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Apple IIe Platnium switch

falter

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Jan 22, 2011
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Just curious about a little black switch on the underside of the case, beneath the keyboard, of my Apple IIe Platinum. When you switch it, it changes the ] prompt to something that looks like an S with a circle in the middle.. forget the name of it. Some kind of language thing?
 
I believe that is for switching to an alternate character set and keyboard layout; this switch was apparently only present on Apple IIes intended for foreign markets (Germany, at least).
 
Just curious about a little black switch on the underside of the case, beneath the keyboard, of my Apple IIe Platinum. When you switch it, it changes the ] prompt to something that looks like an S with a circle in the middle.. forget the name of it. Some kind of language thing?
It selects one of the two character sets from character generator ROM (usually by toggling its address line).
 
Just curious about a little black switch on the underside of the case, beneath the keyboard, of my Apple IIe Platinum.

Would you be able to post a picture of this? I can't for the life of me recall ever seeing anything like this but a picture may jog something.
 
Would you be able to post a picture of this? I can't for the life of me recall ever seeing anything like this but a picture may jog something.

20140311_160545.jpg
20140311_160718.jpg

Seems like it does indeed switch character sets.. although so far all I see it changing is the prompt.. not sure where this is used.
 
From your profile, I see that you're Canadian. The switch is to swap character sets for French launguage. Try the ][{}\|<> and !@#$%^&*() keys... you may find more swapped characters (and `~ too).

Canadian Apple //c's have this instead of the Dvorak/Qwerty layout switch.
 
From your profile, I see that you're Canadian. The switch is to swap character sets for French launguage. Try the ][{}\|<> and !@#$%^&*() keys... you may find more swapped characters (and `~ too).

Canadian Apple //c's have this instead of the Dvorak/Qwerty layout switch.

Doh! Yup, that's what it was. Didn't even notice the French characters superimposed on some of the keys. I am indeed Canadian and this unit came from Canada so that all makes sense.
 
On my german Apple IIe ( german keyboard ) i can switch between american and german characterset with that switch.
 
I have one of those switches in mine too. I switches between a US character set and a UK one. The UK has the pound sign.

Tez
 
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I have that switch on a number of IIes. I'm not sure when it came out but it was well before the platinum IIe. It's too easy to accidentally trip the switch so I often unplug it and put a jumper on the pins. I'm in Canada.
You could likely do a custom keyboard ROM for any language or function. I once rewired a IIgs keyboard to plug into the keyboard connector on a towerized IIe. It troubled me that the "clear" key didn't have an equivalent on a IIe so I made a modified keyboard ROM to let it do the same thing as it did on a IIgs
 
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