Re: //e info needed!

[david@net1.net (David)]

In article <1146683391.40299893@lamg.com>, Dave_and_Deanna@lamg.com wrote:

> don't think the monitor works. I plugged it in and pressed the power switch,

Gee it's been a while.  Try the fuse before you panic.  As I vaguely
recall it's a simple RCA type connector on the back of the machine that it
plugs into.

> There's two large ports in the back of the //e: a 19-pin attached to a card
> called "I/O controller 655-0101-B" with a 1983 date,

That's your floppy drive controller.  It will handle two drives.

> a card called "Super Serial Card II 670-8020-A,"

That gives you a serial port.  Good for an Imagewriter or a modem. 
There's a little block on the card that can be reversed to swap the output
between pins 2 and 3 - since they are reversed going from a modem to a
printer.  The RS232 standard thing.

> 80Col/64K" card in the internal Aux Connector slot.

Without that card the Apple will only display 40 columns of text, with it
80 columns.  And it also has a 64K RAM expansion.  The machine probably
has a max of 64K without it so now you've got 128K.  Even if you don't use
it for anything else it will let you do things like load a software
version of the very old (circa 1977) basic and run really old stuff.

Joystick just plugs into a jack on back, doesn't use a controller.  They
were simple 2 axis resistor devices.

> //e emulator less than 24 hours before this actual piece of computing
> hardware fell into my lap,

Those guys upload software disk images.  There's a way to convert them
back to Apple IIe images but I don't know how.  They might aim you at
sources.

Operating system is built into ROM.  If you plug it in and all is well,
and you have a working monitor, you'll see it.  However the disk operating
system is not in ROM.  That's usually on each and every floppy and it
loads when you boot the machine from the floppy.

The tape jacks are for an ordinary cheap tape machine.  The machine was
built to save programs to tape and read them back.  That was when a floppy
drive was $595 but believe me, you really don't want to do that.  That's a
part of the Apple II experience that does NOT bear repeating.

David S

-- 
The growth of mankinds' knowledge can be measured by the alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about.