RonTurner

[RonTurner]

Hello everyone let me introduce myself ; My name is

[mrad01]

Welcome!

Lots of Apple II users here (I have 6 myself). Always good to see some of the stuff other people have - so look forward to your posts.
As you know keeping this stuff running can be challenging from time to time (I'm tackling a Apple Lisa at the moment) - so any info/tips/fixes you have discovered please do share.

Enjoy

Marcus

[tezza]

Hi Gavin,

It's good to see Ronturner at last on the forums. Thanks for that introduction.

And I thought I had hording tendencies with my three Apple IIe variants! I know who to tap on the shoulder if I need spare parts!

Do you boot all of your machines up now and again to check for issues? Are you into fixing them like some of us are here? That's part of the enjoyment of the hobby for me. Owning them and playing them is one thing but seeing a dead computer come to life through your own efforts is something again.

Are your Profiles 5MB or 10MB? Any Lisas?

[RonTurner]

The profile is an A9M1005 ( 5-mb ) no Lisa yet

As I get each new one I give them a very thorough going over and clean - I definity fix what I can

Biggest problem with my apples is pop'n caps ; had 4 pop last week just simply past there used by dates so I'm going to recap the power supplies. Because of the number of them its gonna cost and take time

I definitely believe in running them at least every couple of months. I fire up at least one machine or two per week.

Last week I soak tested every last apple and my spectrums

Setup my two system 80's last night . One has an Atari Joystick port I put in the side ; wired to the keyboard / it has a switch at the back / I run it through the composite as the RF tuning is to sensitive.

[tezza]

I'm having problems with my System 80 in that I can't get dos to boot off any of the eight copies and I can't get 96tpi disks / this really is a concern to me because without them I can't backup all the pied piper software I have. I would be gutted if I lost the piper software to bit rot.

Im going to try floppydisk.com but even they don't know if there stock is 48 or 96 tpi?

I've read that good quality 48TPI soft-sector disk can be formatted to 96TPI (quad density) and may work ok even though they are out of spec. I have an 80 track DS drive I use on the System 80 sometimes. That formats 48TPi disks to 96 TPI just fine. Mind you, it's only single density so I guess it doesn't stretch the media as much.

[acsi]

Greetings Gavin,

Nice to see you here and can't wait for the updates on your scores.

One of your scores I'm particularly interested in hearing about is that Videogenie you won. Did it work after some TLC?

Mike

[RonTurner]

Greetings Gavin,

Nice to see you here and can't wait for the updates on your scores.

One of your scores I'm particularly interested in hearing about is that Videogenie you won. Did it work after some TLC?

Mike

It works ; this is what I did ; pressed in button at rear on right hand side this brought back the picture

Its a Tad on the yellow side. Noticeable yellow on the shift and enter and knobs missing on rear buttons

It will tidy up good. I was lucky that I had a spare interface and cables for it. This was why I was real keen to get so I had two whole setups

The system80 is in very tidy condition. The last owner really looked after it ; it came with mint manuals and a boxed interface and two disk folders of software / was also mod 'd with cassette deck selection switch and Atari joystick port / clear plastic still on blue label ; also came with printer cable and composite cable and one of the interfaces had two mod's one of these mods was a printer socket ; also came with big steel tripple disk drive manufactured in Christchurch.

Its one of my most prized systems it really gets looked after / I just need to get dos to boot ; very frustrating since I have plenty of mint floppies. I get a dos message then disk error / have cleaned the heads 3 times and no improvement at all.

[tezza]

Its one of my most prized systems it really gets looked after / I just need to get dos to boot ; very frustrating since I have plenty of mint floppies. I get a dos message then disk error / have cleaned the heads 3 times and no improvement at all

Are you sure the disks are the correct density and track number for the drive? Did they come with the machine or did you write them yourself from images? What DOS error do you get?

[RonTurner]

They came with the machine.

[tezza]

The system 80 has two cassette ports. The internal one and external on via the DIN socket. You have the manuals, yes? These tell you the loading commands to use for each cassette. Unfortunately you can't load or save System (machine code) programs through the external cassette port without other hardware mods...like putting in a switch which swaps cassette 1 and 2.

Have you got the technical manual? All those mods and circuit diagrams are in there.
http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/sys ... hnical.htm

As to the disks, yes sounds like the disks or drives are at fault. Best to make sure the media is right before working on the drives. Anyone locally who can give you a known good System 80 boot disk?

[RonTurner]

Im pretty sure the switch at the back is for that cassette player mod, found the pin out for the cassette port

Its been lying around for to long so I decided its time to get into it.

should be in business soon.

[tezza]

Im pretty sure the switch at the back is for that cassette player mod, found the pin out for the cassette port

Very likely. That was an extremely common modification!

I've got to drag out the System 80 for a video redo after Xmas, so if you're still having issues with the boot disks let me know. I can exchange a known good disk or two for some blank floppies.

[caluser2000]

Welcome.
Look forward to seeing some writes ups on your systems. Have you been over to VCF at all?
Keeping a collection narrow and focused isn't a silly idea.

[RonTurner]

Welcome.
Look forward to seeing some writes ups on your systems. Have you been over to VCF at all?
Keeping a collection narrow and focused isn't a silly idea.

can you tell me what VCF is ? im not sure what it stands for, hope its not a silly question

I try to get 3 - 5 of each system, Its always handy to have spares, im keen to get stuck into the odd computer repair job that has been put aside to a while now,
like my spectrum+ that has a split in the keyboard ribbon cable ( terrible system that ) and get the system80 DOS up and running,

But generally I have had just plain ol' good luck in most of what I get works, having said that I understand the electronic components are aging !

im setting up a computer room to have the mint'est systems on and recently got hold of a large number of 5.25 floppies so
I've been busy making backups before bit rot causes problems with loading, I want the authentic loading experience

im planning on putting up some photo's starting next week. I might have the odd little surprise...

but over all members of this forum will have way more diversity / rarity than what I have.

[caluser2000]

VCF = http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/forum.php = diversity with bells on.