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In need of Apple //e help


Tsukasa

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I just got an enhanced Apple //e with a 64K ram/80 column card, a Super serial card, and a Disk II card w/ a pair of drives for free. But I don't have any Dos disks, and I don't think the keyboard works right. I've never had an apple // before. When I turn it on, it checks for a disk to boot to, and of course can't find Dos on it. If I press "control+reset", it gives me a prompt with ] and a blinking square, but it doesn't respond to any keys except for "control+reset", "control+(open apple)+reset", "control+(open apple)+(closed apple)+reset", and "control+(closed apple)+reset. None of the other keys seem to do anything, and they don't display on the screen. Am I doing something wrong? or is there some way to hook up a Disk II to a PC, like the Star Commander for Commodore, or do I have to find a way to load Dos from a tape?

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If the computer and drives are working and you have a 5 1/4 DSDD floppy - you can use ADT to transfer disk images over to the Apple.

 

To initially get the Apple side ADT software over to the machine, you will need to hook it to a PC via null modem. You can also transfer DOS3.3 this way.

 

There currently isn't any way that I know of to have a PC work as drive slave (like 1541emu) or connect a Apple disk drive to the PC (like Star Commander).

 

ADT_2004.zipdos33dmp.zip

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It should give you control of the keyboard after you hit ctrl-reset.

I forget what we had to hit on our Ace 1200 for that, but it was a similar combination. That gave us the ability to type on the keyboard, but nothing really happened. You couldn't write any programs that way.

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It should give you control of the keyboard after you hit ctrl-reset.

I forget what we had to hit on our Ace 1200 for that, but it was a similar combination.  That gave us the ability to type on the keyboard, but nothing really happened.  You couldn't write any programs that way.

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...Unless you want to use a cassette tape interface :P

 

Bad news:

Since you get the command prompt with a cursor, you should at the very least be able to type something on the screen. If you can't, something's not right (possibly the enclosed keyboard itself, or the ram chip that is holding the keyboard buffer). Pretty much the whole series of II's function similar to provide backward-compatability.

As a test, you can unplug all 3 of your installed cards to check if one of those is causing the glitch (they just pull easily off the motherboard), but I wouldn't bet on it.

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When I turn it on, the disk drive spins, and if I hit ctrl+openapple+reset, it reboots.

If I hit ctrl+reset, it gives me the prompt, but typing doesn't work. I tried taking all the cards out, but I still can't type anything.

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When I turn it on, the disk drive spins, and if I hit ctrl+openapple+reset, it reboots.

If I hit ctrl+reset, it gives me the prompt, but typing doesn't work. I tried taking all the cards out, but I still can't type anything.

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Odd... sounds like the keyboard is being read, but the characters you type aren't being displayed on screen. What happens when you type "PR#6" (no quotes) then <Return> immediately after you hit <ctrl+reset>? I realize no text will appear on screen, but if the computer re-boots that would confirm that it is accepting commands, just not displaying what you type.

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Odd...  sounds like the keyboard is being read, but the characters you type aren't being displayed on screen.  What happens when you type "PR#6" (no quotes) then <Return> immediately after you hit <ctrl+reset>?  I realize no text will appear on screen, but if the computer re-boots that would confirm that it is accepting commands, just not displaying what you type.

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There is no reason whatsoever that an Apple //e which is capable of displaying the prompt would receive characters from the keyboard and not display them. I don't know how exactly the keyboard on the Apple //e works, but the reset and "Apple" buttons are separate from the rest of the keys (which are mostly on a matrix). I would think they'd probably all be handled by the same connector, but they might not be. Can you see the cables coming off the keyboard and how they connect to the motherboard?

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There is no reason whatsoever that an Apple //e which is capable of displaying the prompt would receive characters from the keyboard and not display them.  I don't know how exactly the keyboard on the Apple //e works, but the reset and "Apple" buttons are separate from the rest of the keys (which are mostly on a matrix).  I would think they'd probably all be handled by the same connector, but they might not be.  Can you see the cables coming off the keyboard and how they connect to the motherboard?

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Oh.

 

I figured the reset button was separate from the rest of the keyboard, but I didn't know whether the ctrl, openapple, closedapple, etc. were separate.

Edited by Christophero Sly
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There is one ribbon cable that comes off of the keyboard to the motherboard. I tried removing the keyboard rom and booting it and it didn't seem to make any difference at all.

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The open/closed apple keys are tied to joystick buttons.

 

Anyway, most //e's used a standard 2716 pinout for the keyboard ROM, so if you have the resources, you can burn a 2k 27C16 EPROM with the keyboard ROM code and pop it in, and see if it works.

 

Well, some //e's (I think the european ones) used the same keyboard ROM as the //c, which is a 4k 2732, IIRC. If you've got this kind, you'll need the //c rom below.

iic_keyboard_rom.bin

iie_keyboard_rom.bin

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