Re: Apple II Help Please

[Roger Johnstone <rojaws@orcon.net.nz>]

In <tcm0e01hvvmnavaiurte3jovf0pjj2q8r2@4ax.com> 8-Bit  wrote:
> I just picked up an original Apple II and an Apple II+ this weekend,
> plus drives, and internal cards for $2 at a garage sale.  Not bad I
> thought.  Both are in rough shape, but they will hopefully come thru
> in the end.
> 
> Anyway, I am troubleshooting the II right now.  The PS isn't working,
> so I took one out of my IIe that I have lying around, and got it to
> the point of it to boot up with garbage characters.  The disk drive's
> won't come on.  I put in an Apple ROM CARD (6K I believe), flip the
> switch to A, and it beeps like it should, put it to position B, but
> either way, still garbage characters across the screen.  I have pulled
> out all the addon cards, put them back one at a time, and tested.  The
> screen characters do change everytime I turn it on and off.
> 
> Now what is my next step?  Reseat all ROM chips?
> 
> Thanks, Corey

Nice find!

I don't have an original II, but this sounds like normal behaviour as 
the original Apple II doesn't have a power-up reset circuit! The first 
thing you have to do is press the reset button at the top right corner 
of the keyboard. This should cause the computer to reset and the monitor 
prompt (an asterisk) should appear at the bottom of the screen. From 
this point you can type the monitor commands others have mentioned to 
enter BASIC or boot from a disk.

On the original II you only need to press the reset button by itself to 
perform a reset. To stop accidental resets the II+ keyboard added a 
switch that could be changed so that control-reset had to be pressed 
instead. On the IIe and later you always need to press control-reset.
 
-- 
Roger Johnstone, Invercargill, New Zealand
http://vintageware.orcon.net.nz/
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