Category: Do it yourself
From the europlus zone blog: [I’m happy to announce] four test sheets covering the major revisions of Apple ][ and ][+ motherboards: WOzFest Labs Apple II Motherboard Test Sheet – Revision 0 WOzFest Labs Apple II Motherboard Test Sheet – Revision 1-4 WOzFest Labs Apple II Motherboard Test Sheet – Revision 7 WOzFest Labs Apple II Motherboard Test Sheet – Revision RFI The sheets show most major components, including product codes, which motherboard product codes are relevant for that revision, areas to…
ReactiveMicro has announced the latest version of their Rom Reader adapter. The 9316A Rom Reader Adapter V.1.2, produced by Henry Courbis is now available from the ReactiveMicro website: v1.2 of the adapter now has 300 mil wide square pins which are gold plated. This new version of the adapter comes fully assembled from the manufacture. We have also found a new way to assemble … For more information or to purchase the new 9316A Rom Reader Adapter, go to: https://www.reactivemicro.com/2018/01/29/new-product-version-9316a-rom-reader-adapter-v1-2/
A few months ago i acquired an Apple IIgs, and to my surprise it had a Vulcan drive inside. The Vulcan was an internal combo of hard drive/power supply with a controller card. At that time, the only hard drive options were an external drive or an IDE card. The Vulcan was attractive by combining a strong power supply that also housed the hard drive. It was black colored and looked really nice replacing the internal power supply. The controller…
Convert CH Mach III Joystick to Apple II About a year ago I bought a very cheap CH Mach III PC joystick and found some schematics on the web for convert it to Apple II. Everything went fine, the conversion was successful and moved on, even sold the joystick to a fellow enthusiast. A couple of months ago I purchased again two PC CH Mach III joysticks, and started the conversion. This time I couldn’t remember the process and of…
After I gave a presentation on Retrobrite at KansasFest, people asked me to write about the process, never wrote about Retrobrite as there are so many articles and videos on the internet but finally found some time to write about it. There are many ways to Retrobrite. I avoid submerging because it’s a waste of peroxide, and maybe toxic for the environment, also don’t wrap in plastic as it allows areas to wrinkle and get more concentrated than others, promoting…
Once again I converted a 15″ Apple Color Monitor IIe to a modern display, using a 15″ color LCD screen. I had to cut lots of plastic from the front plastic panel of the IIe monitor, but didn’t compromise the integrity of the plastics and locking mechanism. To solve the main issue – the curved screen, I added a black cardboard pieces to close the gaps with the flat screen. after several tries found it was the best approach keeping…
A few weeks ago I posted a story about a LCD color conversion, here’s a video of two converted LCDs in action. Enjoy!
Back in 2012, I bought an Apple //c to mod it put a G4 inside. When I started cleaning it, I went online to do some drive alignment, chip reseating and general restoration. That’s when I stumbled upon Retr0bright. First I had some trouble finding xantam gum, so i settled for Arrowroot. Waited for a weekend and on a Saturday, I lay down all the parts on the sun for a full day. The parts were so yellow, that I…
Dave Cheney has posted an Apple-1 Replica build project which utilizes the Arduino platform. The build covers all aspects of the Apple-1 and is small enough to actually be inserted into almost any case. The Mega6502 is basically a two chip Apple-1 computer improving in the same tradition of the great Steve Wozniak (@woz on twitter), reduction of the number of chips required for the computer. For more information about the Mega6502, check out Dave Cheney’s blog at: http://dave.cheney.net/2014/12/26/make-your-own-apple-1-replica
The third section of the Ben Heckendorn Apple-1 replica build has been posted on The Ben Heck Show page on YouTube. This section completed the build and shows how to build the case with the CNC machine. Ben even tries his hand at entertaining the masses with his singing in this episode.
Ben Heckendorn’s latest video series is now covering the building of an Apple-1 computer from scratch. The Apple-1 was Steve Wozniak’s first commercially available computer and was sold initially by Steve Jobs through The Byte Shop in Mountain View, California. Ben Heckendorn is famous for his hacks of vintage and modern gaming and computing platforms. His videos over the past few years have come to represent the leading edge of hacks for these platforms. The Apple-1 shown by Ben in…
A couple of months ago I posted an article about a “home made” antenna I made from plans on the internet. A couple of days ago I completed an antenna with a different design I also found on the internet. Last night I held a demo of it for some friends (including a couple of retired TV/RADAR/HAM professionals. They were fairly impressed with the results and sensitivity. Considering the darned thing was made of wood and mostly wire coat hangers…
One of the simplest and the lowest tech devices made for the iPhone is the new “Love Box” for the iPhone 4 / 4S. The device is a grooved piece of wood with a sliding mirror allowing for both the back of the camera and the front view of the camera to be recorded at the same time, making The Love Box the first device to allow true split screen video mixing without all of the hassle. The Love Box…
It’s going to take a while to get to the computer related material in this article. Please be patient. Ever since I was a little kid I’ve been curious about the world around me. I was the type of kid who wanted to see what was on the next block or figure out how dolls were made (yes I took them apart and put them back together again). The only time I got into trouble for it was when a…
The inventor of the only real multitasking Apple II computer, Michael Mahon has moved his website. The move of the Apple Crate II website was necessitated by the decision by America Online (AOL) to discontinue hosting websites. Michael has chosen Comcast as his new host for the site. The new URL is http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon/
