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The Franken //e

Seek advice, give advice or tell others about your repair and restoration projects

The Franken //e

by SeanKennedy » Mon Jan 19, 2015 5:07 pm

Hi guys,

Well, I thought I had better start taking some pics as I try and resurrect my early teenage years as I alluded to in my registration message.

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I'm calling it the Franken //e because some of you may recognise it from the TM listing - missing keys have been replaced with some I had kicking around in an ice cream container.

Who has random spare keyboard keys? Ok, these are not Apple keys, but seem to have a similar mount. They were from a pile of Beehive dumb terminals that I bought about 25 years ago when I thought it would be a good idea to hang something of my PC Com port. Because it was there. $20 at a Turners auction from memory. Sat in the garage doing nothing for years, until I decided that the base and power supply would be good for my watering system. I picked off the keys, and binned the rest. (Yeah, not the smartest move! - Rest assured I still have a working Wyse-60)

So anyway, that's why there are some white keys that sit up proud of the rest.

Next up, an appalling epoxy job that I did in haste after finding a chunk of the case covered in dust and lint under the Motherboard. Pretty sure that spilled epoxy on the PSU (The result of it falling off halfway through curing) will buff right out...

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Here's the innards - top right indicate NTSCs International version. Seems to talk to the 30" Black Diamond Ok, and its green monitor will do just fine. Also, the printer card that Marcus very generously sent me. I think it's a Grappler+ clone - looking forward to hearing the whine of an Epson again soon.

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Yeah - so the current state of play has moved on a bit. The error that the TM seller mentioned has morphed after socketing the RAM and swapping out the original chips with recycled replacements. Now, instead of random ASCII across the screen, which ended up with characters redefining themselves I get a semi stable display showing POST errors codes. Most typically, RAM ones. Now this would normally point to issues with the RAM IC's, but I have swapped these out a fair bit, and even swapping 1 and 2 around I consistently get errors in the lower nibble range. I'm picking that this is actually symptomatic of the MMU.

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Oh, and before anyone says anything, yes, that is a naked torso reflected in the monitor - it's 30° here, and worse in the garage with no wind!

So, I'm currently awaiting the arrival of some replacement 65C02 ICs - the first lot I ordered were vague in description, and I ended up with 5x6502 (recycled - yay e-waste does come back!) via AliExpress. If that doesn't work, I'll be going after what is probably the prime suspect - the MMU. It was under the MMU that I found the chunk of plastic that I epoxied back on - and confirmed that the nice dark brown paint is conductive to enable shielding in the case. I suspect this may have shorted out something on the MMU, and also took out at least one of the D41464 RAM chips.

So - apart from scouring TM for a donor board, any bright ideas on locating an International NTSC MMU?

CPU and MMU numbers
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Cheers

Sean

PS - Thanks again to Marcus and Gavin for their offers of assistance in this endeavour!
SeanKennedy
 
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Re: The Franken //e

by RonTurner » Mon Jan 19, 2015 7:43 pm

Heres my best fix it secret for fixing AIIEs , lift up one end of the ROMs and CPU and push them back down, fixes 99 percent of all Apple II problems.

If your character ROM looks bad then try it, if your screen is bit flipping on characters and the font is not displaying correctly then re-seat the character ROM.

The AIIE will break to monitor when it encounters a BRK instruction therefore the fact that you have reached the monitor routine in ROM in no way is definite evidence of failed RAM some of ROM could be bad , but in your case since it mostly runs it is leaning more toward RAM.

I agree with you that it could be MMU its just a pain you dont have something known to work so you can try the RAM in that, the MMU is a big IC its going to be like pulling a wisdom tooth LOL.
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Re: The Franken //e

by SeanKennedy » Tue Feb 10, 2015 6:31 pm

Well, the 65C02s turned up today, and I swapped out the CPU to find no change.

Looks like this one wil take a back seat until I can find either a donor board or someone willing to part with an MMU 344-0010-B.

Or I might have to pop out and see Gavin and test some RAM :)

Since I got the //e I also picked up a broken Mac Plus, which was easily fixed with some new filter caps.

Any local suppliers of the 4.5v battery (Energizer 523 or something?) - I found 1 or 2 on Amazon, but a bit rich. Might have to just bundle 3x1.5v alkalines together inside the case.

Awesomely I managed to get it repaired and packed away in one session - although I was packing for a while that the wife might find it in the boot - something about more junk in the garage to pack up when we relocate for repairs.

The state of the plastic on the //e and Mac Plus are almost the same - I toyed with the idea of retr0briting them. Then I pulled out my old Wyse-60, and the sun hasn't been kind. Actually, I popped into the server room at work and checked out some old coloured Cat5 cables that had been plugged in for 15+ years under flouro - almost all the colour had faded out! So it's not just desktop relics that succomb.
SeanKennedy
 
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Location: Christchurch

Re: The Franken //e

by Clym5 » Tue Feb 10, 2015 8:40 pm

SeanKennedy wrote:Any local suppliers of the 4.5v battery (Energizer 523 or something?) - I found 1 or 2 on Amazon, but a bit rich.


If you come across any locally, please, let me know! I have quite a few units needing that battery.
Amiga 4000: Apollo Turbo 040, 128MB Fast, 40gb HDD, CD-ROM (needs internet)
C64: 1541U-II, MixSID, WiFi, LumaFix64
ZX Spec, A1200, CD32, MacPlus/SE, A500, BBC Turbo Master (NASA), 2600, Acorn 4000, VIC-20, IBM 5155, GameBoy
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Re: The Franken //e

by acsi » Tue Feb 10, 2015 9:07 pm

Closet I can get is these if anyone is interested?

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There are 5 showing at one of our branches. Re the energizer 523 code, we do not list it unfortunately.
'acsi' on trademe
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Re: The Franken //e

by kevman3d » Wed Feb 11, 2015 8:58 am

There's also eBay and Aliexpress as well. I did find a few 4.5v on eBay, pretty much all of them from the USA. This one is US$12.95 (NZD$17.44), and the shipping is around NZD$8 - which is one of the cheaper ones I've found online. Most resellers are charging US$16 or so for postage (ahem, yeh, right).

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Exell-Battery-A19PX-Alkaline-Battery-4-5v-V19PX-531-RPX19-EPX19-3LR50-1307AP-/201282055380?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2edd586cd4

I don't know if this is what you're after or not. I couldn't spot many (if any) Asian sellers. Most of the Chinese sellers have free shipping, but seems not so much when it comes to 4.5v batteries.

The alternate is to wire up your own - 3 x AA battery holders are cheap as chips (like around $1.50)...
"kevman3d" on trademe.
Blog
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Re: The Franken //e

by SeanKennedy » Mon Feb 16, 2015 12:21 pm

Ok - swapped out the CPU for some recycled ones from China - slight improvement in that occasionally, I get bits of the "Apple //e" heading, and more random screen characters. I pulled the 80-col card and doing the POST I still get hang ups around the Zero Page RAM check. Swapped out several 41464s although I am very dubious of their origin (I might order another 10 today that don't look to be pulled from something left out in the rain!). Once in a while, I'll get "System Ok" in the middle of the screen (The screen is of course filled with random garbage).

With the later //e, there are only two RAM chips on the MB, and two on the expansion card. As I said, it does the same without the card in, so I don't think there is a need to de-solder them and put sockets in etc.

I've also pulled and re-seated all socketed IC's, but no real change overall.

Still thinking it may be a RAM issue, so I may remove the sockets I put in there are check the wiring on the pads just in case I was too rough in the extraction, and managed to cause an error that mirrors the original issue.
SeanKennedy
 
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Location: Christchurch

Re: The Franken //e

by SeanKennedy » Mon Feb 16, 2015 12:27 pm

Oh - and here is the line up:

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I considered getting a translucent iMac, but I have been informed there will be serious marital consequences if I do.
SeanKennedy
 
Posts: 128
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Location: Christchurch

Re: The Franken //e

by SeanKennedy » Sun Mar 01, 2015 2:35 pm

Had a bit of spare time today, so I again pulled the motherboard out, and gazed at it. I wondered if there might be a dry joint somewhere. So I fired up the iron, pulled the ram and re-soldered each pin until it was shiny.

Connected up the monitor and power and yep, a screen full of garbage. Except this was the kind of garbage you get when you haven't plugged the RAM back in... So I did that, and whacked the keyboard on, and the thing fired up with the "Apple //e" header, and a flashing cursor!

Typed in a quick "Hello world" and away it went.

Ran inside and got the wife to witness it (in case it all went pear shaped) and then reloaded it all back into the case and slotted in the cards. Now the floppy does the machine gun bit, but doesn't read (Kind of expected based on Marcus' comments) so I still have a wee bit to do, but massive inroads.

Plugged in an old Epson dot matrix and did a PR#1, and lo and behold, it kicked into life too.

Murphies law dictates that a pile of new RAM will turn up on my desk tomorrow.

:D
SeanKennedy
 
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Location: Christchurch

Re: The Franken //e

by SeanKennedy » Tue Mar 10, 2015 10:05 am

Yes, the RAM did turn up last week. Now chucked into my IC library along with a pile of 65C02s (and 6502s).

Now that I have got Marcus' kindly donated drive running, I've built boot disks and the compulsory Starblazer and StripPoker disks, and all seems to be chugging along nicely.

I've added my name for run #4 of the CFFA3000 card later this year, and ordered a NoSlot DS1216E socket from China. Not sure how old the embedded battery will be (or even if it is recycled) but at $8 I thought it was worth a punt. The trick will be getting the ProDOS drivers - I can see lots of mention of them on older archive message boards, but no links. Does anybody have one? Or is it (as I may have incorrectly picked up) built in as a standard Thunderclock driver within the latest ProDOS?
SeanKennedy
 
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Location: Christchurch

Re: The Franken //e

by SeanKennedy » Tue Mar 10, 2015 2:07 pm

Found some software here.
SeanKennedy
 
Posts: 128
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Location: Christchurch

Re: The Franken //e

by Stargorn » Fri Mar 20, 2015 9:06 pm

Clym5 wrote:
SeanKennedy wrote:Any local suppliers of the 4.5v battery (Energizer 523 or something?) - I found 1 or 2 on Amazon, but a bit rich.


If you come across any locally, please, let me know! I have quite a few units needing that battery.

Here's a solution: http://macfaq.org/battery/, if you're still looking. I'm gonna give it a try and see how it goes.
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Re: The Franken //e

by SeanKennedy » Tue Apr 14, 2015 9:22 am

OK - next silly question...

I've been on the lookout for a Z80 co-pro card with a view to firing up CP/M. Just missed out on one on TM, and the current Apple clone looks interesting, but may go beyond budget. Anyway, as the schematics are freely available, and no nasty ROMs to burn to make it go (and only about 16 ICs involved), I wondered about building one on a prototype card. Any recommendations? I think there is a candidate on eBay in Belgium, or I could try and track down a LittleProtoII card (ultimateapple2 seems to be offline for now) but all the online leads I try are drying up. Third option would be to commission some new cards from an online PCB manufacturer

So where do they best come from?
SeanKennedy
 
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Location: Christchurch

Re: The Franken //e

by Gibsaw » Wed Apr 15, 2015 12:05 pm

Give this guy a prod.

I went through his card collection and identified a lot of them, and he's definitely got a few z80 cards.
"dsakey" on trademe. Apple II's are my thing.
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Re: The Franken //e

by SeanKennedy » Wed Apr 15, 2015 3:47 pm

Yeah - he had one up recently, but I tapped out early :( (Well, the wife was looking over my shoulder and the numbers started getting contentious..)
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