On Sun, 19 Dec 2010, Sam Latella wrote:
I just came across an Apple IIe that has a swich underneath the keyboard. Once you flick the switch it goes from the Apple //e to Apple ][. The Apple //e looks like it was built in 1982, and the case itself is a little bigger then the other //e I have in use.Did the IIe case shrink over the years? Lastly, everytime I boot up this //e with the switch its hard to read the screen... what could be the possible cause, bad board chip? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
It's the international version - I have several, in different style cases too. Some look like clone cases but with international motherboards in them. They all have the switch on the bottom and switch over to international characters. There were several versions that I know of; Canadian-US, Canadian-French, French and UK-Australian. The IIc came in various flavours like this too; with the flip of a switch above the keyboard - on the US version, the keyboard switch changed from US standard to Dvorak and on the international versions, the switch changed over to French and other international characters.
I have one really odd II+ with words printed below each letter on each key. R has RUN printed below it, P has PRINT, S has SAVE, L has LOAD, B has BLOAD etc. You activate each word with a function key occupying the 'missing key' space on the keyboard layout and it would save a ton of time typing these words, if you are programming the II+. The slots on the back of the case are barely big enough for ribbon cables to emerge and there are a number of eproms on the motherboards.
Tony