Hi you can try my diag ROM. Github repo is misterblack1/appleII_deadtest. This will give you a very thorough RAM diagnostics and output showing exactly what is bad.
thanks Adrian ... I'm just getting into writing my own Eproms, so will definitely try your ROM suggestion in the machine and post how I get on over on my BlueSky 👍
It would also be a good idea to replace the output side electrolytic capacitors in the power supply. I noticed that at least one of them has a shrunken outer covering which means that it is probably bad (it has over-heated). It's possible but unlikely that all the memory chips are bad, so I would do the power supply first.
As an old, retired electronics teacher from the UK, I am so please to see a young person working on this kind of project. Your methodology and technique is just top-rate. Your presentation is excellent and easy to follow! Congratulations, you've earned my subscription.
I was thinking she has the delivery of a seasoned teacher. Her approach to the task at hand is very professional. She keeps reminding us how inexperienced she is, but I don't buy it.
I agree. Preservation is so important going forward, and it’s an absolute delight to see young people showing a passion for the things that brought me joy when I was their age. I enjoy all the retro channels featuring blokes that look like me, but we’re not getting any younger.
The red marks are from quality control. They mark them as they check the connection/voltages etc. Done by the same person who printed that paper probably.
One of the things I enjoy about videos like this is the confidence with which they just go at the project. I could never have a channel like this because I'd get the cover off, clean out the dust, point out the cards and that'd be it - cover back on, have a nice day, thanks for watching. Great job, Kari - looking forward to part 2 memory fix.
WOW, this takes me back(and ages me as well), as this was me and my sister's first computer back in the early 80's(we had a II+ model). Of course I never used it for anything but playing games, but what wonderful games they were. Thanks for the trip down memory lane Kari, it's so great to see creators like you who have such a fondness for a bygone era, you rock.
Thank you ... as someone with a computer science background (you wouldn't know would you lol) I find this old tech fascinating to explore. Always eager to learn more👍
@@karilawler Watching your interest and wonder at these once amazing feats of technology is why I love your channel, as it reminds of my younger self, and how amazing I felt using these devices so long ago.
@@karilawler If your curiosity is coming from a CS perspective, interested in how this old tech works, a couple of things I'd recommend checking out, at the very least, and maybe diving into: Ben Eater's videos, particularly the 8-bit breadboard computer, though also the 6502 and just generally his other stuff, and nand2tetris. Both super interesting!
Just wanted to say hi, you've earned a sub from me as I'm a qualified IT technician who started 25 years ago, but got my first experience with an IBM 5150 back in the 80's in middle school in the UK, and then a commodore C64C at home in early 90's. Glad to see a young lady into retro tech. I would check the RAM to see if it's MT branded, if it is then I would replace them all as MT are well known to fail even if one does pass as it will fail sooner rather than later, and would replace them using sockets also for future easy replacement. Keep up the good work.
The 80 column card is actually a 64kB memory expansion so you get a grand total of 128kB. As far as games are concerned, 99.9% don't need the extra memory. One game that uses 100% of the 128kB is Prince of Persia. To enable 80 column mode, you need to type PR#3 (it makes a call to the firmware of the card installed in slot #3). Typing PR#6 starts the floppy disk card's boot sequence ;)
i was wondering what use the 80 column card was for ... thanks for the info and tips it's appreciated as completely in the dark/well new to these Apple II machines.👍
One of my favorite things to do on a Kari upload is scroll thru comments and look at folks in their 40's 50's and 60's exclaiming what a great job she's doing and how many memories it brings back for them.
The grommet is 2 pieces, that little loop is supposed to allow you to separate the two, which then makes the diameter of the remainder small enough to slide out easily. Then you don't have to wiggle it out with force. Glad you got it working!
i did try and separate it before removing, but I just couldn't open in enough for it to pull out ... more practice I guess is needed, but thanks for the tip 👍
You're being classic Kari with that infinite loop in BASIC! 😀 Much appreciate the dedication to keep the old solder for older boards and RoHs compliant lead-free for new stuff. 👍 Looking forward for part 2 where you replace the rams and restore Apple II to its former glory! Take care now. ♥
Beautiful and smart - dangerous combination :) Thank you, Kari, for this video. I have never seen an Apple 2. My first PC was an Intel Celeron 533 MHz from 1997. Keep them coming, we really appreciate your content
Great to see someone young like you doing work like this and making videos about it! I would strongly suggest you remove and reseat any socketed chips and test again before doing anything else about your RAM problem. Like others have said, there’s a good probability it’s some other part the chips share in common, rather than all chips being bad. And also some ram is working quite well since you got a BASIC prompt, and were able to get your BASIC program running. Video display also indicates good RAM portions. Not likely shorted or stuck data lines. Maybe problems with higher order address lines is possible. Anyway, good luck, and I’m looking forward to the next installment.
Greetings. My father-in-law bought one of those computers in the late 80s. It was my first experience with personal computers. Then I moved on to IBMs and clones and stayed there for the rest of my life until today. But I have good memories of that machine.
back then Apple didn't use backspace or delete to go back. you just use the back arrow and overwrite it and space bar to erase any extra characters . BTW, I enjoy your t shirt collection. as a gen X er the references are fun.
This was one of many Apple features that Apple fanboys called "brilliant innovations" until Apple joined the rest of humanity and did what everyone else was doing because everyone else was doing it better. I've actually heard one such dweeb at a retro show claim that Apple didn't see the need for a backspace key because their owners didn't make mistakes. No statement I've ever heard, even from Steve Jobs himself, was more Apple than that.
Absolutely impressive little shop and skills to get this work done. Also great that an important piece of history is repaired and useful again. Finished watching - good luck on the memory error fix! Hopefully it's not the main board's fault.
yea, online most threads point to the memory when given that result ... so, re-socketing them and testing them and new chips should be easy to do first and if that don't work like you say, I have to start delving deeper into the rest of the board.👍
As a Commodore guy my self, I really do love those other computers from the 80'ies. The Apple //e was on the market from 1983 to 1993, and that really made it the Commodore 64 of Apple Computer
Love how dependable those old apples are they were in every classroom and filled the computer labs in my schools till around 1992. Then replace with the lc line
I was gifted an Apple iie. My first computer I learned on. It’s been sitting in storage for years because I’m worried about the power supply issue. Thank you for this video! Gives me a head start to refurbishing.
Great work on replacing the mains filter caps! I remember the high pitch monitor sound very well, and yes I can no longer hear it. Interestingly, in a video by Robin (8-Bit Show And Tell), he had commenters reporting that they could hear the high pitch whine in the video. I was a bit surprised by that. Though I think the 15kHz is right up under the cut off frequency of compressed audio on youtube.
All this is beyond my knowledge but still interesting to watch and learn a little about how things work, you explain things very well and make it interesting, I've took a real liking to the music you play when you do the speeded up parts 😊
Great stuff, very interesting and some good tips for someone as hopeless at soldering as I still am. Good to see someone is still doing these restoration type vids, a few channels seem to have disappeared recently. Subbed!
Nice work on the troubleshooting and repairs. I look forward to what you find out in your next video for this. Also nice fashion sense by the way. Those classic shirts are so cool!
The library in my primary school had a couple of Macs when I was little. I just remember staring at the screen and not really knowing what I was supposed to do with it. A few years later we got a full computer lab filled with windows 98 PCs and the library even upgraded. We also got this new fangled thing called “the internet.” My life was forever changed at that point. But I’ll never forget that strange little machine called the Mac in the library. I mean we had some old thing (can’t remember what it was called for the life of me) in every classroom that was essentially just a keyboard that plugged into the back of a tv but we had a master system at home and this thing seemed pretty primitive by comparison and basically only used 3.5” floppy’s with educational games on it, although I wish I could remember what it was called it seemed to have less of an impact on me. I know it wasn’t a commodore (at least not one I’m familiar with) because the games did boot straight away but the they were fairly primitive and maybe used 2-4 colours.
I remember acorn computer in my primary school think I was 12 I believe and my first experience with a computer was my uncles Commodore 64 😊 happy times
great vid dawg, electronics repair/repair and restoration vids in general is strangely relaxing to watch but for me at least very frustrating to actually do
Back in 90s when I was in high school Apple II’s were among the computers that I learned BASIC programming on. All of the other computer rooms had Mac machines teaching other software. Most of my classmates chose some flavor of Apple II to use for the semester, but I chose the Compaq suitcase portable computer since I had mostly to that point used Apple computers in school. I loved that Compaq, small monitor and all.
You were lucky getting those caps out. I had to change the ones in a couple of my mums old Kenwood food mixers. Both were glued/epoxy'd in, took forever to get them out without killing the board. And the amount of skill and knowledge i had was watching a YT vid on how to change them lol
The IIe was the first micro I studied BASIC on, 40 odd years ago…time really flies! I even remember one of the Apple’s in the lab having that same mono monitor with the adjustable screen. Which was quite snazzy at the time 😏
Wow that darn Rifa cap must've released a lot of magic smoke when it popped. I recall seeing a Rifa cap fail and release the smoke in some video long time ago, maybe it was in Adrian's Digital Basement channel. Who knows, maybe the cap failure destroyed those RAM chips as well, voltage spike or something. Looking forward to the next episode. Great background music, very uplifting as typical for 80's electronic music. Have been in fact listening lately 80's Italo disco from UA-cam, for example Angie Care - Your Mind from 1984 :)
I've been using Apple computers since the Mac Classic, 1991. I did use Apple II's in primary school, but they weren't an instant love like the Mac operating system was. It is great to see that these machines are still operable today. I doubt Apple's output from 2025 will be so lucky in 40 years.
It is very admirable to watch you bring old Tech back to life!! 🥰🥰🥰 Lol I actually fixed a DVD player that combos with the same pink Disney princess CRT you have 😎😎😎 keep up the great work!!
That style capacitor is usually found on the AC input side and are all prone to failing once they pass the twenty year mark. I repaired a switching supply several years back. Knowing I had another identical supply I purchased a pair of caps, one went in to service and one is in the parts bin waiting to be installed when I get time to unbury the second supply.
Recently added an Apple II to my collection. ended up developing a fault which I tracked to the AY-5-3600-PRO chip as it was typing stuff by itself. All fixed again now and enjoying it with a VGA card fitted for crystal clear images to modern LCD.
Great job what you done so far. The RAM issue I've seen before with an Apple 2 Plus but ended up being in that case one RAM chip was dead shorted causing the rest to look bad. So this was 1980 so I had access to radio shack and local stores to get replacement RAM chips. However the Apple 2 Plus all the RAM was socketed making it easier to repair without any soldering necessary. But in your case I think it's best to as you're planning just replace all the RAM just in case. I'm currently myself working on a restoration channel for a lot of old tech not just computers but guitars amps and other old electronic devices. Planning on recapping my entire Roland JP-8000 synth kind of giving away how old I really am right? It's nice to see that old school restorations being done by much younger people today is so refreshing over all the other crap on UA-cam these days.
thanks for the info and yea, I think from what I've also read online socketing and testing with new/and the old chips is my first port of call ... regards age, I never heard of a Roland JP-8000 synth so you could of got a way with that one, as wouldn't of put two and two together lol
I wonder if SHIFT DELETE would work as backspace. Good stuff as always. I just had a fun adventure replacing a 240v outlet and messing with fuses instead of a breaker box.
Ahh, the Apple II (or ][ or //) series... those were the first computers I ever realistically got my hands on (not counting some terminal connected to who knows what at HP, where my dad worked back when I was really little, and the most I did was play with key repeat, hah). Brings back memories of peek and poke and HGR2 and various things. Fun to see someone look at it with fresh eyes! Also, based on your high video production quality (the highlighting of those screw locations as but one great example), your general technique with things, the educational way you present those things, and the fact that you've clearly got a well-equipped bench, I have a feeling that while this is the first video I've seen of yours, it's likely to be far from my last. Subscribed half-way through this one. :) Keep up the great work, Kari!
@ P.S. Also, lawler... hah, well, I'm reasonably certain it's mere coincidence, especially with the difference in spelling, but that name takes me back as well, to Professor (Steven) Lawlor (at Foothill College), who was my teacher for my C and SQL classes, back in the early 1990's. Fun times! :)
I bought a similar IIe a couple of years ago from ebay. The seller had removed the rifa caps as a precaution but not sure they were replaced! Anyway - it works fine - although I don't use it much. I think the IIe was pretty reliable compared to the earlier Ii Plus - far fewer ICs to go wrong!
I learned on these in Elementary School. We use to play Oregon Trail on them when we were done with the lesson. IIRC it has extra commands for Graphics and Sound that aren't in Microsoft Basic.
The fact that literally all ram chips show up as bad is very suspicious. While it's not uncommon for those old chips to fail, all of them failing at once is unlikely. Not impossible of course, but it could be something else at fault. Maybe there is a bus driver like a 74LS245 that connects the ram to the data bus, and/or other control logic that does some address decoding. I'd google around to see if there is a more comprehensive diagnostics Rom available, and try to find the schematics for the board.
This is exactly what I came here to say. It's unlikely that all 8 RAM chips are bad, there's probably another bad chip somewhere. Also, any time you replace one of the chips on the motherboard, consider adding a socket to make future repairs that much easier.
@@jaycee1980 I don't know. I would want to check the signals on the pins before replacing all of them. Especially because she was able to write and run a basic program. If literally all ram chips were bad, I would expect that to not work.
Always thorough and enjoyable! Looking forward to explorations of the other cards for your system. I see most people here bend the legs of components before soldering. I have to wonder how difficult those are going to then be to desolder if the need arises in the future. My preference when possible is to leave them straight. Great vid!
Heyco makes strain relief bushing pliers. One of the better tool purchases I've made. Had cheap ones that didn't work very well and finally broke down and bought good ones. Got them from McMaster Carr.
The best way to discharge voltages on capacitors, IMHO, is to mount an Arcol HS50 470R J 50W Aluminium Clad Resistor or similar specification one, in a metal case, which acts as a heatsink. Then have 2 pairs of shrouded banana sockets for input and output, 2 red + and 2 black - mounted in the metal case, in each end. Connect the input banana connectors to the output banana connectors and the resistor across the red + and black - , insulating all the connections with heat shrink tubing. For extra safety you can line the inside of the metal case with thin plastic sheet, single sided PCB board, PCB lacquer etc. The resistor has a working voltage of 1250V. Then either make or buy a pair of shrouded, male to male, silicone banana leads to connect the discharge box to your multimeter to measure the voltage, plugging your meter leads in the other end. This design is overkill for safety, and power rating. You can safely discharge anything up to 1000VDC with it. 👩🔧⚡
Ha! The RIFA on my Apple //e blew up last year and oh boy, they smell absolutely awful when they go. I think the PS will work without them, but I also replaced mine like you did. I have a ][+, //e, //e platinum, //c and a Laser 128 clone. Fun machines!
I had one of these that I bought from the local tip for a fiver, back when that kind of thing was still allowed. It had disk drives, a Super Serial Card and an RGB card. I eventually sold it on eBay and now I wish I hadn't. I remember the RIFA cap blowing up while the machine was in the spare bedroom, which made the room stink for a couple of weeks. Then another fault where it wouldn't power up at all, which was just a resistor and an electrolytic cap needing to be replaced. I don't remember taking the whole case apart - I'm sure there's enough room to get the power supply out through the top lid.
We didn't have the Apple II when I went to school, we had the much cuter Microbee. Strangely though, my Dad was a teacher and his school had Apple IIs. Apparently he used to bring one home to write worksheets, report cards, etc., and he used to let us kids play games, but I was too young to remember it. The first time I remember using one must have been in the early 90s. My tutor used to let me play educational games on it as a treat when I finished my lesson, so I always tried to finish quickly since the games were fun.
@@karilawler They don't often come up on eBay here either, and when they do, they sell for a lot of money. I managed to pick one up last year for just under $350, but I've seen them sell for $600-800. Mine needs a lot of work before I test it. It has some strange mods from the original owner which I have no idea what they do. At least it's got the cute microbee logo though.
For the Apple ][ range the backspace is the arrow key (the original ][ didn't have a delete key or Up/down arrow keys) To edit stuff traditionally you'd hit escape the use IJKM as arrow keys to move the cursor around, then hit ESC again and use the forward arrow key to copy characters from the screen to the input buffer. It's a bit easier on the //e to enable the 80 column card by typing PR#3 which then toggles the cursor from an inverse square to an inverted plus symbol when moving around and also enables the up / down arrow keys as well (I think the later enhanced //e rom doesn't require the 80 column card firmware enabling) When the 80 column card is in use you can also type ESC followed by either a 4 or 8 to swap between 40 and 80 column mode. Oh and for european //e models there is a switch on the front that changes the keyboard layout and video rom.... For the UK that only changes the £ to # in the video rom.
Hah, this feels like a glitch in the matrix. I just got an Apple IIe recently with the same Monitor II green monitor, but also an Apple DuoDisk Drive! It also had a blown RIFA cap, and guess what - all 8 of its MT memory chips were also bad! They all tested bad in a chip tester after removal - except in my case, the machine did not even boot because of them. Seem these are the typical faults of these machines at this point. I also bought the very same FloppyEmu for it! I'm jealous of the Z80 card though, mine doesn't have that. Being a "Commodore kid" (growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional), it was quite an adventure to wrap my head around Apple II things. But I'm glad I did. Also, good job with the repairs so far, will watch part 2 as well. Be prepared - in my case, it was quite difficult to get the old memory chips out of the board!
from what I can gather the MT memory in these is know to go bad, but glad to see you got yours going again ... the CPM card was certainty a surprise, hopefully I can find the right software to get it going again👍
As for backspace... Apple users? Did the editor support backspace? Many old computers didn't in the base editor Kari. We had a really crap editor and were thankful for it. What you did to convert to type over was the best you got. Alternatives came along later that made editing, running/compiling, etc. much better. Even the IBM PC from 1981 didn't have all the keys we have today. Not to say we all use all the keys, but the keyboard was something like 83 keys - the 10x key keyboard came later. It did support backspace, as did the Commodore machines. At the time though, it was somewhat uncommon.
Hey good work, but for soldering power supplies i recommend to use a flat tip one sided and oval shaped, and joints will be shiny as never. And if you catch a chance, then just for experiments you can try rosin from Holland for much smoother transitions in that soldering joints
It's probably worth reflowing the joints on the memory IC's and checking anything associated with it before outright replacing the memory IC's. Certainly socket them to make it easier to troubleshoot if reflowing the solder doesn't fix it, but the fact the machine boots makes me wonder if its just one or two IC's at fault here rather than every single one of them. Interesting video though, Early apples are not something I've ever really worked with (LCII is probably the oldest but cut my teeth on a 7300).
There's one kind of neat thing you can do with the Grappler+ that isn't super obvious - you can replace the ROM on it cheaply or even free if you already have the proper eprom and burner to turn it into a Smartport card. This opens up a lot of possibilities for more interesting floppy drives, as well as the Fujinet.
This popped Rifa capacitor was used as well in Sharp MZ 700/800 series, and predictable after power on you will get holy smoke ;-) For replacement I use same types.
OK, I guess this is a pet peeve of mine: You get a lot more visual interest if you add a "." or ";" to your print statement. Print "Hello Kari", or Print "Hello Kari "; just looks better to me!
Micron MT4264 strikes again. Micron MT6264 is the least reliable memory used in 8-bit computers. This was already known in the 80s. According to Bil Herd (lead designer of the Commodore 128), Commodore went to court against Micron because of the failing memory. Nowadays almost every computer with Micron RAM is broken. I replaced Micron RAM in many Commodore and Atari computers, I usually replace it with Samsung. I don't want to do a full memory replacement in my Commodore 128, because desoldering 16 RAM chips is a lot of work and the risk of breaking something is high, but already 4 out of 16 chips have failed and have been replaced... it's just a matter of time until the next one fails. 8 out of 8 MT6264 failed is rare, so more might be going on in your Apple, however, it's almost certain some of them are bad.
Hi you can try my diag ROM. Github repo is misterblack1/appleII_deadtest.
This will give you a very thorough RAM diagnostics and output showing exactly what is bad.
thanks Adrian ... I'm just getting into writing my own Eproms, so will definitely try your ROM suggestion in the machine and post how I get on over on my BlueSky 👍
@@karilawler Definitely one of the most important capabilities when working on vintage computer-ish things. Which programmer did you choose?
@@stefanhuebner5358 it was a TL866II Plus ... used it a few times so far, to make some ROMs for my BBC Micro, even some Atari and SEGA carts👍
It would also be a good idea to replace the output side electrolytic capacitors in the power supply. I noticed that at least one of them has a shrunken outer covering which means that it is probably bad (it has over-heated). It's possible but unlikely that all the memory chips are bad, so I would do the power supply first.
As an old, retired electronics teacher from the UK, I am so please to see a young person working on this kind of project. Your methodology and technique is just top-rate. Your presentation is excellent and easy to follow! Congratulations, you've earned my subscription.
I was thinking she has the delivery of a seasoned teacher. Her approach to the task at hand is very professional. She keeps reminding us how inexperienced she is, but I don't buy it.
Old tech being expertly restored by young person. There is hope for humanity yet. I love the 80s synthpop too, takes me right back.
not sure about the expertly ... still lots to learn lol
I agree. Preservation is so important going forward, and it’s an absolute delight to see young people showing a passion for the things that brought me joy when I was their age. I enjoy all the retro channels featuring blokes that look like me, but we’re not getting any younger.
That vintage test sheet still being inside is kind of cool.
I know, was very surprised to find that hidden in there 🤓
@@karilawler Did you put it back?
The red marks are from quality control. They mark them as they check the connection/voltages etc. Done by the same person who printed that paper probably.
thanks for the clarification/info ... it was one of those little things, my mind was pondering over and just needed to know lol
One of the things I enjoy about videos like this is the confidence with which they just go at the project. I could never have a channel like this because I'd get the cover off, clean out the dust, point out the cards and that'd be it - cover back on, have a nice day, thanks for watching. Great job, Kari - looking forward to part 2 memory fix.
WOW, this takes me back(and ages me as well), as this was me and my sister's first computer back in the early 80's(we had a II+ model). Of course I never used it for anything but playing games, but what wonderful games they were. Thanks for the trip down memory lane Kari, it's so great to see creators like you who have such a fondness for a bygone era, you rock.
Thank you ... as someone with a computer science background (you wouldn't know would you lol) I find this old tech fascinating to explore. Always eager to learn more👍
@@karilawler Watching your interest and wonder at these once amazing feats of technology is why I love your channel, as it reminds of my younger self, and how amazing I felt using these devices so long ago.
@@karilawler If your curiosity is coming from a CS perspective, interested in how this old tech works, a couple of things I'd recommend checking out, at the very least, and maybe diving into: Ben Eater's videos, particularly the 8-bit breadboard computer, though also the 6502 and just generally his other stuff, and nand2tetris. Both super interesting!
Just wanted to say hi, you've earned a sub from me as I'm a qualified IT technician who started 25 years ago, but got my first experience with an IBM 5150 back in the 80's in middle school in the UK, and then a commodore C64C at home in early 90's. Glad to see a young lady into retro tech. I would check the RAM to see if it's MT branded, if it is then I would replace them all as MT are well known to fail even if one does pass as it will fail sooner rather than later, and would replace them using sockets also for future easy replacement. Keep up the good work.
The 80 column card is actually a 64kB memory expansion so you get a grand total of 128kB. As far as games are concerned, 99.9% don't need the extra memory. One game that uses 100% of the 128kB is Prince of Persia.
To enable 80 column mode, you need to type PR#3 (it makes a call to the firmware of the card installed in slot #3). Typing PR#6 starts the floppy disk card's boot sequence ;)
the good'ol days.
i was wondering what use the 80 column card was for ... thanks for the info and tips it's appreciated as completely in the dark/well new to these Apple II machines.👍
@@karilawler '80 Column Card' refers to it also being able to double the number of columns of text that can be displayed from 40 to 80.
Rod Holt, who designed the Apple II power supply back in 1976-77, would be thrilled to see this video. 👍 Very impressive work for the time
Yes. It's almost as good as the power supplies on the TI/99 and the PET. Very impressive indeed!
Love your workshop. I am very jealous of it, all sorts of stuff you can tinker with. Nicely done, Kari.
planning soon to do a workshop tour video ... thanks for watching, it's appreciated 👍
One of my favorite things to do on a Kari upload is scroll thru comments and look at folks in their 40's 50's and 60's exclaiming what a great job she's doing and how many memories it brings back for them.
The grommet is 2 pieces, that little loop is supposed to allow you to separate the two, which then makes the diameter of the remainder small enough to slide out easily. Then you don't have to wiggle it out with force. Glad you got it working!
As someone who was used those grommets before I think we both know they will never go back together! 😅😅😅
i did try and separate it before removing, but I just couldn't open in enough for it to pull out ... more practice I guess is needed, but thanks for the tip 👍
You're being classic Kari with that infinite loop in BASIC! 😀
Much appreciate the dedication to keep the old solder for older boards and RoHs compliant lead-free for new stuff. 👍
Looking forward for part 2 where you replace the rams and restore Apple II to its former glory!
Take care now. ♥
Beautiful and smart - dangerous combination :) Thank you, Kari, for this video. I have never seen an Apple 2. My first PC was an Intel Celeron 533 MHz from 1997. Keep them coming, we really appreciate your content
when they stopped selling apple II models, 1996 ?
There was no that processor in 1997 yet. Intel Celeron 533 was released Jan 2000.
Great to see someone young like you doing work like this and making videos about it! I would strongly suggest you remove and reseat any socketed chips and test again before doing anything else about your RAM problem. Like others have said, there’s a good probability it’s some other part the chips share in common, rather than all chips being bad. And also some ram is working quite well since you got a BASIC prompt, and were able to get your BASIC program running. Video display also indicates good RAM portions. Not likely shorted or stuck data lines. Maybe problems with higher order address lines is possible. Anyway, good luck, and I’m looking forward to the next installment.
it sure is👍
Greetings. My father-in-law bought one of those computers in the late 80s. It was my first experience with personal computers. Then I moved on to IBMs and clones and stayed there for the rest of my life until today. But I have good memories of that machine.
I’m always impressed by your soldering skills.
Looking forward to Part 2!
back then Apple didn't use backspace or delete to go back. you just use the back arrow and overwrite it and space bar to erase any extra characters . BTW, I enjoy your t shirt collection. as a gen X er the references are fun.
This was one of many Apple features that Apple fanboys called "brilliant innovations" until Apple joined the rest of humanity and did what everyone else was doing because everyone else was doing it better. I've actually heard one such dweeb at a retro show claim that Apple didn't see the need for a backspace key because their owners didn't make mistakes. No statement I've ever heard, even from Steve Jobs himself, was more Apple than that.
if I had the time I would probably have a movie review channel as well ... as if you haven't of guessed, I really like my movies lol
I really enjoy how you approach these projects. I wish I had your skills.
Never owned Apple II but love old tech and your channel is cool.
You did so well, I have faith! Super invested for part 2 :D
Absolutely impressive little shop and skills to get this work done. Also great that an important piece of history is repaired and useful again.
Finished watching - good luck on the memory error fix! Hopefully it's not the main board's fault.
yea, online most threads point to the memory when given that result ... so, re-socketing them and testing them and new chips should be easy to do first and if that don't work like you say, I have to start delving deeper into the rest of the board.👍
I always enjoy watching you work on things. Love your smile. Hopefully you get the computer working. Good luck!
As a Commodore guy my self, I really do love those other computers from the 80'ies. The Apple //e was on the market from 1983 to 1993, and that really made it the Commodore 64 of Apple Computer
Love how dependable those old apples are they were in every classroom and filled the computer labs in my schools till around 1992. Then replace with the lc line
I was gifted an Apple iie. My first computer I learned on. It’s been sitting in storage for years because I’m worried about the power supply issue.
Thank you for this video! Gives me a head start to refurbishing.
Great work on replacing the mains filter caps! I remember the high pitch monitor sound very well, and yes I can no longer hear it. Interestingly, in a video by Robin (8-Bit Show And Tell), he had commenters reporting that they could hear the high pitch whine in the video. I was a bit surprised by that. Though I think the 15kHz is right up under the cut off frequency of compressed audio on youtube.
Hopefully everything will be resolved in Part 2. Awesome shirt!
All this is beyond my knowledge but still interesting to watch and learn a little about how things work, you explain things very well and make it interesting, I've took a real liking to the music you play when you do the speeded up parts 😊
Great stuff, very interesting and some good tips for someone as hopeless at soldering as I still am. Good to see someone is still doing these restoration type vids, a few channels seem to have disappeared recently. Subbed!
Rifa caps are called "Knallfrosch" in Germany, which losely-literally translates to "bang frog", but actually is what we call green firecrackers...
Good job! 👍 Looking forward to part 2. Thanks for sharing!
Nice work on the troubleshooting and repairs. I look forward to what you find out in your next video for this. Also nice fashion sense by the way. Those classic shirts are so cool!
The library in my primary school had a couple of Macs when I was little. I just remember staring at the screen and not really knowing what I was supposed to do with it. A few years later we got a full computer lab filled with windows 98 PCs and the library even upgraded. We also got this new fangled thing called “the internet.” My life was forever changed at that point. But I’ll never forget that strange little machine called the Mac in the library. I mean we had some old thing (can’t remember what it was called for the life of me) in every classroom that was essentially just a keyboard that plugged into the back of a tv but we had a master system at home and this thing seemed pretty primitive by comparison and basically only used 3.5” floppy’s with educational games on it, although I wish I could remember what it was called it seemed to have less of an impact on me. I know it wasn’t a commodore (at least not one I’m familiar with) because the games did boot straight away but the they were fairly primitive and maybe used 2-4 colours.
I remember acorn computer in my primary school think I was 12 I believe and my first experience with a computer was my uncles Commodore 64 😊 happy times
great vid dawg, electronics repair/repair and restoration vids in general is strangely relaxing to watch but for me at least very frustrating to actually do
Back in 90s when I was in high school Apple II’s were among the computers that I learned BASIC programming on. All of the other computer rooms had Mac machines teaching other software. Most of my classmates chose some flavor of Apple II to use for the semester, but I chose the Compaq suitcase portable computer since I had mostly to that point used Apple computers in school. I loved that Compaq, small monitor and all.
Great addition to your collection, congratulations!
Little tip for you on the strain relief grommets, a pair of small straight jaw knipex pliers make short work, and don’t mark up the plastic.
That was amazing to watch. Like repairing broken spaceship and running diagnostics. Pretty cool
thank you ... very 1970s Alien vibes I would say ;) lol
@@karilawler I see the T-shirt reference wink, wink :D looking forward to part 2. Great job ❤🙏
Always a delight ❤... looking forward to part two...
LOVE the good old Apple II! Good pick.
You were lucky getting those caps out. I had to change the ones in a couple of my mums old Kenwood food mixers. Both were glued/epoxy'd in, took forever to get them out without killing the board. And the amount of skill and knowledge i had was watching a YT vid on how to change them lol
The IIe was the first micro I studied BASIC on, 40 odd years ago…time really flies! I even remember one of the Apple’s in the lab having that same mono monitor with the adjustable screen. Which was quite snazzy at the time 😏
Big fan of repairs, retro and electronics. Subbed. :)
Wow that darn Rifa cap must've released a lot of magic smoke when it popped. I recall seeing a Rifa cap fail and release the smoke in some video long time ago, maybe it was in Adrian's Digital Basement channel.
Who knows, maybe the cap failure destroyed those RAM chips as well, voltage spike or something.
Looking forward to the next episode.
Great background music, very uplifting as typical for 80's electronic music. Have been in fact listening lately 80's Italo disco from UA-cam, for example Angie Care - Your Mind from 1984 :)
you are out of this world my lady.
I've been using Apple computers since the Mac Classic, 1991. I did use Apple II's in primary school, but they weren't an instant love like the Mac operating system was. It is great to see that these machines are still operable today. I doubt Apple's output from 2025 will be so lucky in 40 years.
I've no idea why but I love the sound of the keys on the Apple II. Great work Kari.
i will say, it is a nice keyboard although a little bit to high for me lol
@@karilawler Ha I see what you mean its actually really high off the desk!
It is very admirable to watch you bring old Tech back to life!! 🥰🥰🥰 Lol I actually fixed a DVD player that combos with the same pink Disney princess CRT you have 😎😎😎 keep up the great work!!
Kari. . Your a legend, have a great weekend take care 😊
That style capacitor is usually found on the AC input side and are all prone to failing once they pass the twenty year mark. I repaired a switching supply several years back. Knowing I had another identical supply I purchased a pair of caps, one went in to service and one is in the parts bin waiting to be installed when I get time to unbury the second supply.
You get some great old stuff , awesome.
Kari, you brought up some fond memories of our first computer the old Apple IIe...:)
Great video! looking forward to part 2!
Wohoo new Kari vid! Can't wait for part 2!
Recently added an Apple II to my collection. ended up developing a fault which I tracked to the AY-5-3600-PRO chip as it was typing stuff by itself. All fixed again now and enjoying it with a VGA card fitted for crystal clear images to modern LCD.
Great job what you done so far. The RAM issue I've seen before with an Apple 2 Plus but ended up being in that case one RAM chip was dead shorted causing the rest to look bad. So this was 1980 so I had access to radio shack and local stores to get replacement RAM chips. However the Apple 2 Plus all the RAM was socketed making it easier to repair without any soldering necessary. But in your case I think it's best to as you're planning just replace all the RAM just in case. I'm currently myself working on a restoration channel for a lot of old tech not just computers but guitars amps and other old electronic devices. Planning on recapping my entire Roland JP-8000 synth kind of giving away how old I really am right?
It's nice to see that old school restorations being done by much younger people today is so refreshing over all the other crap on UA-cam these days.
thanks for the info and yea, I think from what I've also read online socketing and testing with new/and the old chips is my first port of call ... regards age, I never heard of a Roland JP-8000 synth so you could of got a way with that one, as wouldn't of put two and two together lol
Really cool old machine!
I wonder if SHIFT DELETE would work as backspace. Good stuff as always. I just had a fun adventure replacing a 240v outlet and messing with fuses instead of a breaker box.
Nice. Cannot wait for part 2 to come out.
Ahh, the Apple II (or ][ or //) series... those were the first computers I ever realistically got my hands on (not counting some terminal connected to who knows what at HP, where my dad worked back when I was really little, and the most I did was play with key repeat, hah). Brings back memories of peek and poke and HGR2 and various things. Fun to see someone look at it with fresh eyes!
Also, based on your high video production quality (the highlighting of those screw locations as but one great example), your general technique with things, the educational way you present those things, and the fact that you've clearly got a well-equipped bench, I have a feeling that while this is the first video I've seen of yours, it's likely to be far from my last. Subscribed half-way through this one. :) Keep up the great work, Kari!
thank you
@@karilawler Gladly! And thank _you_ as well!
@ P.S. Also, lawler... hah, well, I'm reasonably certain it's mere coincidence, especially with the difference in spelling, but that name takes me back as well, to Professor (Steven) Lawlor (at Foothill College), who was my teacher for my C and SQL classes, back in the early 1990's. Fun times! :)
Great video ❤️👍⚙️🔩🔨🔧🎉. I love your videos ❤️
Cool shirt 👕
Oooh more troubleshooting!
I bought a similar IIe a couple of years ago from ebay. The seller had removed the rifa caps as a precaution but not sure they were replaced! Anyway - it works fine - although I don't use it much. I think the IIe was pretty reliable compared to the earlier Ii Plus - far fewer ICs to go wrong!
I learned on these in Elementary School. We use to play Oregon Trail on them when we were done with the lesson. IIRC it has extra commands for Graphics and Sound that aren't in Microsoft Basic.
only ever played Oregon Trail on an emulator ... so really wanted to play it on this, hopefully soon 🤞
The fact that literally all ram chips show up as bad is very suspicious.
While it's not uncommon for those old chips to fail, all of them failing at once is unlikely. Not impossible of course, but it could be something else at fault.
Maybe there is a bus driver like a 74LS245 that connects the ram to the data bus, and/or other control logic that does some address decoding.
I'd google around to see if there is a more comprehensive diagnostics Rom available, and try to find the schematics for the board.
MT branded chips, so it's very likely they HAVE all died. Very common that this brand of chip dies
This is exactly what I came here to say. It's unlikely that all 8 RAM chips are bad, there's probably another bad chip somewhere. Also, any time you replace one of the chips on the motherboard, consider adding a socket to make future repairs that much easier.
@@jaycee1980 I don't know. I would want to check the signals on the pins before replacing all of them.
Especially because she was able to write and run a basic program.
If literally all ram chips were bad, I would expect that to not work.
Always thorough and enjoyable! Looking forward to explorations of the other cards for your system.
I see most people here bend the legs of components before soldering. I have to wonder how difficult those are going to then be to desolder if the need arises in the future. My preference when possible is to leave them straight.
Great vid!
good tip ... i hadn't though of the implications, if I ever came to de-solder 👍
Heyco makes strain relief bushing pliers. One of the better tool purchases I've made. Had cheap ones that didn't work very well and finally broke down and bought good ones. Got them from McMaster Carr.
The best way to discharge voltages on capacitors, IMHO, is to mount an Arcol HS50 470R J 50W Aluminium Clad Resistor or similar specification one, in a metal case, which acts as a heatsink. Then have 2 pairs of shrouded banana sockets for input and output, 2 red + and 2 black - mounted in the metal case, in each end.
Connect the input banana connectors to the output banana connectors and the resistor across the red + and black - , insulating all the connections with heat shrink tubing.
For extra safety you can line the inside of the metal case with thin plastic sheet, single sided PCB board, PCB lacquer etc. The resistor has a working voltage of 1250V.
Then either make or buy a pair of shrouded, male to male, silicone banana leads to connect the discharge box to your multimeter to measure the voltage, plugging your meter leads in the other end.
This design is overkill for safety, and power rating. You can safely discharge anything up to 1000VDC with it. 👩🔧⚡
Ha! The RIFA on my Apple //e blew up last year and oh boy, they smell absolutely awful when they go. I think the PS will work without them, but I also replaced mine like you did. I have a ][+, //e, //e platinum, //c and a Laser 128 clone. Fun machines!
Awesome as always.. I had one of these for years..
The modulator board is to give color on PAL displays as the NTSC Apple uses a clever hack to display color that isnt possible on PAL.
Thanks for another great video, i look forward to the second part.
Good vid, keep going, you're doing an excellent job
I had one of these that I bought from the local tip for a fiver, back when that kind of thing was still allowed. It had disk drives, a Super Serial Card and an RGB card. I eventually sold it on eBay and now I wish I hadn't. I remember the RIFA cap blowing up while the machine was in the spare bedroom, which made the room stink for a couple of weeks. Then another fault where it wouldn't power up at all, which was just a resistor and an electrolytic cap needing to be replaced. I don't remember taking the whole case apart - I'm sure there's enough room to get the power supply out through the top lid.
yea, can confirm the PSU will come out without taking the lid off completely👍 ... found that out after I did it lol
I love the Apple II 😍 not easy to change RAM on the motherboard
We didn't have the Apple II when I went to school, we had the much cuter Microbee. Strangely though, my Dad was a teacher and his school had Apple IIs. Apparently he used to bring one home to write worksheets, report cards, etc., and he used to let us kids play games, but I was too young to remember it. The first time I remember using one must have been in the early 90s. My tutor used to let me play educational games on it as a treat when I finished my lesson, so I always tried to finish quickly since the games were fun.
Had to Google MicroBee, looks like it's an interesting little computer ... don't get many Australian machines over here though
@@karilawler They don't often come up on eBay here either, and when they do, they sell for a lot of money. I managed to pick one up last year for just under $350, but I've seen them sell for $600-800. Mine needs a lot of work before I test it. It has some strange mods from the original owner which I have no idea what they do. At least it's got the cute microbee logo though.
For the Apple ][ range the backspace is the arrow key (the original ][ didn't have a delete key or Up/down arrow keys)
To edit stuff traditionally you'd hit escape the use IJKM as arrow keys to move the cursor around, then hit ESC again and use the forward arrow key to copy characters from the screen to the input buffer.
It's a bit easier on the //e to enable the 80 column card by typing PR#3 which then toggles the cursor from an inverse square to an inverted plus symbol when moving around and also enables the up / down arrow keys as well (I think the later enhanced //e rom doesn't require the 80 column card firmware enabling)
When the 80 column card is in use you can also type ESC followed by either a 4 or 8 to swap between 40 and 80 column mode.
Oh and for european //e models there is a switch on the front that changes the keyboard layout and video rom.... For the UK that only changes the £ to # in the video rom.
Hah, this feels like a glitch in the matrix. I just got an Apple IIe recently with the same Monitor II green monitor, but also an Apple DuoDisk Drive! It also had a blown RIFA cap, and guess what - all 8 of its MT memory chips were also bad! They all tested bad in a chip tester after removal - except in my case, the machine did not even boot because of them. Seem these are the typical faults of these machines at this point. I also bought the very same FloppyEmu for it! I'm jealous of the Z80 card though, mine doesn't have that. Being a "Commodore kid" (growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional), it was quite an adventure to wrap my head around Apple II things. But I'm glad I did.
Also, good job with the repairs so far, will watch part 2 as well. Be prepared - in my case, it was quite difficult to get the old memory chips out of the board!
from what I can gather the MT memory in these is know to go bad, but glad to see you got yours going again ... the CPM card was certainty a surprise, hopefully I can find the right software to get it going again👍
As for backspace... Apple users? Did the editor support backspace? Many old computers didn't in the base editor Kari. We had a really crap editor and were thankful for it. What you did to convert to type over was the best you got. Alternatives came along later that made editing, running/compiling, etc. much better. Even the IBM PC from 1981 didn't have all the keys we have today. Not to say we all use all the keys, but the keyboard was something like 83 keys - the 10x key keyboard came later. It did support backspace, as did the Commodore machines. At the time though, it was somewhat uncommon.
Kari love your content keep it up
Hey good work, but for soldering power supplies i recommend to use a flat tip one sided and oval shaped, and joints will be shiny as never. And if you catch a chance, then just for experiments you can try rosin from Holland for much smoother transitions in that soldering joints
Nice work Kari
It's probably worth reflowing the joints on the memory IC's and checking anything associated with it before outright replacing the memory IC's. Certainly socket them to make it easier to troubleshoot if reflowing the solder doesn't fix it, but the fact the machine boots makes me wonder if its just one or two IC's at fault here rather than every single one of them.
Interesting video though, Early apples are not something I've ever really worked with (LCII is probably the oldest but cut my teeth on a 7300).
I love her shirts. I’m jealous!
Kari's shirt game never misses lol
Lovin' your T-shirts.
I wish I had room for an Apple IIGS. I've wanted one for a long time.
There's one kind of neat thing you can do with the Grappler+ that isn't super obvious - you can replace the ROM on it cheaply or even free if you already have the proper eprom and burner to turn it into a Smartport card. This opens up a lot of possibilities for more interesting floppy drives, as well as the Fujinet.
I do in fact have an TL866II Eprom programmer, and lost of different sized Eproms so this might just be a project ... thanks for the info👍
I can only presume that a QA visually inspected the solder joints and marked them to show that they did.
This popped Rifa capacitor was used as well in Sharp MZ 700/800 series, and predictable after power on you will get holy smoke ;-)
For replacement I use same types.
Happy New Year 😊
Happy New Year back to you 🎉
@@karilawlerThank you.
OK, I guess this is a pet peeve of mine: You get a lot more visual interest if you add a "." or ";" to your print statement. Print "Hello Kari", or Print "Hello Kari "; just looks better to me!
SUPER KARI !!!! 😍😍😍😍😍
Very good video. Thank you.
Glad you liked it!
Hope you get it working.
Micron MT4264 strikes again. Micron MT6264 is the least reliable memory used in 8-bit computers. This was already known in the 80s. According to Bil Herd (lead designer of the Commodore 128), Commodore went to court against Micron because of the failing memory. Nowadays almost every computer with Micron RAM is broken. I replaced Micron RAM in many Commodore and Atari computers, I usually replace it with Samsung. I don't want to do a full memory replacement in my Commodore 128, because desoldering 16 RAM chips is a lot of work and the risk of breaking something is high, but already 4 out of 16 chips have failed and have been replaced... it's just a matter of time until the next one fails.
8 out of 8 MT6264 failed is rare, so more might be going on in your Apple, however, it's almost certain some of them are bad.
can i ask what compatible Samsung chips you are using to replace the MT4264?
@@karilawler Yes, I am using the KM4164B. Look up what speed the MT6264 chips are on your board and buy KM4164B at matching speed.
@ Sorry, I wrote the part number wrong: Should be KM4164B rather than KB6164B, corrected.