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I recently won an auction on Goodwill's auction site. At the risk of gloating, I wanted to post my find here. I am just too pumped. Here's what I've ended up with.
Apple II Plus 48K
Amdek 300 12 inch monochrome monitor
Hand Controllers II
Epson Printer Card
Disk Controller Card
Language Card
SmartTerm Video Card
2 Disk II drives
Drive/Monitor stand
The machine is dirty, but not the worst I've seen. The monitor has some real condition issues. I was hopeful that it was an amber Amdek, but it was just regular old green. The Apple II has an asset tag from what I think is the Lilly Endowment, but the monitor appears to have been used (and abused) by a child. If viewed closely, I can see their name was written on the screen with a marker or pen and an attempt was made to remove it. I'm going to just call the machine Katie from now on.
Katie's keyboard is intact, and the keys seem to physically work, but R,U,9,0, and the RESET key only work intermittently after being pressed with great force.
My favorite quirk is this red wire soldered into one of the sockets on the game paddle port. My best guess is that this was meant to be a cheating device that somehow altered the information read on the port - perhaps to modify or exaggerate the range of the potentiometers on the hand controllers? Maybe I'm overthinking it - that's just a guess - so please let me know if you have a better one.
I'm away from home so I won't be able to get any software running or do more testing until this weekend.
Pics below.
Total price - $77.01
Good Deal! Apple II+'s are fun, enjoy it.
Very Cool!!!
I have heard of things named for worse reasons...
They probably needs to be cleaned... Start with:
http://www.applefritter.com/content/help-disassembling-and-reassembling-late-model-ii-plus-keyboard
and
http://www.applefritter.com/content/repair-or-replacement-parts-apple-ii-keyboard
and
http://www.applefritter.com/content/ii-foil-keyboard-h-l
Most likely the Apple II and II Plus: Shift-Key Modification.
It was definitely worth that....
MarkO
Wow thanks, man. I read over that document about the Shift mod, but I am not sure what I have here is the same thing. The wire in my II+ is soldered to a socket on the game paddle port and has clip at the other end. Perhaps it was just a strange failed experiment.
EDIT: Reading over on apple2history.com:
My assumption would be that the mod described here would use more than just a single pin, but perhaps not.
Your picture is fuzzy, but if the wire is in Pin #4, that is the Joystick Push Button #2, ( PB2 ), which is used for the Shift Key Modification...
You might check the Character ROM, and see if it has been Replaced, with one that has Lower Case Characters. Someone that has done that will definitely want the Shift Key Mod..
MarkO
Interesting. You're correct - so this is very likely (definitely) the shift key mod. However, from what I can see without the tools to take it apart, the ROM SPCL chip is stamped
So if I am reading the support article correctly - this will currently only work with an 80 column card equipped with lowercase text.
Okay so that's probably why the Smarterm card is there.
It all comes together
Thanks.. I Trouble Shoot for a Living...
According to AppleBox ChipSets, the Character ROM on a ][+ should have an ID of 341-0036 or 7341-0036.
I know of people that replaced the Standard Character ROM with a Custom One with the Lower Case Letters.. The Shift Key Mod let Applications shift between Upper and Lower Case "quickly" while typing... The Shift Key Mod works with the Standard Character ROM, you merely got Inverse Capitol Letters for Capitols, and Normal Capitols Letters for LowerCase. As I Recall with Apple Writer on the ][+
MarkO
Well it is all much appreciated. I'll be travelling today, but I hope to spend time this weekend cleaning the keyboard, getting it working and setting everything up.
Thanks.