A Census of europluses

Retrochallenge 2016/10 has begun!

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 numberDate CodeCPUNotes
IA2S2-669150no date code65C02wrong (apple ][plus) lid
IA2S2-667843518265C02no speaker or joystick socket
IA2S2-700105418265C02
IA2S2-67133081186502no PSU
82376502no 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!

3 thoughts on “A Census of europluses”

  1. I have the following ][ europlus gear to hand:
    Motherboard date codes 4882, 825, 3883
    Case serial numbers 664053, 669004
    Silver Astec PSU model AA11040B 110v converted to 240v serial M55998509 Date 8530 – seems too late to be a ][ europlus supply.
    Gold Astec PSU model AA11040C serial 240556

    I have the remnants of a sticker visible on the lid that I would like to remove without affecting the paintwork. Will water be ok to use as a first step?

    1. I’d probably try isopropyl alcohol or methylated spirits to dissolve after trialling on a non-visible patch. The plain plus lid I have is a likely candidate for testing 🙂 I don’t recall reading what chemicals the paint is based on.

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