Re: ][ Board only

[Silicon Sam <SiliconSam@gmail.com>]

On Feb 4, 5:20 pm, Eric Smith <e...@brouhaha.com> wrote:
> Michael J. Mahon wrote:
> > I've seen Apple main boards attached to a plywood base, along with a
> > power supply and a keyboard--no sides or top.  It's called an "Apple
> > on a stick".
>
> That's what I was using from 1982 to 1987.  I was too cheap to buy a
> normal Apple II+, so I bought a logic board as a service part (Apple
> had long since stopped selling the board separately as a product).
> The least expensive switching power supply I could find at the time was
> made by Power General, if memory serves.  I bought the keyboard (sans
> encoder) also as a service part, and used a Videx Keyboard Enhancer II.
>
> I didn't attached the keyboard to the same base, though.  I built a
> custom wedge-shaped wooden case for it.
>
> I bought two disk drives and a controller from JDR.  They were basically
> clones of the Disk II.  At the time, half-height drives were appearing,
> but still cost more than full-height.  Some of the clone drives didn't
> work well with all of the copy-protection schemes.  Most of them could
> deal with half-tracks, but since the seek profiles were different they
> had trouble with spiral-track schemes.
>
> I didn't get my first "real" Apple II until 1994 or so.

  I did the same thing in late '83.  I was working for an Apple
dealer, I bought their spare //e MB, power supply and keyboard.  I
found a Wang dual cassette interface box, mounted the MB. power supply
and the 2 floppy drives went where the cassette drives were.  Put in
some toggle switches to turn off the write protect switches, toggle
from enhanced to enenhanced, etc... I also found a Wang keyboard
casing, and mounted the //e keyboard it, and had a 34 pin cable
running from the keyboard to CPU box.

  The keyboard has Rockwell board with a 7 segment 4 displays, I
hooked it up so I had a clock and timer built onto the keyboard, and
even had temperature sensors inside the CPU box.  I forget what all
the features the Rockwell board had.

  I still have this piece in my warehouse.  Doesn't look as nice as it
once did, but it still works, or it should. I eventually added two
3.5" floppy drives, which are still with the unit.  Maybe some day
I'll drag it home, clean it up, and take some photos of it.  I saw
some photos the other day of when it was new, maybe I'll scan them as
well.

Raymond