I'm planning a Platinum //e system renovation and just curious about a "typical Plainum //e". How would you describe a typical system? My gut says this is more of a school system than business system. I have extensive experience with orginal Apple ][ with Integer ROMS, ][ Plus, Franklin Ace , Laser 128 and other clones, and early and late beige //e machines, but I was not around many Platinum //e machines in their era.
I'm thinking Platinum //e, platinum Color Composite //e Monitor, a pair of A9M0107 Apple 5.25 drives, ImageWriter II eith SSC. mouse card with A2M2070 mouse. Probably a RAMWorks III. Liron or Yellowstone with 3.5 Drive. Maybe a Koala Pad.
Was there a platinum color DuoDisk?
Also was the white Imagewriter II more common on the Platinum //e or was the platinum Imagewritter II more common?
What was a "normal" system back in the day?
I don't recall ever seeing a platinum colored Duodisk. I have seen lots of platinum colored Apple 5.25 Drives. I think a lot of Platinum //e were sold with two of those drives. All the Platinum //e came with the small size 64k 80 column cards, but people frequently replaced those with a RamWorks III. III because due to the slightly different case reas for the newer //e, the RamWorks II won't fit. Look at the little notch at the back of the RamWorks III. ImageWriter II with an SSC was pretty ubiquitous, and it would be the platinum colored one most likely if purchased at the same time as the Platinum //e, unless a dealer had an old stock one on hand or someone already had it. But mix and match of the older beige and platinum was super common, especially in a school system setting you'd see people use whatever they had. Framl;u in a school system setting you'd much more often see the monochrome monitors. Often they'd have one or two color monitors, but the bulk of machines had monocrhome because of readibility for AppleWorks and other stuff that used 80 columns vs. composite color. Oh, and price. Schools were notoriously fairly cheap. And Platinum //e were amongst the highest production variants... and very largely sold into schools.
I have at least 5 or 6 Platinum //e here that I've fixed up. I'm going to start listing them on eBay sometime fairly soon. I've got several older //e as well.
Some schools equipped their machines with the "Workstation" card. I get the impression that they preferred that configuration above the IIgs (where LocalTalk is built in) because the IIgs keyboard is easy to steal, and even if it's nailed down the ADB keyboard cable is an "attractive nuisance".
But there's not much point in the card if you don't have a file server.
The Ramworks II will fit any North American IIe. I've used them in every version. What it won't fit is the European IIe thet has the AUX slot in line with slot 3.