Retro Challenge Update: Getting Started

My Apple is a IIe Platinum that I bought in 1999 from an elementary school surplus sale. It was in great shape except for the usual yellowing of the case. It came with a DuoDisk and probably some cards, but I can't remember which ones.

1999 was the year I started collecting Apple II stuff when earlier I discovered someone had discarded a complete IIe in the dumpster of the apartment I was living in at the time. I remember taking out some trash and seeing it, running back up to my apartment and exclaiming to everyone who was there at the time "there's an Apple II in the dumpster!" My girlfriend (now wife) and her friend offered to retrieve it. Thank you ladies!

I had used Apple II's in high school but had never owned one up to that point. But from that day on I started collecting software, peripherals, etc. I don't have that dumpster IIe anymore, but I've since added a IIc and a IIgs to my collection. While my TRS-80 Model 4 collection is by far my largest, my Apple II collection is a not too distant second.

For the Winter Warmup I decided I wanted to use my IIe Platinum as I haven't used it much lately. In fact I couldn't even remember what I had in it until I cracked it open the other day. It took me awhile to find out what card was working and what wasn't, which should go in which slot, etc. but I now have it set up and ready to go.

In slot 1 I have an SMT Printech II parallel card. While I know I've had this card in the II for some time, I've never actually used it. Something to add to my list of "accomplishments" for this challenge.

In slot 2 I have an AE Datalink 2400 baud modem. This is a beautiful modem (if a modem can be beautiful). It has always worked great and 2400 baud is the nostalgic baud rate for me as it was the speed of my second modem, the first being 300. At the time it seemed lightening fast!

Slot 3 is taken up by the 80 column card in the aux slot of course.

Slot 4 is empty.

Slot 5 is a VTech UDC (Universal Disk Controller). This card is hooked up to a single Apple 3.5" drive. It only has one drive cable connected to jumper 1. With jumper 1 it is supposed to be able to daisy chain certain combinations but for some reason I can't get it to work with two 3.5" Apple drives. I spend quite some time fiddling with it, reading the manual, etc. but it is time to move on.

In slot 6 is an Apple Disk II controller card connected to the DuoDisk. I could have daisy chained the DuoDisk to the 3.5" (it works) but I wanted to boot from 5 1/4 by default and the VTech UDC works best in slot 5. So I just used both controller cards.

In slot 7 is a "The CP/M Card" Z80 card. I've mucked with this before in the IIgs with partial success. I've misplaced the disks but they are available on the 'net at Roger Johnstone's VintageWare site.

For a monitor I have a nice amber monochrome Pi3 from USi. The display is crisp and clear, just the way I like it!

A clock card and a shiny new CFFA3000 would be nice but they're not in the budget right now. Here's a grainy phone cam photo of my machine: