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Hi folks - New guy with a couple IIe's and a IIc+

Escher

New Member
Joined
Nov 7, 2012
Messages
6
Location
Fenton, MI
Good day all!

I local gentleman got in contact with me in response to a craigslist ad I placed looking for info on vintage apple ii info. He pointed me here!

I was a commodore boy in my 80's youth, but always wondered about the Apple world... So I finally took the plunge! I have two little ones under 5 years old, and thought that some vintage Apple goodness would be a nice intro into computing for them in a couple of years.

So, I found 2 IIe's and a IIc+, 2 monitor 2's, a unidisk and extra IIe PSU listed on my local craigslist... I probably spent a bit too much, but it was local and I didn't have to sweat shipping!

All I had was an old beat up 5.25 dsdd and no software. I found the ADTPro site and managed a "bare-metal" bootstrap, over audio of all things! I now have a formatted Prodos/ADTPro client disk (which I quickly turned into a flippy disk... remembered that trick from my C64 days)...

My unidisk is in great shape - I took it apart and cleaned the heads last night (which were already very clean).

The IIe I'm using as my primary machine is a platinum. I had to swap in the disk controller card from the other machine since the platinum's original was fubar.. but now its running sweet. I have big plans to spend time playing with this- its so much fun!

In the interim - I have ordered some dsdd disks (just a 10 pack) from floppydisk.com, and have a second unidisk on the way from ebay. I also ordered David Finnigan's new book from Amazon yesterday.

I'll post some pics later on tonight..

My biggest issue - which I only just realized, is that the superserial cards are like gold these days.... so I guess I'm going to be doing slow audio transfers for the time being. My craigslist friend mentioned that I would probably want to pick up a IIgs since they have the SS card built in... and from what I can see, its about the same price to buy a IIgs as it is just the card!

Anyways- sorry for rambling - I'm carrying on like a 14 year old in a 1980's computer class... This is just too much fun!
 
Hey, welcome! No problem rambling. We all get excited with new gear and folks who are interested as well :) Glad to see you're up and running. From my experience (although unfortunately my experience is slowly becoming obsolete (not quite vintage)) when I was first picking up a few Apple IIe systems out of Goodwill back 10 years or so ago they were going for worthless prices. Literally shelves of them at $5 or $10 bucks. Back then I'd pick up anything under $20 just for fun and to tinker and see what it or I could do. These a few friends and I actually used at school (longer story they ended up being from the class/school I actually learned on which was pretty cool). Anyway back on point.. they didn't look at the systems to see what they had. Almost all had a superserial card and I would think that most folks on craigslist or other probably (unless they're really trying to scavenge) wouldn't pay attention if it did or not. Perhaps that's a bigger item today though. I just happened to find all of ours did so we used that but it was before adt could do all the bootstrapping itself I think.

I don't follow the Apple prices too frequently but I would think they'd still be acquirable for under $50 with a card. Perhaps I'm obsolete in pricing though? The only Apples I know that fetch a higher amount are the stock Apple II which now seems to always end up in the $600ish range, the IIplus which is going up in value (age and early model) which fetch I dunno.. probably $150ish? maybe up to $300 then the regular systems which don't go for much unless they contain all the peripherals.

On the bright side I love the Platinum. Just feels nice to have that keypad. IIc+ is cool too. Don't have to lose your power supply unlike the IIc ;-)

Do you still do Commodore stuff?
 
Do you still do Commodore stuff?

Thats a funny question - I have been trying to get a PET or CBM 4016 / 4032 or 8032 for about 7 years now.. and I finally gave up. Hence my jump to the apple camp!

As to prices - I don't really know - ebay is all over the map. I paid about $135 for the lot.. (plus threw in two old iphone 3G versions I got for free)... I'm probably about 50-75 over what I should have paid, but thats all relative. Good prices are only good if they are available!
 
No, you paid about right. Consider that $50 per IIe with monitor and $30 for the IIc+. Fair price. You'd have paid more on eBay.

Also, don't IIc+s have built in serial ports? IIRC they have the same 8 pin mini-DIN modem port that's on the IIgs.

Personally, I recommend the IIgs because the 16 bit mode is awesome. But if you're mostly interested in 8 bit stuff, you have a very nice setup already.
 
Aaahhh - yes the iic+ does have the mini din port - I forgot... Years with the PC makes my automatically see that as a keyboard / mouse port..

So, I just need a pinout and I can hack a cable... sweet!
 
My biggest issue - which I only just realized, is that the superserial cards are like gold these days.... so I guess I'm going to be doing slow audio transfers for the time being.

Hi, and welcome to the forum!

My suggestion, until you get your Super Serial Card, is to use the Apple IIC+ for down loading your software - it has a built-in serial port that works exactly like the Super Serial Card. That will give you much faster transfers than the audio method, for sure!

smp
 
Also, don't IIc+s have built in serial ports?
Beat me to it. The IIc+ has a serial port and will work great with the ADTPro client. No need for a IIGS (although they're cheap and common enough it won't hurt). The IIc+ is getting rarer to come by so nice find there. You can play double hi-res games that are not playable at 1Mhz (too slow) like Double Dragon, Rampage, and Rad Warrior.
 
My biggest issue - which I only just realized, is that the superserial cards are like gold these days.... so I guess I'm going to be doing slow audio transfers for the time being. My craigslist friend mentioned that I would probably want to pick up a IIgs since they have the SS card built in... and from what I can see, its about the same price to buy a IIgs as it is just the card!

Don't let the gougers on eBay fool you. SSCs are almost as common as dirt -- you only need wait out an auction at a price point you're happy with. Sometimes, you can get more than one SSC in a pile of cards for the same price as one in the box. You shouldn't have to pay more than $10 or $15 for one.
 
ADTpro transfer cables show up on eBay all the time for about $15. You'll need the one for a IIgs to use with a IIc+.
 
Thanks guys - you are all awesome for looking into the auctions for me!

As it turns out - There is a local collector who is going to hook my up with a GS system in about a week... So, I'll be regrouping a little bit. I'm trying to decide if I want to go the CF route or SCSI with a zip drive... Or just make the serial cable... decisions decisions.. :)
 
The CFFA 3000 is the best I've seen for flexibility, emulating both floppies and hard drives using images on compact flash or USB. Not as fast as a DMA capable solution, but still fast enough, and the ability to use disk images directly is so handy.

http://dreher.net/?s=projects/CFforAppleII&c=projects/CFforAppleII/main.php

About the best $150 you could spend, there aren't a whole lot of them left in the current production run, so if you want one, you'd better order it. It'll work in either your //e or IIgs. And the disk change remote is very handy, especially for the //e.
 
The CFFA 3000 is the best I've seen for flexibility, emulating both floppies and hard drives using images on compact flash or USB.

About the best $150 you could spend, there aren't a whole lot of them left in the current production run, so if you want one, you'd better order it. It'll work in either your //e or IIgs. And the disk change remote is very handy, especially for the //e.

Let me be the first to jump in and second that opinion! I could not have said it any better myself.

I have the CFFA3000 in my IIGS, and I have not found the need to use the disk change remote switch due to the additional flexibility in the GS/OS graphical user interface. However, I can see how it would be *very* useful on a IIe without the GUI.

smp
 
Let me be the first to jump in and second that opinion! I could not have said it any better myself.

I have the CFFA3000 in my IIGS, and I have not found the need to use the disk change remote switch due to the additional flexibility in the GS/OS graphical user interface. However, I can see how it would be *very* useful on a IIe without the GUI.

smp

I do the same. The CFFA is perfectly usable on a GS without the switch. Though if you're into RPGs with a lot of disk swapping (e.g. Wasteland), you might benefit from a switch. It takes a hotkey and a bit of menu navigation to change the disk on a GS without the switch. Just hitting a physical switch to cycle through the disks would be quicker.

The real benefit to having the CFFA with the GS is that it acts as a hard disk as well as floppy emulator.
 
I do the same. The CFFA is perfectly usable on a GS without the switch. Though if you're into RPGs with a lot of disk swapping (e.g. Wasteland), you might benefit from a switch. It takes a hotkey and a bit of menu navigation to change the disk on a GS without the switch. Just hitting a physical switch to cycle through the disks would be quicker.

The real benefit to having the CFFA with the GS is that it acts as a hard disk as well as floppy emulator.

That's one of the things that I really like about the CFFA3000. I've got a 2GB flash drive with lots of disk images and about a dozen HD images on it that I use with my GS. The only thing that will make it better is when Rich comes out with firmware update that will allow folders on the CFFA3000 so you can have more that 256 images on either a CF card or USB flash drive.
 
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