Re: //e

[dalloff@gcfn.org (Dave Althoff Jr)]

Jeff Thomas (a2forever@usa.net) wrote:
: Luis de Santos wrote:

: > Which //e is best to get, the platinum //e with the numeric keypad, or the
: > classic //e without?  Are there ROM differences or something?

: I have both of these systems.

: For greatest compatibility with software, you'll be better off with Platinum
: or 'enhanced' IIe. To tell the differences:

: 1983-85 Apple IIe came with 80-column card (in slot 3), and Apple II floppy
: disk controller card (in slot 6). Later, becoming known as 'unenhanced' IIe.
: To tell, look at the power light, if nothing is written there then your
: looking at original IIe.

That's not necessarily the best way to tell, as the power light sticker is
just that...a sticker.  The simplest way to find out for certain is to
make sure there are no disks in the drives, and power the thing up.  If
you see:

                Apple ][
at the top of the screen, then you are looking at an "unenhanced" ][e.  It
is possible, thanks to the amount of hacking that Apple ][ users have done
to their machines, to find an unenhanced machine with a 65C02 processor,
so looking at the CPU may be useful, but looking at the CD and EF ROMs and
the Video ROM is the real clincher.  Trouble is, I don't know off hand
which versions of those ROMs is what.  8-)

: 1985-87 Apple IIe 'enhanced'. The microprocessor was updated to 65C02 and the
: newer ROM chips came with support for the 'mousetext' character set. An the
: 80-column card with 64Kb memory expansion onboard, came standard.
: Near the power light at the bottom of the keyboard, is a message stating
: either: "enhanced" or "65C02", then you've found one!

Again, powering it up is a more reliable test.  If you see:
                Apple //e
at the top of the screen, then you are looking at an 'enhanced' //e.  If
the serial number of the machine starts with "E", then the machine came
from the factory with the enhancements; if not, then it might have been
updated.

: 1987-93 Apple IIe (nicknamed: Platinum) was released. All changes were
: cosmetic, addition of numeric keypad and distint grey colour rather then biege
: as used by other the models. This computer has the lowest chip count,
: incomparision to all previous models, meaning hopefully better realibility and
: easier maintainance & repairing.

The appearance and chip count are different from the beige enhanced //e's,
but the function is identical and the ROM code is identical.  Someone
mentioned that the older keyboards may be slightly more robust.

: The improvements in the ROM chips over original 'unenhanced' IIe are quite
: worth while having. The most criticial feature is the added 'mousetext'
: characterset which is required to run any sort Apple II graphical user
: interfaces (GUIs) like MouseDesk.
: Also, embedded within programs that can be mouse driven like Multi-Scribe,
: Publish It, MouseWorks series from Wagner Publishing, etc.

The only trouble is that there are some programs which were not
Mousetext-aware, and if you run them on an Enhanced //e, you'll get
mousetext instead of inverse uppercase letters.  This applies to some
versions of Apple Writer ][e, and to the Pascal version of PFS:*. 
PFS:File in particular is practically impossible to use with Mousetext. 
But in almost every case, there is a revision of the program available
(often listed as an "Apple //c and //e" version) that corrects for this
problem.

: Be sure to get at least 128Kb of memory. AppleWorks would benefit from it,
: giving you a larger workspace and the additional memory enables double high
: resolution (hi-res) graphics used by newer games (post-1987) and
: applications.

There are three different versions of the Apple 80-column card, which fits
into the expansion slot at the keyboard end of the logic board, right next
to the power supply.  The earliest version is a full-height card only
slightly longer than the expansion slot, with a sloping top edge to
accommodate the case lid.  This is just an 80-column card.  At minimum you
want one of these, but of the three options, this is the least desirable.

A later version is a much longer card, still a full-height card, still
with the sloping top edge.  I think one oend of the card has the words
"AIIE MEMORY EXPANSION" silk-screened on it.  This is a 64k RAM card which
is also an 80-column board.  This is the one you want.

A still later version is a rectangular, half-height card which is
equivalent to the one described above, but with a lower chip count.  This
one was standard in the "platinum" //e's.  This one will work, too.

There are also some 3rd-party cards, most of which give you 64k or more of
additional memory; any of these would work as well.  If you find one that
says "Ramworks" on it that happens to be fully populated, then you might
find that you have as much as 1Mb of RAM!  A ridiculous amount of memory
for a //e.  Go for it!  8-)

--Dave Althoff, ][.
-- 
    /-\        _       _          *** Open evenings and weekends! ***
   /XXX\      /X\     /X\_      _     /X\__      _     _        _____
  /XXXXX\    /XXX\  _/XXXX\_   /X\   /XXXXX\    /X\   /X\      /XXXXX
_/XXXXXXX\__/XXXXX\/XXXXXXXX\_/XXX\_/XXXXXXX\__/XXX\_/XXX\_/\_/XXXXXX