[Coco] Apple 2 Plus

[Steven Hirsch]

On Wed, 22 Jun 2011, gene heskett wrote:

> But it has classic symptoms of bad ram and never completes the Apple
> version of post, showing 2 byte wide patterns of black and white squares
> with question marks in the white squares, and the digital racket of a
> crashed system overlaid over that.  Many of the chips look as if they need
> a half hour bath in fresh Tarnex to remove the black oxide of 32 years
> growth on the legs since it was assembled in 1979.  That might fix it,
> provided the chip sockets were also similarly de-oxidized, well rinsed and
> dried.

When working correctly:

If that machine has the "autostart" ROMs (and I believe all ][ pluses 
will), you should get a "beep" and a startup screen that says (from 
memory, mine are all in the garage loft) "APPLE ][+" in 40-column text. 
It will then try to boot from Slot 6.  Hit Ctrl-Reset and you should get 
another "beep" and see the basic prompt "]".

I think you're on the right track with the de-ox approach.

Another thought: The power supplies do not tend to age well, so it's worth 
checking all voltages.

> OTOH, what would it draw on fleabay if it was working?  Heck, I see non-
> working for $300+, and another barebones that works at 50 bucks.
> I was under the impression they were worth about 2x that.

The ][+ is not particularly rare, despite what a lot of eBay sellers seem 
to think.  If it was absolutely mint you _might_ get $2-300 for it with 
the original disk drives.

If you do get it running, check out 'ADT'.  This utility will let you cold 
bootstrap the machine from a downloaded image on the PeeCee (Linux 
supported, I believe) and generate system diskettes.

Feel free to contact me privately with any/all Apple 2 questions.  I know 
the machines inside out and did a fair amount of commercial development on 
them "back in the day".

Steve


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