What the heck is going on in this A][+

[Teletech]

The picture tells the story, some big hairy cable coming off the keyboard assembly.
There's a grappler+, a serial card, disk][, and some card I don't recognize made by Franklin.
There is also a curious eprom dead-bugged onto a header in ROM8, marked Ron Rom.
Mostly I'm curious about the keyboard cable and what I should do about it(leave it / hack it out), but knowing what the Franklin card and funny Rom on the MB are about would be a nice bonus.

 

[NeXT]

Looks like someone is tapping into the lines to the keyboard and breaking them out to an external device.

 

[Teletech]

I was just wondering if anyone had seen this done before and in what application. Mostly to make sure I could remove the kludge and not damage an important bit of some history or other.
It was done with care, but one can see some wires have broken loose. plus effectively tying a bunch of antennas to those lines can't be ideal even with the twisted pairs and such.

 

[Wayne Stewart]

The straight down angle isn’t the best for identifying cards but it looks like you have a Franklin 80 column card.

The keyboard cabling probably went to an external keyboard. The switch on it isn’t stock and may be part of that or just a replacement. Without the external, the cable isn't much use

On a II+ the F8 is the autostart ROM. The replacement may have something to do with cracking copy protected disks

 

[Teletech]

The straight down angle isn’t the best for identifying cards but it looks like you have a Franklin 80 column card.

The keyboard cabling probably went to an external keyboard. The switch on it isn’t stock and may be part of that or just a replacement. Without the external, the cable isn't much use

On a II+ the F8 is the autostart ROM. The replacement may have something to do with cracking copy protected disks

Ah, see that makes sense... I was thinking of the keyboard dongle as a way to monitor the keyboard, not as a way to have an external keyboard.
I'm sure you are right about the Franklin card.

 

[JSR]

Yeah.. that weird cable+header connected to the ASCII encoder looks like it was meant to be hooked up to some other device, to allow that device to basically issue keystrokes..which is odd, because there are a lot easier ways of remote-controlling an Apple II, particularly via accepting external input over a something like a serial card. The Apple SuperSerial card manual talks a bit about this, how a few tricks in at the monitor prompt can basically open the system up to being controlled via serial, even via modem.

The presence of a Disk II controller in Slot 0 is unusual -- the last RAM chip on the board is empty, and implies there was a language card installed in this box, originally. It has something less than the full 48K it's supposed to have. The board in slot 4 seems like it has an RCA composite jack -- this may be an 80 column card of some sort.

 

[NeXT]

The machine has been pillaged for parts, so boards in their current slots mean nothing as the original boards are gone.
We can deduct this had a language card and the ribbon cable going out the back with the black sleeve on it would of been for a Hayes Microcoupler.

With that in mind, the Disk II controller, the super serial board, the 80-column add-on board and what looks like a Grappler printer card, at one time this would of been a rather premium setup.

 

[JSR]

The machine has been pillaged for parts, so boards in their current slots mean nothing as the original boards are gone.
We can deduct this had a language card and the ribbon cable going out the back with the black sleeve on it would of been for a Hayes Microcoupler.


With that in mind, the Disk II controller, the super serial board, the 80-column add-on board and what looks like a Grappler printer card, at one time this would of been a rather premium setup.

Agreed. Somebody (heh, Ron?) loved this machine at some point.

Teletech: Also, worth mentioning, the Disk II controller in Slot 0 should be in Slot 6, as tons of Apple II software is hardcoded to expect it to be there.