Since the vendor was local, I decided to drive up to their warehouse to pick it up, because he said they have a lot of other stuff that might interest me. So I went, and he was right. They had a lot of oldies there, including a beloved VT-100 Terminal -- no keyboard, of course, just like I always see them. They had a surprising amount of old 80's computers, X-Boxes, Game Consoles, and minicomputer parts. One of the things I almost got was a DECMate 350, but I seriously don't even have any leads on software for it. But I bought the Apple 2e, and in spite of the missing #9 key, everything about it was great
The interior, where the main board and cards are, was pristine. No dust at all. The circuit boards were shiny, and there were noy many tings that needed cleaning. It was like it was almost new. The floppy drives were a little banged up -- scratched paint, missing rubber feet, but an inspection revealed that they work, and that the insides are as pristine as the inside of the computer. I simply lubricated the drive shafts, and cleaned the heads with alcohol.
Before leaving the warehouse, I asked the guy there if they had any composite monitors to use with it. He said that sadly, they only had one, and it was the only thing they had to test these old Apples, C-64's, and other composite video computers. It was not for sale. So on the way home, we stopped at a Savers, and I found a nice old square flat TV! Yeah - a flat screen TV from the era before widescreen was standard! It was perfect for this purpose, because it had many inputs, including VGA and composite. So that means that I can use this to test different 8-bit systems -- at least until I get a real antique monitor for the Apple 2E.
IF you are in need, Savers nearly always
has cheap computer monitors and TV sets
and they all work. Most monitors are only $10.
Once I powered it up and confirmed that it was working, I hit CTRL-RESET, and got into Apple Basic. I wrote a quick program and ran it. The Apple worked fine. So now comes the fun part -- assembling the software.
Check the Apple 2 resources on my sidebar above. You should find links to Apple Disk Transfer Pro, or ADPro. This program allows you to boot your Apple 2 off of a PC that hosts the files. You can connect a variety of way -- using a serial null-model cable (Fastest), and via the headphone jack -- you plug one into the PC's audio out, and the other end into the Apple's Mic jack. You don't even need an apple boot disk. You actually load the software from the PC link cable, and it runs. From there you can format a disk, make it bootable, and install the Apple ProDOS image onto it. Even better, though, you can eliminate the floppies altogether, and just run software directly from your PC's shared Apple folder -- But what fun would that be? Yeah -- it's actually FASTER than running programs from a floppy disk. Imagine that.
ADDENDUM
Well, I found another Apple 2e on Ebay for $89, and this one has a working Apple Color Monitor, and Duo Disk drive. The Apple 2e works, too, so I'll be setting that one up for my collection, and I'll probably re-sell the other Apple 2e. I guess whichever one looks best after cleaning -- and I'll just swap the keyboards as needed.
ADDENDUM 2
Well, I transplanted the keyboard into the original Apple 2, because it was the cleaner of the 2. The new Apple 2 has an extended memory card. I have to pull together some software to test it. I have the cables on order to allow me to serve the Apple from my PC, as well as some floppy discs. Once they arrive, I'll see if I can at least test out all of the floppy drives I now have. I know that at least one of the drives works, because it is able to tell that a disc cannot be booted from, and gives a message hat "this is a data disc, not a boot disc". Once I start acquiring software for the Apple 2, I can determine if I need the SD card reader.
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