Re: HELP: Apple III

[spector@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article sydtech@skypoint.com (Scott Butler) writes...

>I collect classic systems, and just picked up an Apple III with monitor 
>for $10 from a thrift shop. Not surprisingly, it doesn't work. I switch 
>it on, and get some interesting random garbage on the monitor.

	My Apple III will do this on occation, it's a result of chips
working themselves loose or the memory expansion daughterboard not 
making a proper connection. Lifting the CPU a few inches off your desk
and then dropping it will sometimes cure this, although you may need to
open it and try reseating chips by firmly pressing down on each. If your
succesful, it should sound a 'beep' and the internal floppy drive search
for a startup disk (eventually displaying "RETRY?" if none is found).

	If you see a message "RAM Diagnostic" with a pattern of dots
or simular, this is usually a sign the keyboard mini lamp-light is
missing or burned out. A proper replacement should be used, although
it is possible to use a common LED in it's place. Pressing the RESET
key or Control-RESET will skip this and cause the internal drive to
load however until you do.

>The questions: I recall that these things had an obscenely high failure 
>rate. What was the problem in most cases? Also, what kind of OS do I 
>need for this thing? Is it Apple II compatible?

	There were three major releases of the machine. The original
Apple III in May 1980; which was plagued with multiple problems, most
notiably excessive heat which caused sockets to expand and chips to 
pop out (literally!). I'd assume this original model is rare, since
Apple did a recall and replaced motherboards free of charge for a few
years. The next III model was released in December 1981. This version
had much fewer chips and a number of bugs fixed, and I would suspect
is the most common one found. A final version was released exactly 
two years later (December 1983), although unlike the first two, was
fairly stable and had a number enhancements.

	The standard Apple III OS is called SOS, with the latest 
release being version 1.3 (about 14 years old!). There is an alternative
called BOS-3 (only about 2 years old) which is really an updated version
with many new features. It of course is a 3rd party commercial product, 
Apple hasn't had anything to do with the III in more than a decade.

	Yes, the Apple III is Apple II compatible, however you'll need
an emulation boot disk. This will give you a 48K Apple II Plus, although
you won't have access to more memory, 80 columns, faster CPU speed, or
the better graphics and sounds built-in. Apple purposely added this 
limitation in hardware. If you can find one, Titan made a IIe plug-in
card for the III, although this is somewhat rare. The III is also compatible
in that the filing system used by SOS and ProDOS are identical, meaning disks
are interchangable between the II and III. Some programs can even read
data files directly (ie, Three Easy Pieces and AppleWorks). 

>Sorry to post here if it's inappropriate; it was the closest thing I 
>could find....

	You may want to contact the WAP group, they still have an
active Apple /// usersgroup and software library should you be
interested (e-mail me if you want information on how to contact
them).

>Thanks!
>Scott

Mitchell Spector
spector@vax2.concordia.ca