Apple II Plus

[PotatoFi]

Through the co-worker of a family member, I recently learned about an Apple II Plus that was destined for the trash. I was told that if I paid shipping costs, it was mine! I gave them my address, they gave me their PayPal, and the deal was done!

They went to a pack and ship place (like the UPS Store). Unfortunately, the bill was $200, but I gotta admit that they did a great job. I did laugh at how meticulously they wrapped and padded the floppy drive ribbon cables and power cable!

There were all kinds of goodies in the box! The Apple II Plus itself, an Apple floppy drive, a non-Apple drive, a Grappler+ card, and a stack of floppies. Basically, a full Apple II setup!

The machine needs a light cleaning, but looks pretty good!

This little guy was attached with double-sided tape. I'm completely new to the Apple II ecosystem (I grew up exclusively on PC's), so I'm not familiar with interfaces like this.

There's also some interesting homemade stuff inside! I have no idea what is going on here.

As neat as the Paddle-Adapple is, I don't have paddles for this machine, and I prefer things to be clean and stock, so I decided to remove it. The double-sided tape was very stubborn, but Goo Gone made great progress on it.

And there's the machine all cleaned up! I think this is a 10/10 example of an Apple II Plus - there isn't a scratch on this thing.

I'd like to power it on pretty soon, and see if everything works. Is there anything I need to know before doing so? Should I replace the Rifa caps? If someone has a preferred part on Digikey or Mouser, I'd appreciate being pointed to it. Is there any other preventative maintenance I should do?

 

[ScutBoy]

You don't _have_ to replace the RIFAs, but chances are they will go soon - if it hasn't already. Other than making a stinky mess, it shouldn't take out anything important inside the power supply or the machine in general. Machine should still run with it in a failed state.

If it were me, I'd fire it up

 

[PotatoFi]

You don't _have_ to replace the RIFAs, but chances are they will go soon - if it hasn't already. Other than making a stinky mess, it shouldn't take out anything important inside the power supply or the machine in general. Machine should still run with it in a failed state.

If it were me, I'd fire it up

Advice taken!

Hearing that "beep" was very satisfying. I realized that in my adult life, I've never used an Apple ][. When I was in grade school, a friend had one and his dad showed us some games on it. That was in the era of the 4/86 and early Pentiums, so even at the time (~1995), it seemed a bit like an ancient relic. As a result, I have no idea how to use it. I need a crash course! I did find the reference manual, which I scrolled through last night.

The first thing I noticed is that several of the keys don't work. What's the procedure for that, can I pop some keycaps off, drop alcohol into the switches, and work them a bit?

 

[ScutBoy]

If you just work the keys in question (bang on them continuously like a wild monkey) for a while they should start to work again. You can pull the caps and use a drop of alcohol or contact cleaner, but I've only found that to be rarely necessary. They should come back their own after a while.

The paddle adapter thing was so that you didn't have to open the case to change from paddles to joystick, etc. You could plug the adapter onto the logic board, and then your different controllers to the adapter, then switch between.

Not sure exactly what the couple of resistors and caps are for, but I would guess that it's probably some kind of uppper/lower case mod for the keyboard. Could get a better idea if we could see where all the wires are going.

And I like the PVM!

 

[torbar]

The first thing I noticed is that several of the keys don't work. What's the procedure for that, can I pop some keycaps off, drop alcohol into the switches, and work them a bit?

Could be bad solder joints on the keyboard encoder, that was the case with mine

Remove the keyboard, and there should be a PCB that looks similar to this. Check the solder joints, particularly on that row of header pins

 

[RetroViator]

Advice taken!

View attachment 315

Hearing that "beep" was very satisfying. I realized that in my adult life, I've never used an Apple ][. When I was in grade school, a friend had one and his dad showed us some games on it. That was in the era of the 4/86 and early Pentiums, so even at the time (~1995), it seemed a bit like an ancient relic. As a result, I have no idea how to use it. I need a crash course! I did find the reference manual, which I scrolled through last night.

The first thing I noticed is that several of the keys don't work. What's the procedure for that, can I pop some keycaps off, drop alcohol into the switches, and work them a bit?

I also came to the Apple II recently. While I had some exposure in school, they usually sat on a lonely desk unused except during rare "free time" activities, but since I wasn't familiar with it, others jumped in front of me to have a go. Around a year ago or so, I picked up an IIGS with a collection of old Macs, and that ignited my Apple II curiosity. It was actually fun to start at the beginning and learn the computer from the ground up. Steven Wehyrich's website (http://apple2history.org/) and his book "Sophstiation & Simplicity" were helpful. As was David Finnigan's book "The New Apple II Users Guide."

 

[wottle]

Through the co-worker of a family member, I recently learned about an Apple II Plus that was destined for the trash. I was told that if I paid shipping costs, it was mine! I gave them my address, they gave me their PayPal, and the deal was done!

They went to a pack and ship place (like the UPS Store). Unfortunately, the bill was $200, but I gotta admit that they did a great job. I did laugh at how meticulously they wrapped and padded the floppy drive ribbon cables and power cable!

View attachment 275

There were all kinds of goodies in the box! The Apple II Plus itself, an Apple floppy drive, a non-Apple drive, a Grappler+ card, and a stack of floppies. Basically, a full Apple II setup!

View attachment 276

The machine needs a light cleaning, but looks pretty good!

View attachment 277

This little guy was attached with double-sided tape. I'm completely new to the Apple II ecosystem (I grew up exclusively on PC's), so I'm not familiar with interfaces like this.

View attachment 279

There's also some interesting homemade stuff inside! I have no idea what is going on here.

View attachment 280

As neat as the Paddle-Adapple is, I don't have paddles for this machine, and I prefer things to be clean and stock, so I decided to remove it. The double-sided tape was very stubborn, but Goo Gone made great progress on it.

View attachment 281

And there's the machine all cleaned up! I think this is a 10/10 example of an Apple II Plus - there isn't a scratch on this thing.

View attachment 282

I'd like to power it on pretty soon, and see if everything works. Is there anything I need to know before doing so? Should I replace the Rifa caps? If someone has a preferred part on Digikey or Mouser, I'd appreciate being pointed to it. Is there any other preventative maintenance I should do?

I enjoyed the part about the packaging. I recently bought a Twentieth Anniversary Mac and had to have it shipped and was very concerned. The guy paid to have Fedex do it and I've never seen something so meticulously packaged. Each piece separately wrapped, and the spaces around the wrapped items were filled with bags of expanding foam that completely filled any crevices. It was probably overkill, but I appreciated the care. And it was cheaper than I was expecting, at around $90.

Jealous of your II Plus, though. I currently don't have a working Apple II, but I'm continuing to look for one locally.