Re: wtb: original apple ][ broken as-is for parts

["Liam Busey" <buseyl@yahoo.com>]

Tristan Mumford wrote:
> Liam Busey wrote:
>

-snip-

>
> Entirely off the shelf? Good to know. I'm hopefully getting hold of a
> rotten ][ I had in the next week or so. My initial intent was just to grab
> it to take its mockingboard for my //e platinum. But then I started to
> think I may fix it up a little and use it for a bbs or some kind of
> esoteric online content.
> And sorry, it is one thing I won't part with easily if you were wondering.

I'm not after you rotten ][. My moldy ][+ would get jealous. ;)

Well there are masked ROMs, a character generator, and a keyboard
encoder but those can all  be worked around.

The biggest issue with the II/ II+ is that for some reason Apple
decided to socket ever single chip on the motherboard (IIRC ~120
chips). While on the surface it may seem to be very convenient for
repairs, every one of those sockets is a weak or intermittent
connection waiting to happen. On a well kept machine this is no
problem. On a machine that's been sitting in someone's basement for 25
years, well .... AARRGHHHHH!!!!!! Tarnished chips and sockets are a
PITA!

Glancing at your website, you seem to be the tinkering type. Old Apples
are great for that. They're simple and very open. There's a book called
"Understanding the Apple 2" by Jim Sather that describes the Apple II/
II+ circuit in detail. It's very popular with this newsgroup. You can
find a PDF of it in the Apple manual section of http://1000bit.org.
There's also a wealth of interfacing books for the Apple but
unfortunately most haven't made there way online yet.


- Liam Busey