New Zealand Vintage Computer Forums

What is the long ribbon cable for, a printer?

Should I just unplug it from the board? Will it still work as a RAM extension and 80 column screen enhancement?

Hi gurner, im not quite understanding what type of card you are describing, 80 column cards (aka standard video card) dont have ribbon cables, the Apple II has a language card that has a ribbon cable that plugs into the first RAM slot.

If its a language card and you unplug the cable the computer wont boot since RAM will no longer be fully populated.

Do you have a photo?

Here it is.

Does it include a RAM extension?

What slot was it in?

Assuming it's not in the "AUX" slot, and the other end of the cable has a centronics interface on it, it's probably a generic parallel interface for a printer.

Nothing to do with RAM or 80 cols. That should be a separate card in the AUX slot.

Looks like a Grappler+ clone printer card (set for Epson compatibility mode?).

http://www.oldapplestuff.com/Apple2HardwareCARDS.html

If it's from a //e then the 25 at the far end of the edge connector gives it away - it's a 50 pin card, and 80-col expansions should be 60 on an //e?

Ah bother, thanks.

I heard I'd only need 64k to play most of the Apple II games.
Would you agree?

Gurner wrote:Ah bother, thanks.

I heard I'd only need 64k to play most of the Apple II games.
Would you agree?

Yes, the extra 64K Video RAM not present in your apple II shouldnt prevent you from playing most games.

You can put 2mb of RAM into an Apple IIe, thats how I roll with my IIe's but only really used for word processing, Apple works and floppy disk copying (cough) I mean backing up LOL.

Your printer card wont be of much use unless you have a printer but pop it in slot 3 if you want it installed, PS the edge connector on the card could be cleaned with I.P.A. before installing as I have loads of cards and they always seen to be grimey, you wipe it and heaps of grime on the tissue.

Everywhere there is an edge connector or IC socket these will be your first point of failure.

Cool, thanks for the info – I'll just be using my ][e for games at this stage.

My friend gave me back a stack of about 20 old ][e disks that were some of MY EXACT DISKS from when I was a kid. I gave them to him as a teen to store away when he stored his ][e, many years ago.

As far as printing went, we only used Appleworks, Multiscribe, The Print Shop, The Newsroom, and Dazzle Draw.

The Newsroom!!! I'd totally forgotten that!!