Re: 3.5 Drive with //e? (What cards?)

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

Dave & Deanna <davendeannaHATESPAM@earthlink.net> wrote:

>I've wound up with a couple orphaned Apple //e (yes, they're both
>expanded), each with a few cards, but only one unit works (power supply
>on one is dead, from what I can tell). I'm trying to cobble together a
>working system. The working one came with an Apple Duo Disk, although I
>still don't have any 5.25 startup disk for it :-/. I also happen to
>still have an Apple 3.5 Drive (800K -- A9M0106) that I use as a second
>disk drive on my old Mac SE whenever I take it out of virtual mothballs.
>It would be much easier to transfer files through 3.5 disks than trying
>to use the Super Serial Card (if it works) and a null modem cable.

You need a Universal Disk Controller (UDC) made by Video
Technologies under the Laser label.  You can then plug the
Apple 3.5 Drive into the UDC and the DuoDisk into the Apple
3.5.  If it is one of those Mac 3.5 drives without a daisychain
port, that's ok too because the UDC supplies two drive ports
for supporting two separate non-daisychain drives and it DOES
work with Mac only 3.5" drives.

>So... what card do I need to be able to use it on the //e? All I know is
>that it's called something like a UDC Controller, but I'm not sure what
>kind will work with the 3.5 Drive and which only work with the Unidisk.
>I'd probably want to daisychain it with the Duo Disk, if that makes a
>difference, but that's optional. If I have to choose, the Duo Disk is
>history. What specifically should I be looking for, and where's a good
>place to start looking?

The UDC controller, you are absolutely right.  The UDC card
has two ports.  You have the option of daisychaining off port
1 or plugging one drive each into ports 1 and 2.

>Both //es already have an Apple I/O Controller, though strangely, one is
>marked 655-0101-B, and the other is 655-0101-C. Is there a difference
>between the two? I'm assuming that neither of them will work with the
>3.5 drive.

It is probably the controller for the DuoDisk.  Pretty useless.

>I've already figured that I definitely want the dead unit's Super Serial
>Card II (670-8020-A) over the live unit's Orange Micro Grappler+ Printer
>Interface, especially since I don't have any parallel/Centronics
>printers, but I do have an old Imagewriter // packed away, and as far as
>I know the Grappler+ doesn't have modem capabilities. Right?

Right.  Save the Grappler, though, and possibly transfer it to
a separate slot.  If you do get an old Epson, Grappler lets
you print graphics screens from any program.

>But the dead unit has a standard Apple AIIE 80 Col/64K Memory Expansion
>(820-0067-B), while the live one has a TAXAN 64K RGB/80 Column Card. I
>can't find any information on the Taxan card on the web or in the
>library's Apple ][ reference books. Is it any good, or should I swap it
>for the Apple 80 col card?

Keep the TAXAN.  If you can find an old CGA monitor, you
can rig a cable to this card to provide both color and RGB.

>Finally, the only working monitor I have (unless I want to run it
>through my VCR) is a monochrome Apple Monitor /// (Goodwill $4). It
>seems to work with the //e, although it looks like I've only got 40
>chars per line from what little I can get out of it without a boot disk.
>(That's the only time I've ever booted anything pre-Mac from Apple, so
>forgive me if I don't know what I'm talking about.) Is a monitor from an
>Apple /// fully compatible with an Apple //e, or should I keep
>scrounging through thrift stores? Well, I do eventually want a color
>monitor anyway, I suppose...
>
>Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

First of all, the monochrome monitor is better than your VCR.
It can display 80 columns.  Just turn on the computer without
a disk in the drive, hit Control-Reset together, and type
PR#3 and press return.

Second, http://www.allelec.com/ sells the Apple Composite
Monitor IIe....it has a monochrome/color switch.  It provides
more bandwidth in the monochrome setting for 80 columns.
Since you already have an RGB card, however, it is best
to look for a CGA monitor from an old IBM PC and get a
cable from http://www.allelec.com/ Alltech Electronics.