68kMLA Classic Interface
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| Any thoughts on this....it arrived!!! | |
| Posted by: falen5 on 2016-12-22 11:44:21 i dont know what the goo is on the motherboard is - but it looks like it came from above the machine, landed on the drive bay cover and worked its way down. Does not seem to be corrosive . No signs of rust or corrosion of the electronics ... SO FAR...... there are lumps of rust laying about in there... cant see where from...from above pics there is some rust/corosion on the pins in the slots but they look intact. Just got home. Will start stripping this thing in a while - hope to have it completely disassembled tonight. will share what i find. This is most of my collection to date - fixed / recapped most of them bar 3 or 4 se/30's from the maxell bomb syndrome, and another 2 or 3 plus's that i cant get working. Question.... i had 20/20 vision when i started doing this madness about 3 years ago...........now i have very bad short sightness............to this day i still believe it was the fumes and smoke from soldering.........just wondering if anyone else had similar experience.   | |
| Posted by: bibilit on 2016-12-22 11:48:15 some information about the Videx card www.apple-iigs.info/doc/fichiers/videoterm.pdf | |
| Posted by: techknight on 2016-12-22 12:57:15 Either way, someone definitely went through the trouble of pimping out an Apple II. | |
| Posted by: Gorgonops on 2016-12-22 13:30:14 It would be interesting to know the *why* behind hacking together such a monstrosity, and whether it was truly a one-off for personal use or is something that was "professionally" repackaged and sold as some sort of embedded/turnkey solution. I find it noteworthy that it was fitted with a CP/M card; that's more evidence that it was built for a business application. The question would be, of course, why you'd go through the trouble of stuffing an Apple II+80 column board+CP/M card+hard disk into a case that probably could have been ordered off the shelf with a Z-80-based computer in it already. | |
| Posted by: techknight on 2016-12-22 15:20:17 I havent ordered the replacement parts yet on my crystal ball. Once I do, maybe we can find out 😉 | |
| Posted by: rsolberg on 2016-12-22 15:44:58 While the fumes and smoke from soldering certainly aren't healthy in significant exposures, I expect your vision change may have more to do with spending a lot of time focused close up on fine work. As we age, the ocular muscles become less elastic, so it becomes more difficult to keep things aligned from near to far. I have strabismus which is a misalignment and have found it's become significantly worse in the last few years. | |
Posted by: just.in.time on 2016-12-22 17:32:50...This is most of my collection to date...All that ancient white plastic sitting in the direct sun light is killing me. You can almost see it turning yellow in an instant :O | |
| Posted by: falen5 on 2016-12-22 17:36:12 That maybey it rsolberg. Spent hours looking for broken traces etc etc......one day eyes got blurry, gave them a rub..no good...........getting worse all the time......dam old age too Got this machine apart - took 3 or 4 hours. anyway here are the goods                | |
| Posted by: falen5 on 2016-12-22 17:39:47 Heres what i figured out so far with the power supply's......all 4 of them i rekon | |
| Posted by: ScutBoy on 2016-12-22 18:06:27 Props to whoever hacked this thing together, but the words that keep coming into my head are FIRE HAZARD! 🙂 | |
| Posted by: falen5 on 2016-12-22 18:15:08 I dont understand the large memory board for the hard drive. Was this the norm back then to use a hard drive with an apple ii. Looking at scsi boards on ebay for apple ii's i gather you just plug the drive straight into the scsi board and your away. ScutBoy... taking it apart, I was thinking whoever built and used this thing was a brave person.........Explosion Hazard is what i was thinking just noticed... the II power supply looks to be riveted together.......how do you open them .......drill? | |
| Posted by: Gorgonops on 2016-12-22 19:03:03 Why do you think that's a memory board? Your picture isn't quite high res enough for me to read every chip marking, but to me it appears both the main and daughter boards are just stuffed full of '74 series logic | |
| Posted by: falen5 on 2016-12-23 05:34:04 Hey Gorgonops - Im only going by what someone said earlier on here - someone said memory board , someone else said 'MFM to' (just checked, that was you- haha) - i have no idea gorgonops. Im calling in the 'X' board. I did a bit googeing and the motherboard is a "RFI board 820-0044-01/C/D silkscreened visibly on the board, 8111 to end of production, no memory select blocks, used maybe on very late Apple II and obviously IIplus." - so dont know if it is a II or a II plus. but ill give it a good cleanup and test it later Im looking at the power system - today going to take it all out and lay it all out on the floor. I think the 2 round transformers, that are going into those large blue capacitors, and then into two rectifiers?( they are the 2 on the big heat sink) - from there they feed power to the hard drive and the X board. It becomes less scary as you break it down bit by bit [SIZE=13.3333px]will have a good look at it when its all laid out on the floor and try powering some of it up today bit by bit. - just the power system - motherboard, drives, 'x' board all have to be cleaned and checked. Will test the motherboard and cards using one my II e's later[/SIZE] [SIZE=13.3333px]I really want to see if there is any possibility of restoring the whole thing. [/SIZE] [SIZE=13.3333px]That hard drive is the mystery - if it can be revived it would be great to see what is on it - i have never had a drive like that before - looks clean, no sign of corrision[/SIZE] [SIZE=13.3333px]all i can do is check the connections of the power system, look for bulging caps, shorts, bad connections - if they look good plug them in and stand ready with fire extinguisher[/SIZE] | |
| Posted by: Trash80toHP_Mini on 2016-12-23 06:38:56 What's the diagonal of the CRT? Sourcing a TV CRT/Power Board replacement for that might clean up your mess considerably and you wouldn't need to test high voltage connections in your restoration process. Having one constant, known good reference point that you can hook up in its enclosure would make reconstruction of the rest a lot less hazardous. < /lazy-cheater mode > | |
Posted by: james_w on 2016-12-23 06:40:10i dont know what the goo is on the motherboard is - but it looks like it came from above the machine, landed on the drive bay cover and worked its way down. Does not seem to be corrosive . No signs of rust or corrosion of the electronics ... SO FAR...... there are lumps of rust laying about in there... cant see where from...from above pics there is some rust/corosion on the pins in the slots but they look intact. Just got home. Will start stripping this thing in a while - hope to have it completely disassembled tonight. will share what i find.Serious kudos to you for all the effort! I've probably only recapped 5-10 (lost count) of my 50 or so Macs... seriously impressed! 😀 | |
| Posted by: waynestewart on 2016-12-23 07:04:56 It’s got II Plus ROMs. The dates I see on the chips seem to indicate 1982 as a likely production time. Which would means it predated ProDOS. It’d be interesting to get the hard drive going. I’m wondering if it’ll be CP/M. | |
| Posted by: falen5 on 2016-12-23 07:09:22 hey trash80- cant find a measure tape so looked at the crt - says 12'. I hear you on the power supply situation. I am not looking forward to powering any of it up. Even if nothing blows and i get steady voltage it will not be under load. If and when I plug in the hard drive and board X the load might blow the hell out of the caps, transformer and blow the drive up etc etc. saying that The look of the thing as it was origionally hacked together has me in a daze. Would be sooo cool to see this thing running. If the volatge is 12volt i could plug in a spare 12volt drive I have to test it under load. Have not had a good look at the rated outputs that are written on the transformers - as for the analog board there is so much stuff hacked onto it with switches front and back that has me is a daze as well. Is there a danger in powering up an analog board NOT connected to a crt? anode cap just lying there? would that in itself blow something ? Im all for restoring stuff, not blowing it up, and with this beast I am really stuck between saftey and origionality. I do not have the knowledge for this. Top priority is not to blow it up hi James ..... this is a mental sickness!!!.......I was sure I had made a full recovery for the last year and quarenteed the sickness back into the attic. 2 weeks ago i got an apple ii, the sickness led to this discovery. In 2 days it has taken over the kitchen and is now rapidly spreading throughout the house. Thank god herself is away for christmas. I have 5 days to get this outbreak under control before her return!!. Ah sure feck it, it could be worse i guess. Now , lets start plugging this thing into the mains howya wanystewart - that z-card seems to indicate cpm allright - will be a miracle if the drive is still working - there is rust on the swingarm motor - will be a slow step by step process | |
| Posted by: waynestewart on 2016-12-23 07:25:04 Hard drives are pretty much airtight so there is room for hope. This week I tried out a 5 and a 10mb Profile hard drive. Both worked | |
Posted by: Carboy7 on 2016-12-23 07:31:24Thank god herself is away for christmas. I have 5 days to get this outbreak under control before her return!!.Ahh! You better hurry up and get it working! No pressure 😉 | |
Posted by: Trash80toHP_Mini on 2016-12-23 08:17:58hey trash80- cant find a measure tape so looked at the crt - says 12'. I hear you on the power supply situation. I am not looking forward to powering any of it up.thing into the mains.Excellent, I was guessing it'd be a Lisa-like 12" CRT. That opens up some very interesting tangential hacking opportunities if and when. Meanwhile, you can use any size uber-cheap TV set or any NTSC input LCD TV you might have on hand for your testing. 😉 | |
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