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Apple ][ Europlus Fault?

It would be cheaper to send it to me in Canada rather than try and have the Post Office try and hit some rinky-dink little island in the South Pacific. :)

Hey, with the prices I've had to pay for stuff to come OUT of North America they must think New Zealand's on the moon! :)

Unless the shipping to Canada IS over the moon (probably not, as Canada is Commonwealth) I'd go with the Druid option. Normally I'd never trust mystics, but he does this kind of thing for a living. He'd probably just need to wave an iron at it, and board will fix itself out of sheet terror :D

Tez
 
Hey, with the prices I've had to pay for stuff to come OUT of North America they must think New Zealand's on the moon! :)

Unless the shipping to Canada IS over the moon (probably not, as Canada is Commonwealth) I'd go with the Druid option. Normally I'd never trust mystics, but he does this kind of thing for a living. He'd probably just need to wave an iron at it, and board will fix itself out of sheet terror :D

Tez

Yeah, that's right, Tez, and I usually use a 7 iron LOL

If it was that easy, I wouldn't have stuff piled up the the ceiling (literally, in the case of motherboards) I'd just wave that iron at them and stick them on my site.
 
@ Tez
@ Druid6900

Hi guys,
Spent another hour on it and got no ware. In fact every time I touch it I seem to make things worse…:oops:

So if its right with you guys I will take up Druid6900’s extremely kind offer to have a look at it for me. Thank you Tez for your generous offer. When I told the family about you guys they were bowled over as much as I was.

I'll take it out of the case and take it to the Post Office for a shipping quote.
I get a feeling it ant gonna be cheap. The problem is the better I pack it the heaver it gets but less chance of damage in transit.

But I ain’t complaining.

Cheers again.
 
Pack it carefully and all the best with it.

These Apples are totally fixable and I'm sure Druid will have it up and going again in no time.

Having played around with the hardware a lot now, I can see why hobbiests with a technical bent, loved these machines.

The old ones are tempremental though, expecially mine and especially the RAM. After my latest repair I ran a hardware checking program on both the machine I'd just fixed and the machine I used as a comparison and found faulty 4116 RAM chips on the second row of both! Given that I did a heck of a lot of cycling during the tests (on/off sequences) and poking and probing around while they were on, I'm not surprised.

Damage RAM (assuming it is the IC themselves) is a piece of cake to find and fix though. Apples seem to boot happily providing the first 16K of RAM is ok, so one trick (as Druid suggests) so way to test a suspect 4116 is to swap it out with the IC in Socket 1, Row 1 of the RAM bank. If the machine no longer boots, that IC was bad.

Of course it's not so easy when you have 3 or 4 bad RAM chips, as I had with these haybarn apples originally :D

Tez
 
Pack it carefully and all the best with it.

These Apples are totally fixable and I'm sure Druid will have it up and going again in no time.

Having played around with the hardware a lot now, I can see why hobbiests with a technical bent, loved these machines.

The old ones are tempremental though, expecially mine and especially the RAM. After my latest repair I ran a hardware checking program on both the machine I'd just fixed and the machine I used as a comparison and found faulty 4116 RAM chips on the second row of both! Given that I did a heck of a lot of cycling during the tests (on/off sequences) and poking and probing around while they were on, I'm not surprised.

Damage RAM (assuming it is the IC themselves) is a piece of cake to find and fix though. Apples seem to boot happily providing the first 16K of RAM is ok, so one trick (as Druid suggests) so way to test a suspect 4116 is to swap it out with the IC in Socket 1, Row 1 of the RAM bank. If the machine no longer boots, that IC was bad.

Of course it's not so easy when you have 3 or 4 bad RAM chips, as I had with these haybarn apples originally :D Tez

Hi Tez,
Thanks for the above I will pack it carefully.

Well I’ve learnt the hard way. I normally treat my computers with a lot more care and I’ve only got myself to blame in this case. Slapping down hard on the Keyboard while it’s still on isn’t what I’d normally do. After all this Apple is 30 years old and I should’ve known better. :oops:

I’ve messed about with it so much that I dare not touch it anymore. I don’t know what I’m doing so I will leave it to people who "actually do!"

I knew the Keyboard would come back to haunt me one day. When I thirst got it a few years back some keys would not work at all. I unplug it and cleaned the contacts, which helped a bit but a couple of keys still require an inordinate amount of pressure before they respond but at least it worked.

Hopefully the cost of shipping won’t be too dear but prices seem to always be on the increase. There are many parts I’d like to order from Best Elec & B&C ComputerVisions but shipping seems to be so expensive, especially with the week Pound.

Like I’ve previously mentioned if it was any other computer, I would not bother you guys I would just repair or replace but that just isn’t an option on this side on the pond…:sad:
 
Ok, if you decide it's worth fixing, PM me and I'll give you the shipping details.

Hi guys,

Shipping quite reasonable to Canada PM sent.

I should have asked what it would have cost to send to NZ, which I may do when I go back as I have a truck load of stuff I need to send to Tez! :mrgreen:

Thanks guys....
 
Good to hear it's on it's way!

Circuit boards don't tend to weigh much so shipping costs are usually reasonable.

Tez
 
The board arrived today, safe and sound, and I should be able to have a look at it by the weekend.

It has a strange mod on it, but, that shouldn't be a problem with trying to repair it.
 
The board arrived today, safe and sound, and I should be able to have a look at it by the weekend.
It has a strange mod on it, but, that shouldn't be a problem with trying to repair it.

Once you find the fault, post it here. I'll be interested to know what failed. Tez

Hi guys,

Glad to here it arrived safe and sound.

It was posted last Wednesday so that’s 6 days from the UK to Canada. Not too bad I’ve had things take longer to arrive from within the UK!:)

If your‘re referring to those elevated IC sockets mods they were originally there from when I purchased it. I think & stress think one is for a Joystick connection, not sure what that white wire did and the other one I think? Was maybe for an 80 column card, which was also included but as I’ve never seen the inside of an Apple][ that’s all guess work?

It also came with a PAL card with a separate TV modulator and switch box but as I could not find any information at all on how to connect it all up I hadn’t yet tried...
 
Hi guys,

Glad to here it arrived safe and sound.

It was posted last Wednesday so that’s 6 days from the UK to Canada. Not too bad I’ve had things take longer to arrive from within the UK!:)

If your‘re referring to those elevated IC sockets mods they were originally there from when I purchased it. I think & stress think one is for a Joystick connection, not sure what that white wire did and the other one I think? Was maybe for an 80 column card, which was also included but as I’ve never seen the inside of an Apple][ that’s all guess work?

It also came with a PAL card with a separate TV modulator and switch box but as I could not find any information at all on how to connect it all up I hadn’t yet tried...

You may find the refresh rate is different. The Uk uses 50hz to the states 60hz. There are pads on the board that are joined for the different syncs.
On the early boards and clones there are a couple of extra wires for the PAL color card. Don't know if the genuine Europe apples needed all the mods

regards
 
UPDATE:

Ok, I haven't had as much time as I thought to work on this, so far, but I managed to pull the first (A) row of chips and run them through the chip tester. I prefer doing this on a board with sockets to find any bad chips first.

A3 - 74166 Bad
C2 - where the second Mod sits atop a wire-wrap socket on a little PCB. Well, since this seemed to be plugged in in the reverse orientation to all the other chips on the board, I tested the 74S195 chip and it was bad. I'll have to unsolder the other chip on the Mod board, a 74LS00, to see if it's cooked too.

Remember, this is only the first row of chips and the mod representing one socket on the C row, so far.
 
A3 has a role to play in video generation of text so that would square with the symptoms.

I wonder what that second mod is? From what I can read C2 has a role in the timing generator?

Tez
 
UPDATE:

A3 - 74166 Bad
C2 - where the second Mod sits atop a wire-wrap socket on a little PCB. Well, since this seemed to be plugged in in the reverse orientation to all the other chips on the board, I tested the 74S195 chip and it was bad. I'll have to unsolder the other chip on the Mod board, a 74LS00, to see if it's cooked too.

Hi Guys,

Re: C2, I’m almost 100% certain this was a result of me messing around pulling chips in and out in a desperate attempt to get it going.

I probably pulled it out and then stick it in the wrong way round, as before I touched this chip the computer booted up and you could type (but not see any characters).

I wish I had just left it alone…:(
 
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