Maybe it’s a clone?

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Fuzzyman's picture
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Maybe it’s a clone?

I was on the hunt for old keyboards and a guy in my area was selling off all the parts from his former computer repair business. One picture showed a bit of what appeared to be 70's vintage in a very large case. They were Honeywell Hall effect switches (cool!) but I opened up the case and there was some kind of motherboard in there. He asked for $10 and I walked away happy.

There were no markings on the motherboard that identified the manufacturer but there was a Apple II disk adapter in one slot so I started searching for a motherboard revision that matches the look of this one but I couldn't find one.

Given the nature of the machine (non-Apple power supply, keyboard, and case) I suspect it is a homemade clone, but I thought I should check with people who know. Anything you can tell me is appreciated. Or if there is somewhere else on the board I should look for identification...

 

 

 

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Digging deeper, it may be

Digging deeper, it may be this one... looks the same. Not in an ITT case, though...

https://www.applefritter.com/content/help-recognizing-apple-ii-logicboard

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It's definitely a clone.

It's definitely a clone.

 

More or less a ][+ style motherboard but set up to use 2732 style EPROMs so it is switchable INTBASIC or Applesoft.  Probably a Taiwan or Hong Kong imported mobo.

 

 

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Ah, they explains the

Ah, they explains the floating point / integer switch, thanks.

It seems to power on, but I'll need to connect it to a monitor to be sure, and locate a floppy drive to see if it will even attempt to boot up. For the price I paid I'm willing to invest a little more to have some fun with it.

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Fuzzyman wrote:

[quote=Fuzzyman]

Ah, they explains the floating point / integer switch, thanks.

It seems to power on, but I'll need to connect it to a monitor to be sure, and locate a floppy drive to see if it will even attempt to boot up. For the price I paid I'm willing to invest a little more to have some fun with it.

[/quote]

 

It has an RF modulator attached, so you could hook it up to a TV which will take old analog broadcast signals.  Floppy drives are cheap and easy to find.  They are all over on eBay, etc.  For that card you will need a Disk ][ style drive with IDC20 connector.  The newer UniDisk 5.25 or Apple 5.25" style drives with the DB19 connector would work, but you'd need an adapter cable.

 

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The TV end of the RF

The TV end of the RF converter is bare wire... it looks like they ripped it out of the TV. 

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Fuzzyman wrote:

[quote=Fuzzyman]

The TV end of the RF converter is bare wire... it looks like they ripped it out of the TV. 

[/quote]

 

A lot of old TVs just had screw terminals on the back where you'd put the antennae wiring.  So that is pretty normal you'd just have bare wires.

 

 

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Do you have a picture of your

Do you have a picture of your computer?

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