones out of Taiwan and Hong Kong were far less common in the US than the ][+ clones because by the time they came out Apple was aggressively using US Customs to stop them from being imported.