Emergency Apple II rescue

[Dennis Jenkins <dennis@usb.com>]

	Last Friday I checked www.a2central.com on a whim.  Wow!  SOmeone in
Brown Dear Wisconsin (just a few miles north of here) is throwing away
hundreds of Apple II computers on Saturday.  (I wish this notice was
posted to usenet, I might have seen it sooner).  Anyway, after a few
emails to Eric Shepherd, my wife and that lady at the house, I was set
to leave work early and go check it out.
	Background:  The man that used to live at the house collected Apple
computers for the past 9 years.  He died recently from diabetes and his
wife was selling the house.  She wanted to give the Apples to people who
would use them.  However, everything left by the evening of 3-24-2001
would be trashed.  

	She literally had half of a semi load of stuff.  I picked up what I
could and passed up some stuff that I wish I had gotten.  Prior to my
arrival was a group that grabbed all of the Second Sight and SCSI cards
(..... pirates of the high sees!)  Among my finds:

1) A Bell & Howell (or is it black and howell?) Apple II + 3 black
drives.
2) 2x ROM3 IIgs (yippie!  I can upgrade my ROM1!)
3) An Apple ///  (is this group appropriate for posting Apple 3
questions when I have some? :) ).
4) Apple File Server v2.0 in shrink wrap.
5) Apple Print Server v?? in shrink wrap.
6) Appleworks in Shrink wrap (version unknown).
7) Dozens of 3.5 and 5.25" platinum drives.
8) Lots of hardware technical ref books, including the full schematics
for the Apple ][+.
9) 3x 5.25" Apple 360K ms-dos floppy disk drives.  What are these?  They
have a 37 pin D shell connector, just like external PC 5.25" or 8"
floppy disks.  On the underside are labels that state that the drive can
read MS-DOS 360K floppies.  They have a PC connector, not an apple one,
but they are in Platinum Apple cases and have the apple multicolored
logo on them.
10) Other misc software.
11) A Mac IIci.
12) A Vulcan controller and hard drive.  Capacity unknown.
13) 2x duodisks, but only one controller card.
14) A No-Slot-Clock chip, unused, still in box.
15) A power brick for my IIc.
16) Many Koala pads, 2 mint in box.
17) An external SCSI harddrive in an enclosure.  Capacity unknown.
18) Atari 1040st + harddrive
19) Keningston(sp?) system saver.
20) 2x Monitor/keyboard stand for the IIgs
21) An RGB monitor.

Things that I passed up (and wish I hadn't):
1) A huge collection of IO cards.  I should have grabbed them and sorted
through them later.  I probably passed up some really good ones.
2) A box of 4 Apple IIs.  Not IIe or II+'s, but the real, original,
Apple II.  Shooting myself in head right now.
3) A disassembled bell & howell Apple IIe.  At the time I didn't want to
mess with reassembling it, so I left it to die.
4) Tons of power bricks for IIc's.  I don't need them, but I could sell
them on evilbay.
5) ~40 cubic feet of floppy disks.  I don't want the software.  I would
have just saved it from the trash heap and then passed it on to someone
who would want it.  But the car was already too full.
6) A box full of IIc's (8 or so) , some were labeled IIc+ (I think I saw
2).
8) About 10 RGB monitors.  I would have no way to fit them in my car,
but they are the best peripheral one could get for the IIgs.

	The lady at the house said that people (including Sheppy) did not
believe her when she stated the amount of computers that she had.  I
wish I had brought my camera to take some pictures to web post.  She
really did have better than half of a semi truck worth of stuff.  Prior
to my arrival a few groups showed up.  One guy filled his car until it
was over flowing.  She told me that another guy from New York wanted to
come all the way out.

	I need to disinfect and clean everything that I got.  It is currently
packed into my garage.  I plan to keep the Apple III.  After I test it,
I will probably sell the bell & howell.  I'm going to upgrade my IIgs to
the max with my new findings, then build a second IIgs system.  I will
probably give that one to my brother in law.

	Can anyone give me info about the PC style floppy drives?  At the time
I could find no controller cards that went with them.  I might sell 2 of
them and keep the third.  Can I hook them up to a regular PC using an
external floppy drive controller card (I have one on a 486)?

	Did anyone that reads this group go to this place?  If so, post what
you found and took.  For me, this was my biggest find ever.  I only wish
I had known about it sooner, I would have made multiple trips.

-- 
dennis@usb.com                           Universal Savings Bank.

The three most dangerous things are a programmer with a soldering
iron, a manager who codes, and a user who gets ideas.