Normally, I tend to work on freelance projects in the Art sector, i.e. for exhibitions (like seen here) or props for different cosplays / costumes. Another job I am really into, is the repair of different electronics and computer related things at the RepairCafé in Trier, which I do on a voluntarily base / for free. However, this time a friend approached me to do a commission work / repair an old computer he found - and wanted to see working again :). So, I ended up doing just that.
"State of Decay":
The Apple 2c and Monitor came in quite good condition, however, without any accessories, not even the power supply "brick" which was needed to operate the 2c. So my first order of business was to create an power supply from scratch, then testing the monitor.
1.) Apple 2c / //c Power Supply:
Creating the power supply was surprisingly easy, as the 2c uses an internal converter which can take in about anything between 9 and 20 V. However, I wanted to stay as "true" to the original, which uses an 15 V, 1,2 A supply. To get this voltage, I used an Toshiba PA3755U-1ACA (Toshiba Partnumbers: P000567170 P000519840) which takes in 100-240 V AC and Outpus 15 V @ 5A (75 W) - that is quite a bit more than needed by the 2c, but it came in at 8,98 € on ebay (with shipping) - so that was quite ok! Also, I needed an connector to hook up the supply to the Apple. Luckily, Apple did use an common DIN Style Connector, so I just needed to buy an Female DIN Plug Connector with 7 Pins - and thats it. The wiring schematics came from an old scan of the Apple Reference Manual which I attached here. After connecting everything together, it just worked :)!
Handbook:
Another shot of the original plug:
Self-soldered-mess before cleaning up and sealing
Apple 2c working
The obligatory "Hello World" in basic 🙂
2.) Apple Monitor:
After the 2c was back in operation, I tested the monitor, which worked out of the box perfectly. I just needed to grap an Cinch cable from my Soundsystem, connect the Apple 2c to the monitor and it just worked - for about 20 minutes. Then, the Monitor just went up in smoke and failed. I opened up the case and followed the stench to a nicely blown interference suppression capacitor:
As the fuse was blown as well and another capacitor was sitting on the same board, I figured I should replace them all. So the "big" one was an 0,47uF / 250 VAC one, the smaller an 0,1uF / 250 VAC, both X2 rated. The fuse was an 250 V, 315 mA, "T" rated "träge" / "slow" fuse.
After I replaced everything an wired it up again, I dared a small test: It worked!
I did some additional cleaning as well as an good testing and it seemed to be working very well. I figured out that I could jump directly to the basic interpreter by pressing CONTROL + RESET and had some PRINT "Hello World" fun again ;). And with that said, the whole thing was ready to be given back to its owner :).
