29 May
2007
29 May
'07
3:19 a.m.
Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 03:03:17 +0100
From: "Ensor" <classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk>
Subject: Re: Apple /// Power Supply
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: <006601c7a19c$a7e855e0$0a01a8c0 at memoryalpha.org.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="Windows-1252";
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Hi,
Actually I have a spare PSU, here in the UK, but sorry I'm keeping it
for my own Apple ///s. These machines were so tightly engineered as
regards FCC requirements that there always seemed to be a problem
with getting the heat out and stopping the electronics shorting out
against the case. Particularly the RAM daughter board at full
capacity. The real time clock is a bit of a nightmare to get adjusted
properly too. I don't mean to within spec, I mean to run so I don't
have to adjust it every week, which is what I had to do with them
when they were brand new. By contrast the 5MB or 10MB Profile hard
drive sits in a box about five times bigger than is needed. It was a
real luxury after doing the floppy shuffle for three quarters of an
hour compiling Pascal programs, though upgrading to three floppy
drives saved most of the arm work.
Are logic diagrams available for the Apple /// now? If I remember
right, even as dealers/service providers and hardware/software
developers we were not allowed logic diagrams for the A///. That's
where the rot started and we officially had to do module replacement,
though we still replaced IC's when they had blown craters in the top
of them, and were still able to buy AC power switches and such like
_If_ that PSU was easily available, I could agree
with this. But
it isn't. It's likely to take considerable time and effort to track
one down, I think....
I don't know what the situation is in the US, but here in the UK
I've come
across exactly *ONE* Apple /// in some 22 years of collecting....
I'd put his chances of sourcing a working replacement PSU these
days at
ZERO.
TTFN - Pete. from Apple.
Must drag them out from my brother's loft some time and see if either
of them still work. Hope they're OK, they are stored above the cold
water tank in their original boxes. Fortunately the loft is heated so
should be OK.
Roger Holmes.
29 May
29 May
4:05 a.m.
Roger Holmes wrote:
Actually I have a spare PSU, here in the UK, but sorry
I'm keeping it
for my own Apple ///s. These machines were so tightly engineered as
regards FCC requirements that there always seemed to be a problem with
getting the heat out and stopping the electronics shorting out against
the case.
Indeed - I used to run mine with the case off a lot of the time.
With museum hat on, we've seen precisely one /// in the last five or so years
(compared to six or seven Lisa 2 systems) - I tend to think that the
regularity with which certain systems are offered is a pretty good indication
of their scarcity, and that puts the /// in the "not many of them about" camp.
(I'm still not quite sure why they're not collectible though - i.e. people
don't seem to fall over themselves to acquire one. They're uncommon, quirky,
strangely-styled, and often as not a reputation for being a bit of a flop
makes something just as popular as something that's well-engineered)
By contrast the 5MB or 10MB Profile hard drive sits in
a box about five
times bigger than is needed. It was a real luxury after doing the floppy
shuffle for three quarters of an hour compiling Pascal programs, though
upgrading to three floppy drives saved most of the arm work.
I don't think I ever got mine to work with both my 5MB ProFiles at once; it'd
happily work with one or the other drive with either controller, but I get the
impression the software support just wasn't there to cope with two hard drives
in the same system.
Are logic diagrams available for the Apple /// now? If
I remember right,
even as dealers/service providers and hardware/software developers we
were not allowed logic diagrams for the A///.
Wasn't there a similar issue with the hard drive low-level formatter, in that
it was never released by Apple - so you couldn't take a Lisa ProFile and
format it for a ///, and nor could you do drive replacement in the field -
instead the whole faulty unit presumably got sent back to Apple for repair.
Must drag them out from my brother's loft some
time and see if either of
them still work. Hope they're OK, they are stored above the cold water
tank in their original boxes.
I don't think I've ever seen the original boxes - I have the one for the
ProFile manuals / media, but not for the machine (or ProFiles, or monitor) itself.
I really liked my ///... I'm just trying to thin the collection out a bit and
it's going to have to go... :-(
cheers
Jules
2:48 p.m.
Jules Richardson wrote:
With museum hat on, we've seen precisely one ///
in the last five or so
years (compared to six or seven Lisa 2 systems) - I tend to think that
the regularity with which certain systems are offered is a pretty good
indication of their scarcity, and that puts the /// in the "not many of
them about" camp.
I have one, and it worked last time I tried it! Also have an
external floppy drive for it and a couple of expansion cards.
(I'm still not quite sure why they're not
collectible though - i.e.
people don't seem to fall over themselves to acquire one. They're
uncommon, quirky, strangely-styled, and often as not a reputation for
being a bit of a flop makes something just as popular as something
that's well-engineered)
The feature that I like is the special two-click cursor keys;
you press a bit harder, and the cursor move a bit faster. There's
a second switch under the key, with a stronger spring, that makes
the auto-repeat run faster (just on the cursor keys).
--
John Honniball
coredump at gifford.co.uk
5:27 p.m.
The feature that I like is the special two-click
cursor keys;
you press a bit harder, and the cursor move a bit faster. There's
a second switch under the key, with a stronger spring, that makes
the auto-repeat run faster (just on the cursor keys).
The HP9845B has something a bit like that. Gentle pressure on a cursor
key moves the cursor one space. Harder pressure causes it to auto-repeat.
That machine uses those saturable-ferite keys I mentioned in another
message. There are 2 cores in each cursor switch, one drive loop threaded
through both of them, and separate sense loops for each core. Pressing
the key generly desaturates the first core. pressing it harder
desaturates both of them
The keybaord is electrically wired so that the second core of each cursor
key appears at the same position in the matrx as the repeat key :-)
-tony
5:12 p.m.
Wasn't there a similar issue with the hard drive
low-level formatter, in that
it was never released by Apple - so you couldn't take a Lisa ProFile and
format it for a ///, and nor could you do drive replacement in the field -
instead the whole faulty unit presumably got sent back to Apple for repair.
Wasn't there one drive -- and I think it was an Apple -- where you had to
temprorially replace a microcontroller chip to be able to do a low-level
format? And of course that specially-programemd microcontrolller was
never avaialble to normal customers.
-tony
1 Jun
1 Jun
3:01 p.m.
On Wed, 30 May 2007, Tony Duell wrote:
Yes, that would be the ProFile hard disk unit. You swap in a "piggyback"
Z8 MPU with special EPROM for the masked-ROM version and have at it with a
special tool suite on the Apple ///. I have resurrected several dead
units by using the HDA assembly from a vanilla Seagate ST-506 (I think
that's the one - from memory) with the proprietary Apple electronics.
Unfortunately, the collection of software I was able to get my hands on
was missing the 10MB format utility so I've never been able to get a 10M
ProFile fixed.
If anyone has a line on this, please contact me privately? Ditto if you
need the hex image or the diagnostic software.
Steve
--
Wasn't
there a similar issue with the hard drive low-level formatter, in that
it was never released by Apple - so you couldn't take a Lisa ProFile and
format it for a ///, and nor could you do drive replacement in the field -
instead the whole faulty unit presumably got sent back to Apple for repair.
Wasn't there one drive -- and I think it was an Apple -- where you had to
temprorially replace a microcontroller chip to be able to do a low-level
format? And of course that specially-programemd microcontrolller was
never avaialble to normal customers. 
29 May
29 May
8:35 p.m.
Hi,
I really liked my ///... I'm just trying to thin
the collection
out a bit and it's going to have to go... :-(
IKWYM, I reluctantly gave mine away a few years ago as I'd not been able to
locate any (usable) boot discs for it.
Built like a tank....
I also had a spare motherboard/internal floppy drive/RAM board as well, not
sure if I mighn't still have these knocking around somewhere. If I have, and
if anyone needs them, drop me a line.
TTFN - Pete.
6188
days inactive
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6 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
-
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
classiccmp＠memory-alpha.org.uk -
coredump＠gifford.co.uk -
julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk -
roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk -
snhirsch＠gmail.com