A very minor update today (and I’m not sure how much I’ll get done over the weekend as I’m supposed to be concentrating on some renovations-related woodworking)…
A parcel arrived from Bulgaria today: 36 rubber feet to replace those on the bases of my europluses.
I bought enough to do nine bases – so I’ll have plenty for the six europluses I’m hoping to totally refurbish and make complete.
Some of the existing feet are missing, some have been replaced with screw-on ones, and some have just migrated over time like some weird micro-scale (Ha! see what I did there?!) continental drift.
I’m planning on removing all the original feet, cleaning the bases of all adhesive residue, and “installing” four feet per base.
The match is pretty good (see Figure 1) – they were advertised as NOS Apple feet, but, given the slight differences, they’re either (likely) later versions than europlus-era, or ones which just happen to be very similar.
Funnily enough, I’m expecting another Apple ][-related delivery from Bulgaria, but the highly appropriate goods description (see Figure 2) on the customs declaration put paid to any thoughts of having hardware to play with before I’d even opened the package.
I hope you get to do more on your Retrochallenge entry this weekend (you did enter, didn’t you?!) than I’m expecting I’ll get to.
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking, racing around to come up behind you again. The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older – shorter of breath and one day closer to death.
Have I made much progress since the last update? Maybe not in the grand scheme of things, but I have done a few things…
I opened three of my PSUs to check a part number for Mark Cummings, a fellow Australian enthusiast who is working on schematics and parts lists for Apple ][ power supplies – he and Dean Claxton have already released details of the 240V DynaComp PSU used in the Apple //e (primarily the Enhanced //e).
The other three PSUs will need the pop rivets drilled off, and I just haven’t gotten to that task yet. But I’m that little bit closer to testing the PSUs’ capacitors.
It’ll definitely need more work – it was crashing out of the CFFA3K boot menu, displaying rubbish on screen, repeatedly crashing to different memory addresses and the cursor even looked odd.
In the end I had to set the Apple ][+ Dealer Diagnostics Disk image as the boot image on another machine. I then was able to boot into the diagnostics software, and I could move around the menu options on that disk via the ESC key, but I couldn’t press Return to run the selected test.
Just as well I’m old and remembered that the Control-M is an alternative way to get the Carriage Return character – it worked! So there may be a problem with the Return keyswitch.
Doing the ROM test said to replace the D0 Applesoft ROM, so that’s another repair task. I’ll try and get to that and cracking open the rest of my PSUs by the end of the week…but that sun is already sinking, racing around to come up behind me again!
I was reasonably settled in thinking, going by serial numbers, that I had mid-age to very young europluses (see my europlus Census).
However, my realisation that there was a lot of variation in the motherboard green colours led me to look more closely at them all and I realised that one motherboard had dark green (rather than black) slots with feet with fixing screw holes…and that got me looking at that motherboard more closely still (see Figure 1 below).
That motherboard is the only one without a date code – in the usual location it has written on it “APP031” (or “APPO31”). It also has the memory select blocks common on early revision motherboards, but it’s one of the three motherboards with a 65C02 I had incorrectly replaced the original 6502 with years ago, so I couldn’t check the date code on the original CPU.
Or could I?
I keep everything…I admit it, I’m a hoarder. I knew I had two of the three replaced 6502s in the antistatic tube my last unused 65C02 was in. Their date codes were 8135 and 8243, which seemed consistent with the date codes on the other 65C02 motherboards in 700105 and 667843 (4182 and 5182 respectively).
But I was sure I wouldn’t have only kept two of the three replaced 6502s, and I had a vague recollection of a loose 6502 in one of my small plastic boxes. Luckily, I knew where that box was, and when I checked, bingo! There was a 6502.
And oh, what a beautiful 6502 it was. Bent pins. Missing pins. Corroded pins. But, oh…that date code!
7916
For a europlus, that is early.
From what I’ve read, europluses were available from June 1979, and were manufactured until December 1982.
Given the style of motherboard, such an early CPU, and the number 31 as part of the writing where the motherboard date code should normally be, could it actually be a 7931 motherboard?
This site says the board’s revision (Revision 3, part number 820-0001-04 visible under CPU) was in production from roughly 7934 to 8030, so we’re in the ballpark.
7931 would be a manufacturing date in late July 1979. You wouldn’t find many surviving europluses that old. And I’ve got a 5182 motherboard – one of the last/youngest – along with several in between those two. The completist in me is quite satisfied with that sort of mix.
I knew other chips, such as memory chips, also have date codes on them, so I investigated their date codes…my heart started to sink a little: 8251, 8325, 8211, 8134 – these were not uncommon date codes I was seeing.
But I kept looking, and found others such as 7928, 7926, 7930, and one ROM’s date code of 7919.
I think at some point, probably in the early 1980s, this motherboard was refurbished with then-current components. Maybe it was even combined with the machine which originally had the serial number 669150 (which is the serial number on the base), as that’s right in the mid-range of serial numbers.
On that basis, I’m going to re-unite this early europlus motherboard with the early europlus base plate that I got during my Retrochallenge Roadtrip (614494) – I may also have an early keyboard and keyboard encoder that were with that early base plate, but that’s an investigation for another day.
I’ll then have an early europlus as part of my collection, which is a very nice feeling.
I’d be interested to hear what unexpected discoveries you’ve made in your collection in the Comments below.
I think this tabulation of date codes is going to become the most tedious part of my Retrochallenge entry – but I’m using the fact I’ve entered Retrochallenge to push past the tedium and just get it done.
Having the data and then using it to align the various components will satisfy some deep OCD tendency within me, so apologies to those who were hoping for more Magic Smoke™ and soldering.
So, in my continuing series of serial number and date code compilations, I give you my 2016 europlus PSU Census:
europlus Serial
PSU Serial
PSU Stamp
PSU Date Code
667843
160082
55049957
—
669150
262944
T062072561
—
700105
159252
T062104427
—
671330
286510
62131242
8309
653677
261275
T062079965
—
676433
No PSU
—
—
Label-less
248169
T062074871
—
The “PSU Stamp” is punched into the metal on the side of the PSU near the motherboard’s power molex connector and is on all of the PSUs…except the highest serial numbered PSU, which is also the only one with a date code anywhere externally. See the Figure 1 below for a stamp example and the sticker.
The number listed under “PSU Stamp” for that PSU and the date code is on a sticker in the same location as the other PSUs’ stamped number. The sticker has a dot matrix-printed serial number and date code (and the serial number is different to the number on the main label). This sticker looks very much like the stickers on the silver //e PSU.
I don’t know what the stamped number and sticker serial number represent vs the serial number on the PSUs’ main label, and would appreciate any info on that in the Comments below.
Another external difference is that PSU 160082, which is the only PSU with a stamped number not starting with “T” (see Figure 1), has a sticker at the switch end with the Apple logo and product details (see Figure 2 below) – I wonder if this was from a batch of 110V cases they repurposed for use on 230V units?
I’ll be looking for date codes elsewhere inside the case, but I suspect there won’t be any – there are certainly none obvious on the spare keyboard and keyboard encoder card I have, so I won’t be doing a census of those (“Hooray!” I hear you say).
I will be, however, comparing the date codes of chips on the motherboards vs the QA date code hand-written on them so I can see if I can come up with a rule of thumb and estimate a date for the un-dated motherboard (in the currently lid-less 669150 case). It may just come down to the 6502 date code vs the QA date code if that seems consistent.
As I start to look more closely at the motherboards, I’m noticing differences in the green colour of the board itself, and one board has dark green slots with “feet” (which have holes in them, presumably for fixing via screws/bolts) vs the other motherboards’ black slots. But documenting that sort of thing is really a project for another day…
Have you ever done a refurb like this, documenting such minutiae as you go? I’d be interested to hear about it in the Comments below – primarily so I can see if I’m the only freakperson in the world who would do such a thing.
(Note: that table is sortable – click on the little up/down arrow icon that appears next to columns headers as you hover your cursor near them to sort by that column. When you do, you’ll see how out of sync the motherboard date codes are vs the serial numbers.)
Among the changes beyond adding the two new machines, I have assigned the base plate I sourced from Jeremy with serial number 614494 to the machine with the label-less base plate, and I found the PSU for 671330.
676433 has had its case modified around the keyboard – it looks like it was meant to move the keyboard 3cm to the left and leave a 6cm wide gap for something(?) to the right of the keyboard. I originally thought it was for a numeric keypad, but 6cm isn’t wide enough.
It also has a 9-pin D-SUB connector at the top of the keyboard encoder card – the other machines’ keyboard encoder have a screen-printed outline for a connector there, but no notation.
If anyone has any clues or pictures of these two mods from back in the day, please let me know in the Comments below. I’ll try and do dome searching when I’ve recovered somewhat, but I would not reject a shortcut to the info.
What this all means is I may end up with six functional machines – I’ll likely move 676433’s lid to 669150 (which is lidless/wrongly lidded), not bother getting another PSU, and have spare parts from 676433’s motherboard (or swap the motherboard into one of the other cases).
While I’d rather have seven fully functional and complete machines, sourcing a spare PSU, lid and unmodified top case may not be feasible (without getting a whole extra machine, which would leave me with the same remainder of parts), so I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with having spare parts for six.
I already had a clone motherboard for parts, and Jeremy has lent me another clone motherboard, a europlus keyboard, and a keyboard encoder card for spare parts as well.
So, my current Retrochallenge status is:
I’ve not done much actual work (driving for 7+ hours doesn’t quite count), and I’ve now got more work to do!
I wasn’t really expecting to go any further than the local Jaycar Electronics store for new capacitors as part of my Retrochallenge entry.
I certainly wasn’t expecting a 650km round-trip roadtrip, but that’s what I find myself undertaking today to expand my europlus Refurbapalooza.
The main purpose of the trip is to pickup two europluses I’m adopting – they normally live 1700km north of me in Townsville, Queensland. Their current owner, Chris (who donated an EDD+ card to me for disk imaging work), is visiting our national capital, Canberra, so I thought a day’s roadtrip early in the month would allow me to include these two machines in my entry. I’m going out of my way as Chris is gifting them to me – I couldn’t really expect him to drop them off as well!
One machine is missing a PSU, and the other’s operational state is unknown. I’ll post an updated census once I have them all at home.
While in Canberra, I’m also picking up a europlus case base with original sticker I’ve acquired (thanks, Jeremy!) – one of my europluses is missing its label, so it’ll be nice to have labels on them all by the end of Retrochallenge 2016/10. The machines are already a weird mix of date codes vs serial numbers, so I’m taking the liberty of grabbing this serialised base for the label-less europlus.
Hopefully, that’ll be the bulk of my Retrochallenge travelling done for the month – at least it won’t be said I didn’t go the extra mile (or 400 miles) for my first Retrochallenge entry!
Let me know in the Comments section below the furthest you’ve gone specifically to pick up gear for your retrocomputer collection.
The first task for my entry is my 2016 europlus Census.
I have a much simpler job doing my census than the Australian Bureau of Statistics had doing theirs – and I’m not going to face any backlash making all my results public. Nor will I (I suspect) attract any sort of nefarious hacker attention, so here goes…
I currently have five europluses (stay tuned!). Unfortunately, none of them are the one my family had in the 1980s.
With a view to re-uniting them with the appropriate PSUs, here are the main unit details:
Serial number
Date Code
CPU
Notes
IA2S2-669150
no date code
65C02
wrong (apple ][plus) lid
IA2S2-667843
5182
65C02
no speaker or joystick socket
IA2S2-700105
4182
65C02
IA2S2-671330
8118
6502
no PSU
—
8237
6502
no label
Despite the serial numbers not seeming to be in the same order as the date codes, I’m going to use the date codes to try and tee the main units up with their corresponding PSUs. The 65C02s are the ones I incorrectly installed to replace the original Synertek 6502s – I’d replaced more than I thought, so I’m glad I now have a good stock of SY6502s (they arrived several days ago).
According to this post, europlus serial numbers ranged from IA2S2-600000 to ca. IA2S2-710000, so I don’t have any particularly low ones. The europlus was released on 1 June 1979 and was manufactured until December 1982, so the 5182 date-coded one I have is one of the last ones off the production line. Given its relatively low serial number, I’m wondering if the motherboard is actually in its original case?
This brings me to something I’ve been contemplating given that misalignment of serial number order vs date code order – I’m going to reserve the right to align the motherboard date code order with the serial number order.
However, I may also have the opportunity to get a europlus base with a lowish serial number label from a semi-local collector (thanks, Jeremy!). The europlus case that base is from currently has a clone motherboard installed in it, and Jeremy and I are hoping to come to an arrangement whereby I end up with that base to make my label-less europlus more complete. What that means is I’ll have to make a policy decision on any such alignment before too long.
And there’s still the issue of the missing lid to contend with (anyone have a spare?!).
In the interests of maybe making my census data useful to other owners, I will be adding them to the Apple ][ Serial Registry and another registry here once Retrochallenge finishes.
I’ll update the above table if/when I get any more machines to add to it. When I come to the point of removing and testing the PSUs, I’ll prepare a census table of those and their serial numbers and date codes (if present). I’m just hoping I have enough of the gold PSUs for the europluses I’ll have by the end of the month!
If any other europlus owners have details of their collection, I’d love to hear about it in the Comments section below!
I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a retrocomputing enthusiast who does not listen to at least one podcast related to the hobby.
There are a large number of podcasts related to retrocomputing, and I have a set of them that I listen to. For whatever value my readers get from it, here’s a list of the currently active ones on my playlist:
Retro Computing Roundtable: For a general retrocomputing podcast it’s hard to go past RCR. Now approaching its sixth anniversary, a ragtag fugitive fleet of retro enthusiasts from around the world (including my veritable neighbour, Michael Mulhern) get together roughly weekly to discuss news, a host topic, eBay finds, and anything else relevant (and sometime irrelevant and/or irreverent). [Subscribe in iTunes]
Open Apple: current hosts Quinn Dunki and Mike Maginnis host this Apple ][-themed podcast now in its sixth year. It covers news, doesn’t officially cover eBay, and the hosts have interviewed some of the movers and shakers in the Apple scene both from the early days and currently. My What WOzFest Is…and Isn’t post is dedicated to the Open Apple Fact Checking Department. [Subscribe in iTunes]
RetroMacCast: one of the early podcasts for retrocomputer enthusiasts, still going and currently up to episode 415 and approaching its 10th anniversary in December. James and John look at eBay finds, news from the Mac arena both past and present (and sometimes the wider Apple retrocomputer sphere), sometimes dip into a historical issue of Mac magazines from decades past and generally shoot the breeze. [Subscribe in iTunes]
FloppyDays Vintage Computing Podcast: Randy Kindig hosts this general retrocomputing podcast I’ve only recently started listening to. Randy is roughly following a timeline of 8 bit retrocomputers, detailing their development and time on the market, and then the current resources and accessories available for them. Randy often gets movers and shakers relevant to the original or current development of the computer he covers on an episode. Special interview and event episodes are interspersed and give further insight into historical and current retrocomputer topics and events. [Subscribe in iTunes]
As with anything in life, sometimes things go awry and podcasts go on hiatus. Retrocomputer-related podcasts I’ve listened to in the past which haven’t been active in some time include:
1 MHz Apple II Podcast: What about that Carrington, eh? Carrington Vanston wore all the hats on this podcast which was active from 2006 till 2012 (if you’re loose in your definition of “active”). Carrington has a style all his own, and I’m pleased we’ve not lost it completely as he often co-hosts the RCR. [Subscribe in iTunes]
The Retrobits Podcast: Earl Evans’ general retrocomputing podcast had a good mix of info on current happenings in retrocomputing land and interviews, as well as Earl’s own projects. Earl also often co-hosts RCR. [Subscribe in iTunes]
A2Unplugged: active from 2006-2010, A2Unplugged was one of the first retrocomputing podcasts I listened to. Hosted by the late Ryan Suenaga, it had a yearly roundup roundtable, and discussed then current happenings in the Apple ][ world.
While inactive, the published episodes of Retrobits, 1 MHz and A2Unplugged are often still worth a listen, if only to get a glimpse of the retro-retrocomputing scene!
What have I missed?! If you enjoy a retrocomputing podcast I haven’t mentioned, let me know in the Comments below (and I’m aware of non-Apple platform-specific podcasts like Antic and Chicken Lips Radio – but I keep my own listening to Apple and general retrocomputing podcasts for the sake of time).
If there’s one thing that can shake you out of a lull, it’s holding yourself accountable to your tribe.
These days, what with Facebook, newsgroups, Twitter, reddit, and the whole pantheon of online services, we all seem to have as many tribes as we feel we can handle. Meetups and conferences can help bring those tribes into the real world.
Without it being too much of a revelation to anyone, I belong to the Apple ][ Clan, previously primarily online. But that changed significantly in 2015 with my attendance at Oz KFest, Australia’s own Apple ][ conference, loosely based on the KansasFest model.
2015’s was the third Oz KFest – so far, all of them have been held in towns strongly featuring “K” in their names to ensure we can stay “in the franchise”. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in a position to go to the first Oz KFest held in Mt Kiera south of Sydney in 2009 or the second one held in Kurilpa (a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland) in 2013.
In 2015, I was finally able to attend and it was Keysborough, a Melbourne suburb quite away from the central hub, which was our host city for the third Oz KFest. We were hosted by CompNow, an Apple reseller/service centre in a semi-industrial area – but what the heck, I was wasn’t there for the views, I was there for the ][s!
On the subject of the venue, a huge shout out to Jason Griffiths, who works at CompNow, and CompNow itself – the venue was phenomenal as far as space and facilities available, so thanks – you guys rock!
As anyone who has attended one of theses sorts of gatherings knows, it’s a great opportunity to re-invigorate your interest.
I know that the anticipation of the event, participating in the event (I even presented a session!) and the headspace it put me in afterwards will have a lasting impact on my Apple ][ hobby.
Tony Diaz made it all the way from the U.S. and it was an opportunity for those of us who have never been to KansasFest to tap into his vast reserves of knowledge and experience in all things Apple ][ – and be shown a not insignificant portion of his vast collection of rarities and prototypes.
I met some great friends, the atmosphere was positive and generous, with information and bits and pieces being swapped and just outright given, and there’s just that certain buzz from sharing a passion with similarly-minded people. If you get the chance, watch the time lapse video Jason recorded during the event to get a feel for it.
A direct and lasting outcome of my attendance at Oz KFest 2015 is WOzFest. After Oz KFest 2015, Tony Diaz drove his way to Sydney, and I held the first WOzFest in his honour before he flew home. For those who had been unable to attend Oz KFest, it was an opportunity to see Tony’s amazing collection of rare items, including one-of-a-kind prototypes. And those of us lucky enough to have been at both events still enjoyed the opportunity to see the items again, hear their stories again, and just be that much closer to them.
In regards to Apple ][s, 2015 was absolutely a year of re-emergence for me – right into the thick of the local Apple ][ community.
Feel free to share in the Comments what has launched you back into your retrocomputing community.
I have a few ideas for the night – nothing I can really go into yet, and I always like to have a surprise or two – but I’d be interested to hear attendees’ thoughts on projects or things to do throughout the event.
As things firm up I’ll post further details of what’s happening – as usual, arrival is from midday onwards, there’ll be snacks and apple cider and we’ll order in pizza for dinner. Wrap-up is likely by about 10:30pm (all times AEDT/UTC+11:00). Please let me know if you’re intending on attending.
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