0002 This is one strange Apple II clone
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ก.ย. 2021
- #septandy
Super Mini Mail Call 0002
Sometimes a computer looks like something but it's actually something else. That's what's going on here. This item was donated by viewer Daniel and is one neat computer.
This Super Mini Mail Call video is in my new Mail call format which will be on the second channel, eventually replacing all future mail calls. (Once I clear out the backlog.)
-- Info
JEC 821A
J.E. Computer Co., LTD. / JEC Co., LTD
Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C.
AMI III
-- Video Links
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/ adriansdigitalbasement
Adrian's Digital Basement (Main Channel)
/ @adriansdigitalbasement
-- Tools
Deoxit D5:
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store.caig.com/s.nl/it.A/id.16...
O-Ring Pick Set: (I use these to lift chips off boards)
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Elenco Electronics LP-560 Logic Probe:
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Hakko FR301 Desoldering Iron:
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Rigol DS1054Z Four Channel Oscilloscope:
www.rigolna.com/products/digi...
Head Worn Magnifying Goggles / Dual Lens Flip-In Head Magnifier:
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TL866II Plus Chip Tester and EPROM programmer: (The MiniPro)
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www.aliexpress.com/item/33000...
TS100 Soldering Iron:
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EEVBlog 121GW Multimeter:
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DSLogic Basic Logic Analyzer:
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Magnetic Screw Holder:
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Universal ZIP sockets: (clones, used on my ZIF-64 test machine)
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RetroTink 2X Upconverter: (to hook up something like a C64 to HDMI)
www.retrotink.com/
Plato (Clone) Side Cutters: (order five)
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Heat Sinks:
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Little squeezy bottles: (available elsewhere too)
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--- Links
My GitHub repository:
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Commodore Computer Club / Vancouver, WA - Portland, OR - PDX Commodore Users Group
www.commodorecomputerclub.com/
--- Instructional videos
My video on damage-free chip removal:
• How to remove chips wi...
--- Music
Intro music and other tracks by:
Nathan Divino
@itsnathandivino - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
I am the person who donated this computer. A few things I'd like to clear up:
I'm fairly confident that my C64 doesn't have the original keyboard on it, the yellowing on the bottom doesn't match with the top, and the serial number on the bottom dates it from around 1982. It also has the 250407 board in it.
The device plugged in to the cartridge port is a Pi1541 and Epyx Fastload combo, I bought it from eBay when I bought the C64.
I got the JC Penny bag from my local JC Penny a few days before I sent it, when I bought some clothing there.
I wasn't the one to jumper the fuse holder on the power supply, that was there when I got it.
I gave it a clean before I sent it out, it was gross to touch it before I cleaned it.
If anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer them to the best of my ability.
Thanks for making this video possible!
Thank you Daniel
Thank you, and thank Adrian :)
You are right on most things you said, perfectly spot on. First the one on your C64 isn't the actual keyboard. Is actually Adrian said, it's an early C64C. However it was a common fix/mod using C64C keyboards to fix Breadbins, as they'd end up looking as snazzier C64G or a C64 Aldi, the two models (the latter an exclusive from ALDI Discount, the first a different colored unit sold in regular stores) with regular cases and C64C innards and keyboards.
The Pi1541 is a really nice device, with the chip shortage making impossible to get new Ultimate II+ in the near future it's literally the best and most compatible 1541 replacement on the market you can get right now.
Also, for the jumpered fuse is a common "fix/not fix" done by troubleshooters, the ones working on a "just this once" mindset. It becomes bad form if they just leave it there to rot
Congrats ^_^
Thanks for donating! This was so cool to see!
Amazing save Daniel!!
JCPenney is still clinging to life actually. The one at my local mall is still open.
There are still three of them within 15 miles of my home.
One here too. Somehow faring better than the mall itself.
Same here
They still have a fairly large online presence. My wife orders from there frequently 😄😎
I like the half hour video format dedicated to one item very much. And this computer deserves further investigations.
"Super" mini mail call - but it's 30 mins long! But that's 30 minutes of Adrian, so this is awesome
"words blurred for extra mystery" this is a great idea Adrian
OK, at 7.5 minutes in it appears to be some species of Apple with that funky keyboard connector 😀🤷🏽♂️
This looks like a DIL IC-socket plug with a flat cable. Not meant for keyboards, but I have used such a contraption to build my own breakout-board for a COmmodore CDTV that provides regular Amiga mouse and joystick ports. I didn't have a special mouse for that machine so I had to come up with something back then, and I cascaded two stages of 74LS157s ...
The original Apple II actually did it this way too. The joystick ports on the Apple ][/][+/IIe/IIgs was like this even. It's rather "janky" LOL!
Skull and crossbones ☠️☠️😝😛
75 ohms must be in SERIES at the source. There is 75 ohms to ground at the monitor, to form the voltage divider.
Thank you, you're right! I'll need to look more closely at the circuit in a follow-up to try to clean it up
@@adriansdigitalbasement2 .. At 16:08 .. "Oficial" Rigol support here 🤥 🤭 .... are you try some contact cleaner on the probes.. 🤔??
Yep... 6502 with that keyboard to a chip socket plug... Figured what I thought it was, and then heard that beep when powered on and was sure... ;-) Great vid!!! Really interesting machine!!!
Adrian it likely outputs a hybrid PAL signal. Only monochrome CRTs can typically interpret the typical signal off these Taiwanese clones; so if you run into any in the future, always start there.
@MagesGuild what do you mean by "hybrid PAL signal"? That Apple clone is outputting a 60Hz (16.6 ms) refresh, so it can only be NTSC.
I know that old computer often do not output proper field interlacing, which some modern monitors refuse to accept.
@@WolfgangMahringer Hybrid PAL usually refers to a PAL signal but at 60Hz. most modern/LCD monitors just go into maximum confusion mode when confronted with this... or don't display anything at all
@@WolfgangMahringer there is 60hz pal as well. Over in Europe many consoles like the Dreamcast, GameCube and Xbox gave you a 60hz option and pal TVs at the time supported this. But absolutely do not accept NTSC signals... 🤔
@@WolfgangMahringer I mean it is probably a 14.25045 MHz master Xtal rather than a 14.3181 Xtal. The 'PAL' signal on the Europlus is a complete cheat using the normal Apple II NTSC circuitry with a slight modification (on a jumper pad) and the slower Xtal.
This tends to sync on a wide variety of CRTs, with monochrome CRTs working best.
Many of the II clones were designed to export to European and South American countries.
I've also noticed that LCDs tend to be very narrow in what input ranges they'll accept.
Adrian, the weird cases on knockoff computers were common from 1982 to 1994.....there are a metric ton of Sinclair Spectrum clones in Eastern Europe. Wikipedia has a "List of ZX Spectrum clones" article. For example the "JET" computer (Romania, 1989-1992) used a case that was originally meant for a business desk telephone. The Soviet "Hobbit" (1990-93) was very powerful and had a number of interesting functions built in. What you have is a AMI III, built by J.E. Computer Co., Ltd. (JEC) of Taiwan, sometime in the 1980s (I would guess 1983 or 1984). I found that on the "epocalc" website.
Adrian, thank you for sharing your knowledge & lab! I look forward viewing all of your videos .
Thank you for moving the mail calls over to this channel! I think that makes a lot of sense
A main channel video on this machine would be nice to see. I seem to remember seeing ads for the AMI III computer around 1982. It was a VERY cheap Apple II clone so there may not be many of that computer surviving in the wild.
Why would not many be left? If it was cheap, I guess it would sell well? Do you mean that the power supply killed them or something?
@@herrbonk3635 Cheap computers aren't made from necessarily bad designs. More often they are made from whatever is the cheapest part available at the time of manufacture. This yields unreliable power supplies with short lifespans, poor noise control on the motherboard since often times necessary decoupling capacitors will be omitted as a new system will last long enough to get past the warranty period. Power protection becomes substandard, if not eliminated all together. PCB's are made more cheaply with less than ideal quality control for solder joints. Pre-release testing of the hardware/firmware gets to be less thorough. The list goes on. And, ultimately, when something that was inexpensive breaks we more often than not send it to the trash man. And the pace of development with computers was so fast back then that a year later you could likely just replace the broken el-cheapo computer with a better computer for less money than the repair cost of the old one. (Everyone got gouged pretty bad back then for repair services!)
I have a computer called the STM Pied Piper. It's a 64KByte Z80 computer from 1984. The company sold VERY few of them, but it was a better quality machine with a price tag in the $800 range, and mine works perfectly. I also have a couple of Timex-Sinclair 1000's, which, as everyone knows, were the cheapest thing going in an 8-bit computer. Both have problems with video output because Sinclair had to go cheap on EVERTHING including the connectors.
Anyway, maybe I should have said surviving in working condition.
I WANT TOWELS LIKE THAT!!! Much 70's. Such retro. wow
Fascinating stuff!
The hardare from this early era was very interesting! Thanks for sharing!
I'm really liking this format.
Definitely deserves a main channel video!
My voice is hoarse from screaming 'Try a CRT!' for so long....
Same here! 😄👍
I did electronics repair for 10 years and scope probe ground wires breaking like that was a very common occurrence! Love this computer!
Theme of this video is “Its just so sketchy!”
This is amazing. I heard there were clones for the the Apple IIs, but I'd never seen one. Outstanding.
Neat, an apple II clone that looks like the love child of a Commodore 128 and a TRS-80
I love how you already knew what was wrong with the computer with the resistor and just played it of like you didn't. Miraculously you had a spare! lol. Nice presentation though! love it!
I love weird computers like this! Also your joy while working on it is infectious! What a great episode!!!!
Thanks Adrian! Loved this episode sooo much, and it would be great to see you clean this one up a bit and see what you learn about this weird and wonderful clone!
This is the kind of weird content l just love! Plus who doesn’t love seeing you so absolutely joyful about a computer! This is why I can’t get enough of your channel and just love it when we get weird things like this shown!
I know seeing you work on standard commodore 64’s is fun, but this is more the kind of thing that just puts a smile on my face, just like it seems to do for you! Thanks to the wonderful person who sent this in! You rock!
👍 🔥 🔥 🔥 ♥️♥️♥️ 🔥 🔥 🔥 👍
Nice work Adrian. I envy your skills and cool retro lab!
Love your videos!
Love the wire wrap on the mains.
Great idea to move the mail calls to this channel
I wonder how compatible it is? Fascinating video Adrian.
Well done on the text blur tracking! Editing skills have leveled up.
Very cool. Always neat to see the different A2 clone makers' takes on the design. I have a feeling this board was designed to use a preexisting case.. the case was the thing that was the most expensive to set up for and make. The side expansion looks very similar to what Multitech (Acer) used for their MPF2. I have one of those I'm working on and am amazed at how compact they made it to fit that tiny MPF case.
That is really cool. It took me awhile before I realised it would be an Apple II. The beep kind of gave it away.
JC Penney is still alive. Only major store still going in my local mall (And I assume when the lease is up, they'll likely close the location rather than renew and that will be all she wrote for yet another mall).
Packing tape trick - to get the goo off, take another piece of tape and double it over so that the sticky side is on both sides. Then daub at the goo repeatedly with this "tool". The goo will prefer to stick to the tape and will come right off.
Very frickin' cool!
Adrian, It looks like those "captive" keyboard screws are actually just accessible from the top, the black bezel looks like it just pops out from the top.
The JCPenney is actually the last thing standing at what used to be the mall just down the street from me, oddly enough. No idea how they're still alive!
Adrian, I do like your idea moving the mail call to your second channel. And of course, great video as always!
When you dump the character generator ROM check if there's a second character set. Some Apple II+ clones had the possibility to replace the lower case characters with graphical symbols. There was a soft switch to toggle the charset. I know that because my Apple II+ clone did that. Unfortunately I do not remember the exact address of the softswitch. I will have to reactivate it to test until I find it (it's in the C000-C07F range if I remember correctly).
Hi Adrian, to solve the ground issue and not to have that ground lead coming out of the probe, I use a jumper cable directly from the scope ground tab to the ground of the board, that way it stable and not in the way... I enjoy the videos keep them coming and thank you.
Helpful tip when you can't figure where Pin 1 is. Look at the solder pads. Usually when a cable doesn't have Pin 1 marked, they will have a square solder pad for Pin 1 where the rest are round or, a round one where the rest are square. Manufacturers will always leave some way to identify Pin 1. Sometimes though, they try to make it a secret like it's some kind of fiendish plot to get moose & Squirrel.
a hex dump, not a disassembly
LOVE this computer! Such a great video.
Thanks for another fascinating and fun video. That thing is a weird beast, but the star of the video is the 70's towel, it cracks me up every time you show it. :D
Now this is a VERY unusual Apple II clone. I wonder how the expansion port works ? I also wonder if the ROM includes the C600-C6FF area for the disk controller.
Anyway, this video was a ton of fun ! Thank you for your dedication. Keep up the good work !
Loos like a basic sidecar type where you'd attach a sidecar that extended out only a few ports rather than 0 to 7. The two huge ground plane fingers would make it a bit harder to find a suitable connector but a Franklin style sidecar might be made to work.
The on-board ROM should never be responding to page $C600 (or any address in $C000-$CFFF) since those are addresses that are reserved for peripherals. And yes, the disk controller supplied ROM, though the computer might access it at $C600, $C500, or other locations depending on which slot the controller was plugged in to. There was also address space for 2K of card-supplied ROM at $C800-$CFFF which was shared amongst all cards, and which required some tricks from the cards to avoid conflicts. (See p. 84 of the _Apple II Reference Manual._ [1])
The bus connector at the side may have the full circuitry for all expansion slots (including the separate I/O and device select lines for each individual slot), or it may be designed for a box that adds that circuitry as well as the slots themselves.
[1]: archive.org/stream/Apple_II_Reference_Manual_1979_Apple#page/n94/mode/1up
@@Curt_Sampson I suspect it wold be very similar to the LASER 128 sidecar, but I would need to probe the EXP connector to see what the did here.
It sounded like an Apple ][+ beep at power up. The 6502 and 48kb pointed that way as well. The lack of slots kept me from being 100% sure. It’s like Apple ][+ with the style of the //c using ports (although not the same ports).
You should consider all third channel just dedicated to MMC.
it was neat lol, as soon as I saw the cable plug, it reminded me of an Apple, and of course the timing of when it beeped after power on... but I still wasn't sure until we saw the prompt.
Wow, super interesting. My first computer was a Model 1. The look of that clone is SO close to the TRS-80. Hilarious seeing an Apple in that case.
This one was really entertaining! I laughed out loud many times. :D
Seeing this machine in perfect condition would be out of this world. I hope that happens soon :)
Every time I heard that 'beep' I kept expecting to hear a disk drive start making a racket.
Haha yeah it does sound kind of wrong it doesn't make the appropriate sound, right?
The apple II + was the first computer I ever programmed! Senior year of HS, one full year class, basic and Fortran. Very cool.
Lol I knew this was some sort of Apple II clone ever since I heard it beep for the first time. There's no mistaking that classic Apple beep. :)
For people of a certain age, it's the most identifiable electronic sound next to the Atari 2600 versions of Pac-Man and Donkey Kong (which Hollywood still uses for "generic video game sounds" to this very day).
Appropriately vintage towel too!
I had a clone that looked similar. Mine was dead in the water. Probably because who knows how long it was in the woods before I found it. I also found a caught a clone magnet fishing. It almost got away.
I haven't used an Apple II since 1991 when I graduated High School. St. Joseph used Apple IIe systems when I was there. I had a Commodore 128 at the time.
If the power supply gets even more sketchy, a Mean Well PSU would definitely fit in that case.
I was wondering are there any modern PSUs that give +5/+12/-12/-5 though? That's what this would need.
@@adriansdigitalbasement2 Digikey has several in stock; the RQ-50B or the RQ-65B (depending on how many watts this needs) will work.
I just have the same issue with my oscilloscope probe a few days ago, what a coincidence!
I knew that it as a ][+ clone within one second of seeing the keyboard key layout. That specific KB is a common clone of the TKC design but has a bonus numpad. One of mine also has a function key that autoprints common commands such as CATALOG for you as a one touch modifier key like the similar feature on ZX series machines.
@Stuart Seeley The key sequence of 0 : - RESET is a Datanetics innovation, and the Taiwanese layout with that numpad and the CONTROL key pos, exists only on these clone machines.The key sculpts on these are also both distinctive, and comfortable.
even your watch dials 911...
The beep at 12:00 is a dead giveaway. Neat little clone. All the ones I've seen looked more or less like repainted versions of the original.
I love this era of electronics with rows and rows of ICs. So sexy.
The speaker was glued to the top. You can see traces of the black glue that was used on it.
Wrong...I still go to JCP in Oregon. Glad to hear about mail call on Channel II, now I won't have to see it on the main channel!!! YAAA!!
I've seen II's in all sorts of cases!
You can't fool me. I was looking at manuals for old RPGs just yesterday, and the weird movement controls in the _Ultima_ manual prompted me to look up the Apple II keyboard to see if they really put the cursor keys in such a weird place. How did I never know that about such an iconic computer? So anyway I recognized that weird placement right away.
During the 80s here in Brazil there were Apple II clones like that.
Yay, I get a gold star for guessing what it was before you even opened it. ;)
I'm really curious if the company that churned this out *also* made a TRS-80 clone to fit those skins; my guess would be yes(?), but there isn't a lot of information out there about TRS-80 clones. The factories that churned these pirate-rom machines out back in the day were pretty free about mix-and-matching their ripoff pieces, stuffing Apple II clone boards into PC-style cases, etc, so I'm not surprised a thing like this would exist, but this one's slotless board with a side-mount expansion connector is more unique than most. Given those long jumper cables routing ports to the back my suspicion is that this board may have come in other odd form-factor cases, it might be worth going through the lists of Apple clones out there and seeing if you can find one that used a similar external expansion scheme.
(* Actually, now I'm wondering if the case might have originally been for a wacky TRS-80 Color Computer knockoff that combined design cues from the Model I into it. How do the dimensions of that hole for the expansion connector compare to the CoCo's cartridge slot?)
It just really seems like it had to be some kind of Model 1 clone at first -- then repurposed.... But I found NO mention of anything from this company when it came to TRS-80 clones. So really not sure!
@@adriansdigitalbasement2 Yeah, it's a really weird specimen and it'd be great to know more about the company that made it and what else they churned out, but it might be mission impossible. I have a fly-by-night (but much more conventionally shaped) Apple clone myself and it's almost impossible to dig up any solid information about these things. You'd almost swear that there was some kind of computer clone Mafia running Taiwan in the early 1980's; anyone who got too nosy about documenting this stuff ended up sleeping with the fishes.
@@PaleozoicPCs Taiwan was the wild west of clones and knock-offs of all kinds of things until 1988 when the US and Taiwan governments came to an agreement. I know this from my research into the origins of "KTV" which is a Chinese "karaoke TV" concept where you do karaoke in a private room with just your friends. Before 1988 those places were called "MTV" where you would take a date or a group of friends to watch a movie on a pirated VHS tape. Apparently there weren't many places to get some privacy and few people could afford their own VCR at that time. The US agreement stopped the movie piracy and someone smart had an idea to repurpose their MTV and these days KTV are all over China and Chinese people are surprised westerners don't know what the "English" word "KTV" means.
taiwantoday.tw/news.php?post=22353&unit=12,29,33,45
Well considering they WERE doing illegal stuff it makes sense they were tight lipped about it, they probably didn't have a lot of advertising or documentation either, which comes back to bite us all these years later when we wanna fix something 😬
If you have no marks on a ribbon cable, you can find GND on both sides and match that up. Many times there is more than one and that helps even more to find the correct mating.
love to see a disk drive hooked up and some software running on it if you get to that at some point
The world needs a retrocomputer archaeology TH-cam channel in Taiwan. I've travelled around there a fair bit but, unlike in Japan, I have no idea where to start looking for old tech. I've never seen anything like "Hard Off" over there. Someone must know where to go though...
Having visited it’s not unusual to find random surplus stuff in random junk / variety / dollar store type shops. In Taipei I found of all things a carton of 12 new old stock Atari Lynx cases which I bought for less then $10 in a store located within a night market.
What an interesting machine! I'd like to echo the comments about doing a mail call video on a single item. I'd be very much into that!
If this computer was in the Elk Grove Village, IL area, then it's probably a product of the local hardware computer builders back in the day around the Illinois Technology Corridor. My dad worked for Bell Labs in Naperville, IL, and there was a enthusiast Apple group there, they helped build my Apple ][ clone machine, which I still have. I think it has a similar keyboard as well. But my mainboard is more standard, it has the slots in it. My computer also has the Applesoft/Integer Basic mod switch on it. They case they got for me looks like it came from some old data terminal. I need to haul it out and see if it is still working, last time I checked it was.
Tandy Color Computer is what it looks like.
There's a JC Penny store in the local mall that is still open as of a week ago.
I bet this clone is better than the Laser 3000 (note: NOT 128) clone I had that for some odd reason didn't support LORES mode.
I was recently talking to someone who still shops at a Penny's, soooo.... I guess there must still be a few around!
6:10 - The chip layout screamed Apple II, as did the keyboard connector location.
JC Penny still exists. There appears to still be one in my local mall according to their website
21:20 and I was right.... The number of chips, how they were aranged, the 6502 gave it away for me. The 3 rom chips made me think of an C64, but there is only one single edge connector. But the beep was the biggest hint for me.
Not gonna be running Dancing Demon on this one, eh?
We still have JC Pennys in Arizona
I thought it might be a MSX clone. I like the look of the case, It's very stylish.
I was close to guessing it. Without the normal expansion slots, I was expecting it to be an old Apple 1 clone.
i discoverd it this week. i was cleaning some glue residue. and i rememberd that i had so,me sucess whit thos wight sponges for cleaning walls. ant it works great. have fun trying it out all you retro techees.
121GW spotted :-D
I think that would be a neat ROM image to put on archive. I'd love to have a look at it.
Quick low editing videos on this channel: keyframing the blur effect by hand for lots of waving about the letter! I used to make videos for fun and although I don’t regret doing that for fireballs and lightsaber glowing and stuff, I absolutely do not have the patience anymore. (Assuming the workflow in Adobe products is still similar, but that’s usually a safe bet.) Mad respect for that!!!
Just want to say I am a big fan of doing it this way. Don't get me wrong I miss the monster Wednesday main channel videos but I understand that not being sustainable due to time commitment. Also, JCP isn't completely gone yet as our local store is still open. Unfortunately, I'm sure it won't be long though.
The first clue of being an Apple II clone is the repeat/return/arrow keys. But yes, the case looks like a stretch limo Model 1.
The EPROM on the keyboard is probably for encoding. The Heathkit H-19 terminal uses an EPROM for its encoding, with ctrl, shift, etc. going straight into address bits, and this one probably does too. I don't see any big chip that would be an MSI encoder, so maybe it's all done with TTL. It would be funny if the PCB keyboard matrix was wired up to match the TRS-80.
The scan problems may be from the frequency being just a little off. LCD monitors can be very picky about sync rates. That varcap you pointed out early might be for the master crystal, and thus all the video frequencies divided off of it.
Wow!!! I think this is the base for Microdigital's TK2000 here in Brazil!!! It's almost an Apple ][ clone!
"This computer is not what you think it is"
Wait. There are no champignons in the box? D:
I told you that eyoyo thing was a crummy monitor for retro computer testing. I had the same exact issue when trying to test a real Apple II Plus. Old apples have very non-standard video that only sort of resembles NTSC composite. I always use a CRT for testing.
I have the same monitor and, yeah, its composite support is weaksauce even as LCD monitors go. (Apple IIs are a challenge even for good ones, but usually you'll at least get something.) I've actually gotten superior results by using an $11 composite-to-HDMI adapter in the line; the random Amazon's Cheapest one I have at least handles non-interlaced "240P" video without bouncing.
Knew it was an Apple the first time you powered it on from the beep! ;-)
That's how I figured it out too, glad to know I'm not the only one!
I had an Apple ][ clone that had a Sunny ][ ROM in it. I also had a PC clone that was made locally. PC's needed the string "IBM" at a particular location in the BIOS. Mine had the word "RIBMEAT" which of course contains "IBM".
I had that same issue with a Rigol probe just today! I've taken to just running my own ground back the scope.
Oh and does that scope have the ethernet? Cus I've knocked up a handy little app that lets you drive those from Windows, set the cursors with a mouse, take screenshots...
Oh yes it does have Ethernet actually. I actually started using a NI VirtualBench as an easier way to do bench stuff and capture the video as well. You'll see it appear in a couple weeks on those videos.
@@adriansdigitalbasement2 Noice.
JCPenney is still around; it was bought by two of the country's largest mall operators, Brookfields and Simon, last year as part of bankruptcy proceedings.
JC Penny is still around in North Carolina.
I just got an Apple //e Platinum a couple weeks ago and the video signal coming out is a little wonky, too. When I hooked it up to an old LCD tv, the sync is all messed up, but does show up. If I turn the TV on and off a couple times, the TV eventually "catches" the signal and syncs up. One thing I found that actually worked really well was running the composite output through an old VCR and then into the TV. Rock-solid signal that way. This looks like a very similar issue. Maybe start up the AMI III first, then power-cycle the LCD.
That is just a good idea anyhow. Fire up the old stuff and get it stable first, then bring in the newer and hopefully more tolerant hardware and let it figure out what the hell is going on at the layer below. Switching between inputs can force a re-sync attempt as well, if that's an option. Sometimes it's just too much of a pain in the ass even when it works, and thumbing the power button repeatedly becomes the method of choice.
The EPROM on the keyboard is to make the keyboard work, keyboard scanning routine.