WHAT EQUIPMENT DO YOU HAVE?
By Max Smith
Copyright (c) 1990 Apple Users' Group, Sydney
Republished from Applecations, a publication of the Apple Users' Group, Sydney, Australia.
In the interest of advancing our knowledge of Apple computers I am inviting members to send in an article to "Applecations" telling how you have your computer set up. I am sure this will be very interesting if you have something unusual.
To start the idea off, I will relate what equipment I have and how I have it set up, this in turn may give someone some ideas for improvement and, I, in turn might get some ideas from someone else. In some later issues I may be able to offer some information on ways in which I have some of my programs and disks set up.
The History
In 1981 I decided that I needed to purchase some sort of computer and as I was involved in doing a course in Sydney at ITATE (Institute of Technical and Adult Teacher Education) where they used and instructed on Apple computers it seemed logical that I became interested in an Apple. I priced new ones and second hand ones, the trouble was they seemed to want too much money. Then one day while reading through the Sydney Trading Post I saw a compatible advertised in Lane Cove, as I was going to Sydney the next Friday I went and had a look and became the proud owner of a Laser (Apple II+ compatible), I paid $1200 for, a 12" Amber monitor, an Apple II disk drive and the computer complete with 80 column card, Z80 card, a 16k language card and several programs and manuals all of which I proudly carted back to Griffith on the plane that night, and so began my frustrations, sleepless nights and my official launching into the world of computers.
It was not very long before I started to outgrow my little machines ability and started to look for bigger and brighter things in the future. I had been dabbling in Electronics for some years and had always had a mad hankering to build my own computer, which was probably the driving force that sent me along the trail I chose to follow. It seemed that while my little Laser was doing the job reasonably well I always seemed to be chasing some little thing or another and that the programs that I wanted to run would quite often not run on my machine and it became increasingly evident that an upgrade to a IIe was the way to go.
The New Start
About 1985 I came upon an Apple IIe (64k) motherboard and decided to proceed with building up my own system. I am a teacher of Building with NSW TAFE and therefore have access to a number of other teachers and after discussion with a very good friend, a Metal Fabrication teacher, I decided that I would build the computer into an Aluminium case about 630mm wide, 150mm high and 400mm deep and this was to slide into a cupboard. The cupboard which I built up is 1400mm
wide, 1800mm high and sits on top of an old school desk which I purchased at a sale for $2.00. The cupboard is in fact my computer station with disk storage and bookshelves and printer beside the computer.
Piece by piece I gathered all the items that I thought I would need keeping in mind the number of components I had already purchased and was using in my Laser.
I decided on a 7 amp power supply as I had ideas of larger memory size, and I wanted a detachable keyboard, so I purchased a K8AP keyboard and the power supply from Computer Electronics. I had already purchased 2 new Super 5 5.25" disk drives which I was using with the Laser. At about this time (1986) I purchased a 3.5" Apple Unidrive for use with the new computer and a couple of weeks after the purchase I was chasing after a "Starcard" when I came across Applix Pty Ltd in Beverly Hills. In some information that I collected from them I read an article about the "Applix Overdrive". Now one of the items on my hit list was a "Clock card" and this immediately caught my attention as I could purchase two 3.5 "Overdrives" complete with "Clock Card", a Master disk, a program called "Ozdos" which allows "Applesoft" storage on the 3.5 drives and a 3.5 Overdrive/CPM support master all for less than I paid for the Unidrive. After some considerable investigation and trialling I promptly sold my "Unidrive" to another teacher who had a IIc and bought the "Overdrive" system.
The New Machine
My computer eventually was completed (well so I thought) and is set up as follows in a fabricated aluminium case:
Apple IIe Motherboard (64K)
K8AP Detachable Keyboard (IBM style)
Tiger 7 amp Power supply
Slot 1 Auto Ice Parallel Printer Card
Slot 2 Apple Super Serial Card
Slot 3 Empty
Slot 4 Apple II Memory Expansion Card (1Meg)
Slot 5 Micro Pro Starcard (64k CPM)
Slot 6 Apple II 5.25 Drive Card
Slot 7 Applix 3.5 Overdrive and Clock Card
Auxiliary/
Slot 80 Column / Super Ramworks II Card (1Meg)
The Details
The Auto Ice card is connected to a 256k printer buffer which I built, with the main components being supplied by Don McKenzie of Tullamarine in Victoria for about $40.00 and the remainder of the bits from Dick Smith, the buffer is then connected to a parallel printer switch, (also home made) which allows me to run 2 printers without the messy problem of changing plugs around. I normally borrow a second printer on the odd occasion when I need to print some high
quality type of work (this is a Tandy TRS-80 daisy wheel) and the other printer is my own "Amust 1800" Dot Matrix which takes 132 column paper. Either printer can be selected at the flick of a switch on the front panel and the status of which printer is selected is indicated by an LED adjacent the switch.
The Super Serial card is connected through a 2 way switch on the front to either an RS-232 plug on the front or to a rebuilt "Microbee" modem which is built within the case. The control switches and indicating LED's are on the front panel and control Orig/Ans, 300/1200-75 baud and Phone/Modem. The Videotex program that I have for Viatel would not work with this type of 1200-75 modem so I built a Baud Rate converter as listed in AEM, January 1987 page 82. This now allows me access to Viatel by the program operating at 1200 baud and the unit then converts to 1200-75. I suppose you could say a bit messy. Well, yes it is, but it was very cheap and it works. I also learnt a lot and had a lot of fun as well as the satisfaction involved in the creation.
The Super Ramworks II card in the Auxiliary slot provides unbelievable versatility with "Appleworks" as it provides me with a desktop of 960k depending on how it is partitioned (More about that in a later article).
The Apple II Memory Expansion card in slot 4 also provides me with 1 Meg of storage for all programs and disk based files that I would use in a number of different systems. The main advantage with this card over the Ramworks is that it has a Rom on board and if your IIe is enhanced the card is automatically recognized as a "Prodos" device and will appear as /RAM/ disk drive and does not need to be formatted.
The Starcard is a CPM card with has 64k of usable ram on board that can be programed as a pseudo drive. I have several CPM programs which I use regularly among which are Roots, Accounting Packages and some home written stuff in M-Basic.
The Apple II drive card has the two 5.25 Super 5 drives attached.
The Overdrive card has a battery backed "Prodos" compatible clock included and is coupled to the two 3.5 drives which I can also use as four by 400k (Drives 1,2,3 & 4) "Dos" storage devices or two 800k "Prodos" storage devices or two 800k "CPM" storage devices.
And I still have my original Amber monitor which I like very much.
I eventually sold my Laser for $750 full of cards, with Apple II drive and without a monitor.
The Opposition
A few years ago I was being told and pestered to change over to IBM compatible and I almost did until I took one pace backwards to look at what I wanted out of my computer, I decided that it would be plain stupid and a waste of money
at that point as my "Apple" was capable of performing everything that I wanted and with the infrastructure available in the "Apple Users' Group", it allows for much more flexibility than an IBM PC. At this point in time I am considering a PC Transporter card which will then close that occasional gap when I might want to access a program that is only available in IBM MS Dos format.
I believe the cost of this method will only be around $500.00 to $750.00 as against a totally new system. Perhaps some other member has had some experience and could provide their thoughts.
The Future
In a later article I will describe how I have some of my operating systems set up and how I use the system in such a way that I believe I can do almost anything and out perform the allegedly 'superior' system. Most of what I have created has been created after seeking advice and on occasions much assistance from other committee members and then just sitting down and trying all sorts of different ideas. I strongly believe that the only way we will learn more about our machines is by using whatever communication methods we have and "Applecations" and the user group are the best ways to start.
In them of course we have that dedicated group of people who are prepared to offer their time and provide assistance to anyone who asks for it. My congratulations to all members involved. Should you require any further information on my discussion please make contact.
I hope you have enjoyed the description of my system and I look forward to seeing an article from any other hacker who may have found pleasure in creating the unusual.
Max Smith
191 Nicholson St
Goulburn NSW

THIS CONTENT COPYRIGHT © 2007, APPLE MACINTOSH USERS' GROUP, SYDNEY
Permission has been obtained to make this material available on the Internet.

Permission is hereby granted for non-profit user groups to republish this content.
PLEASE CREDIT THE AUTHOR AND THE SOURCE: Applecations, publication of the Apple Users' Group, Sydney, Australia

THIS PAGE COPYRIGHT © 2007, ANDREW ROUGHAN