Success - Apple II+ clone lives

Congratulations! Photos?

Looks fabulous. Nice Job!

VAstargazer wrote:

Genuine Apple Disk II, Clone Controller, unbranded motherboard, I'm mentally blanking on the various clone motherboard brands, but its one of the

versions with a bunch of extra holes on the side (if anyone knowes some of the vairous brands of motherboards let me know.  I'll recognize the name when I

see it).  The wire going to the game socket is for the numereic keypad.

That motherboard looks really familiar.  It's either a "genuine" Unitron or a copy of the Unitron motherboard (copies of clones were a thing back then).

They were extremely common especially in the Toronto area in the 1980s.  In fact I've got three - two green ones and a blue one which is actually branded "Unitron".

Super clean, nice job.

Looks like someone's done the one-wire shift key mod on that machine.  That's the wire to the game port.  Probably unnecessary becasue those clones normally had lower case character generators and F8 ROMs modified to handle lower case.  (The F8 always fails the various Apple diagnostics diskettes' ROM tests for that reason).

Also, it looks like you have a caps-lock key on that keybord so you should be able to generate lower case characters from the keyboard natively.

With an 80 column card and a super serial card, maybe a printer card, that could be a pretty capable little machine.  I use my II+ clone quite often.

VAstargazer wrote:

Thanks. 

I have a Videx 80 column, a Grappler card, and Super Serial.

I'll try taking the game port wire out.  I didn't see any case difference on the display when using the caps lock key.

I'll experiment a bit and let you know what the results are with/without wire, etc.

 

 It might be possible that you don't have a lower case character generator or lower case compatible F8.

Those are easy to replace.  Let me know if you need the .bin files to burn them yourself.

Of course, you can always try to load a program that displays lower case characters in 40 col mode like maybe Copy II+ or Ascii Express.  That'll tell you whether the CG and F8 chips are lower case compatible.

VAstargazer wrote:

I will take you up on the bin file offer.  Is the bin for the character ROM or the F8 ROM?  Which EEPROMs should I buy to burn the bin onto?

The chips in most clones are 2716 chips.  The trouble is that you will need a programmer capable of outputting the required 24V on the programming pin.  Most cheap chinese USB EPROM burners can't do it - they can only do 21V max (which is fine for 2732 and 2764 EPROMS).  There are some 21V capable 2716 chips out there - ST and NEC make (made?) 21V versions of the 2716 that should be programmable on those Chinese burners.

Also, I believe that you can use a 2732 in place of a 2716 - just double the program to fill the second half of the chip - copy data from 0000 to 07FF to starting address 0800.

If you just need a single set, it might be cheaper (and a lot easier and faster) to order what you want from https://www.reactivemicro.com/product/firmware-rom/   Of course, it would not be as much fun...

8BitHeaven wrote:

If you just need a single set, it might be cheaper (and a lot easier and faster) to order what you want from https://www.reactivemicro.com/product/firmware-rom/   Of course, it would not be as much fun...

 Or while you're at the RM store, check out the ROMx. That could open up even more possibilities!

I didn't think you could use a ROMx in a Clone designed for 2716s?

Is there a newer revision that will work? I have a clone II+ sans chips and the version I got wouldn't work with the clone.

Cheers

Chesh

jeffmazur wrote:

 

 Or while you're at the RM store, check out the ROMx. That could open up even more possibilities!

Does the ROMx work in 2716-based clone motherboards?

Or do you need to invert the chip inhibit/enable pins?

Short answer = YES if it's configured for 2716's.  You'll have to reverse the mod that accomodates 2716 EPROMS

That seems to be identical t my Beltron. I you press the power key, the other keys may give you useful BASIC shortcuts. I have yet to repair the Beltron mainboard, but I put a ][+ RFI mainboard nto the case for now and the system works as intended.

This is one of the best KBs ever made for the ][ series. 

I could use ROM dumps from your machine if you can ever do that, to get my Beltron mainboard working. 

macnoyd wrote:

Short answer = YES if it's configured for 2716's.  You'll have to reverse the mod that accomodates 2716 EPROMS

 

VAstargazer wrote:

• Is the 2716 EPROM for the F8 Rom or the character generator?

• Are both the lowercase character generator and modified F8 required?
• If the replacing the character generator will do the trick, would it also enable to caps lock function?

 

 As far as clone boards with 2716's goes, yes you just need to bypass the added inverter. I have detailed instructions for several clones.

For lower case, you will need both a new character ROM and F8 ROM to support that. The shift key mod is the preferred method to INPUT lower case characters although there are some programs that use a software approach and don't require that. And yes ROMX solves the first two items above.