Learning to use an Apple II Plus for the First Time 

So, a few things. It sounded like you were expecting the disk commands to exist in ROM, but they don’t. Both DOS and ProDOS were loaded off bootable disks into RAM. ProDOS was designed to have similar commands as DOS for the most part, but the disk format was completely different. DOS used the CATALOG command, which ProDOS also supports, but for the latter it displays a catalog for an 80-column screen. CAT was the ProDOS command for displaying a catalog in 40 columns. Also, all DOS and ProDOS commands can be made to work on drive 2 by adding ,D2 to the end of the command.

Oh, man. The memories came flooding back when you showed that BASIC manual. When I saw the cover I instantly remembered that that's how I learned how to program in Apple BASIC back in the day. Good times.

Watching this, I felt just like that Christmas morning in 1988 when I got my Apple IIe Clone (TK3000 IIe in Brazil). I must have spent the whole day reading the manual, learning commands and trying to list/load the two disks I had. Thanks!

Pulling it out of the box brought back some strong memories that I wasn't expecting to have!

Watching you puzzle through BASIC just reading vendor's book while seated at the computer was fantastic reminder of how things were .

i can see WOZ's hand all over the build & features of this thing... ♥

The traditional slot for the floppy controller was slot 6, not slot 7. And you could still boot from a floppy without the language card’s autostart ROM by typing PR#6 at the BASIC prompt.

Thanks for the video. Just a suggestion when you are drilling out a rivet use a bigger drill bit and drill so the larger part of the rivet falls off, and you just push the center pin into the case. That way you will not have metal bits inside the power supply.

The correct command for listing directory is "CATALOG." "CAT" was a shortcut added in ProDOS, which is why it didn't work when you booted the earlier DOS 3.3 master disk. Also the Apple II series don't have DOS built in, you have to load it from diskette. So even if you had used the correct "CATALOG" command earlier in the video (before booting the master disk) it would have come back at you with "?SYNTAX ERROR" anyway. You can optionally add "Sx" and/or "Dx" (separated by commas) to access a drive other than the one you booted from. "Sx" = "slot X" (what slot the drive you want to access is plugged into) and "Dx" for drive (1 or 2). So, "CATALOG,S5,D2" would view the directory of the 2nd drive attached to the controller in Slot 5. "CATALOG,D2" would view the directory of the disk in Drive 2 on the controller which you booted DOS from. To interrupt a BASIC program, use CONTROL-C. Using the RESET button works, but is more of a "using a hammer to kill an ant" method, it works but is kinda overkill, because it resets a lot of stuff. (for example, if you were in a graphics mode, using the RESET button would dump you back into text mode, whereas if you had used CONTROL-C you would stay in graphics mode.) You can warm boot the machine, there is no need to power cycle every time you want to switch disks. Just type PR#x, where x is the slot of the disk controller where you want to boot from. It will boot from Drive 1 (the first drive) attached to said controller. By convention, disk controllers are installed in Slot 6, however there is nothing preventing you from installing it to any other slot, with the proviso that boot ROMs (such as the one on the language card) are usually hardcoded to expect the disk controller in slot 6. A lot of commercial Apple II games either use their own proprietary disk operating system, or are just "bare metal" (just raw binary data written to the disk) so they wouldn't show anything (or would show an I/O error or somesuch) using the CATALOG command. You just boot those by either turning on the computer with them in the drive, or you can do the PR#x command to warm boot. You can get into the machine language monitor by typing "CALL - 151." (note, there is no space between the minus sign and the letter 1, I had to put one in there because RU-vid interprets it as a text format command for strikethrough text. :P) And if you find yourself dropped into the monitor for whatever reason, you can get back to DOS/BASIC by typing "3D0G" (the number 3, letter D, number zero and letter G. I just think of the band "Three Dog Night" to remember this. ;- ))

As others have pointed out, typing "PR#6" would reboot from the floppy. Another less known feature was that you can redirect input from a slot, also. The II+ systems I used had teletypewriters attached to slot 3, if you wanted to type on the teletype keyboard instead of the Apple keyboard, you would type "IN#3" and it would shift keyboard focus to the teletype.

The IIGS is a wonderful addition especially since you have two rarer and highly sought aspects; the first is you have a Woz edition, which is mentioned in other comments, and the IIGS chiclet style ADB keyboard, which is what caught my attention. It was Apple’s first ADB keyboard and was only sold with the IIGS. It works with any ADB Mac from the SE to the Blue and White G3 tower. These keyboards often got repurposed for use with Macs and are often harder to find then the IIGS.

I have to say, I GREATLY enjoyed watching you futz around with CAT when CATALOG was staring you in the face the whole time 😂

Great video, I love your excitement at powering it up! I remember seeing an Apple ][ for the first time at the 1978 Royal Easter Show in Sydney, Australia. Very exciting stuff, I dimly recall they had the onlookers lining up to play Breakout. The RESET key on the earlier ]['s used to result in a great deal of annoyance to users. There were numerous fixes published in computer magazines of the day, some involved loading a reset-prevent program off cassette after power-on, another was to fold and tape a piece of cardboard into a square tube and place it over the key. Other methods involved soldering/soddering a pushbutton switch in series. But IMO the most elegant solution was to lift the keycap and place an O-ring on the key stem, making it harder to push. The top panel clips were made IIRC by 3M. Interestingly, Apple were not the first to use these on a computer. Digital Equipment Corporation used exactly these same clips on their PDP-9 computer back in the late 60s. I have some of these myself. The little posts do tend to break, and, as you have discovered like many other Apple ][ owners, they were never stuck down terribly well... :)

Fantastic video! Brings back a lot of memories. In the early 80s (1982) my High School only had a handful of computers, The "computer room" had two Apple II machines (both with a single floppy drive), a Microbee (an Australian computer), a HUGE Canon programmable calculator and a kit computer based on the Signetics 2650 CPU that was designed by Electronics Australia magazine. I was part of a die-hard bunch that would rush to the room during lunch breaks to be first on the Apple machines. Fun times.

First computer I ever touched. Took 2 hours to type in a game called Hurkle written in BASIC. Best thing Apple ever made. All downhill from then on.

Put the controller in slot 6 not slot 7 because most software was written to look at slot 6. Disks written for Dos can not be read by prodos. Boot up Dos 3.3 or prodos then put in a disk, type "catalog" to list files, as you found out prodos can use " cat" or catalog. To change drive type a command and designated drive. Example: CATALOG D2 IT will then address drive 2 until you switch back to drive 1 by CATALOG D1 IF YOU HAVE ANOTHER CONTROLLER for total of 4 drives say in slot 5, to switch type CATALOG S5,D1. IF YOU a to see drive 2 since slot 5 is activated just type CATALOG D2, so you have to add the slot variable and the drive variable to switch to the drive, you can use slot 7 but most commercial self booting disk may not work because they are hard cider to look for slot 6. Slot 7 is used mostly for hardrives or RGB video cards. Slot 4 COM cards, slot 3 for eighty column cards. Slot 2 serial cards. Slot 1 parallel cards or memory cards 128k to 3 meg. Slot 0 language card or Rom language card.or memory cards as previously mentioned, any questions drop me an email

That keyboard sounds amazing btw. It must feel awesome to touch.

Yep, the reason you could not "cat" some of the disks was because they were formatted for the wrong OS. The games disks were DOS, while the disk you booted from was ProDOS. The formats are different. copy II Plus can read the catalog for either OS. also, the ROM on the "language card" (the ram card) is intended for non "plus" original apple II computers, and it upgrades the machine from the original integer only basic to applesoft floating point basic. The ][ plus already has applesoft built in. also, you can swap out the character rom on your ][ plus, located on the motherboard under the keyboard, to have lowercase. Doing so replaces inverse text with lowercase. It's a regular 2716 pinout rom or eprom. Most people just would buy an 80-column card for lower case, though. word processing on 40 columns sucks. (not that a ][/]] plus 80 column card is NOT the same as the //e 80 column cards. the one for the ][/][ plus goes in a regular slot, usually slot 3, while the one for the //e goes in a special 80 column card slot. The best and rarest 80 column card for a II plus would be a videx ultra term. That could do 128 columns on a mono monitor. also also, as you found out, there are 2 types of disk drive connectors and controller cards. Drives made for the //e, //c and //gs have the db-19 connectors. The original drives for the ][ and ][ plus use the rectangular pin connectors. The electronics and signaling are the same, though (at least for the 5.25 inch drives. Not so for the 3.5 inch drives). People have made adapter cables to plug either type of 5.25 drive into either type of controller. The IIgs will work with any of the apple disk drives that have a db-19 connector. there is a card that will allow an apple //e, ][+, or ][ to use an apple 800K double sided 3.5 inch drive (called the "LIRON" card) , and a DIFFERENT card (that is rarer) which will allow an apple 1.44 (1.88) meg 3.5 inch drive (called the "superdrive" controller). There are drivers for the IIGS 16 bit OS (GSOS) that will let you read 3.5 inch MS-DOS disks on the IIgs! The apple 3.5 inch drives used a variable speed spindle motor that allowed more sectors to be stored on the outer tracks. So double density disks got 800 meg, while HD disks got 1.8 meg. apple never made double density or double sided 5.25 inch drives. 3rd party manufacturers did, and sold them with a patched version of dos that could use them. Also, if you have a scsi card for the IIgs, it can read Macintosh formatted HFS partitions (but not MS-DOS scsi partitions). The scsi card will also work in a ][ or ][ plus, but only with prodos. Both prodos and GO/OS have a partition size limit of 32 megabytes. apple made a hard drive called the "profile" that used a proprietary interface card. Interface cards were available for the II series and the Apple ///. It could also plug into a built in port on the apple lisa. The profile came in 5 and 10 megabyte versions. These are very very rare. the IIgs can also be booted off of an apple talk network (via the serial ports on the iigs) from a macintosh file server running the right software on MAC OS system 7.x If you can find one of the rare apple talk to ethernet bridges made by asante, people have hacked together linux software that will emulate a mac file server that will let you network boot a IIgs.

I'm a bit disappointed you hadn't read up on the floppy controllers. It's one of Woz's signature designs along with the NTSC color output. What Woz did was to move all the complexity of the floppy controller into carefully timed software. They bought the drives without much logic because they didn't need that logic.

A distant dusty memory tells me that sometimes you have to type CATALOG instead of CAT.

The Apple ][ drives were super cheap, but they *WILL* read a peanut butter sandwich, if you can fit it into the drive. Simplicity was the word of the day. The downside was the 6502 had to do everything. There is a reason the Apple ][ series had some of the best copy protection methods for floppy disks ever. Because you could do crazy shenanigans with the hardware, because it was so basic. Half tracking, quarter tracking, track arcing, you name it.

I wrote and compiled a lot of FORTH embedded firmware using an Apple 2+ back in the day. By the way, many logic chips were more susceptible to static damage 40 years ago. Sometimes it pays to use a static strap. But, likely, most users/owners would not bother even then.

I believe in the manual for my kaypro computer it says to remove any disks when power cycling, and to usually use the reset button or soft rest with keyboard over power cycling

This is how I first come to terms and experience when I had my first apple 2, back then you didn't have all those community groups support or internet, so back in those days it was by way of books, reading material, magazines and experimenting. (which mind you those apple 2 books were quite expensive and out of reach).

The thick plastic lid wasn't a waste. It had to support a CRT monitor. And disk drives. :-)

I remember the command being the whole word "CATALOG". I remember this, because as a hunt and pecking 12 year old, CATALOG was the first word I learned to type really fast.

Things missing from the box are the Apple DOS manual and floppies, Apple BASICS manual, and a general operations manual. That second PCB under the keyboard is the add-in card that gives it upper and lower case.

I grew up with the Apple ][e and took an Apple ][c to college. I always loved the sound of the disk drives booting up. We had the joystick and paddles for it, and I used to draw pictures using the Koala Pad. I played a bunch of the Ultima games on there along with Sherwood Forest (you got sent to the Isle of Soapmouth if you used foul language). Thanks for the trip down memory lane!

So cool!! Growing up, my family had a n Apple IIc+ with a ImageWriter II. It was a neat machine.

My first computer with a timecard, 2 apple cat 1200 bd modems, 6 1.2M floppies, greyscale (ega) monitor, 10MB HD about the size of a small suitcase, running Fidonet and celerity bbs (the darkside). BBS door games were the best (The Pit), Karatika was a great game, Temple of Apshai, Ultima II, ect.. The good old days. Thanks for the video, put a big smile on my face.

Only the controller and the drive electronics are non-standard; the actual drive itself is a shugart mechanism) Boot order is 7-6-5... but most people (and later versions of ProDOS) use 7 for 3.5", 6 for 5.25", and 5 for HD. The 80 Col card is almost always slot three.

Ah, takes me back. I had a IIe with 2 floppy drives but did a number of upgrades to it. I eventually ran a BBS on it, so in addition to the super serial card I had a clock card so it knew the time, an enhanced 80 column card that allowed up to 1 meg of ram (ram-disks for manipulating files) and a SCSI card which I bought used with an external 10Mb drive - obviously which had to boot into Prodos. Obviously a hard drive was a bit of a luxury for regular everyday use, you could of course run your software and games off floppy - it's just a lot slower to do so.

I love my IIe. Got it when I was in high school in 84.

I had an Apple IIe, and if I remember correctly, it had the same style of not quite Velcro fastener on the lid as yours does. I wasn't the original owner, however, so it may have been an aftermarket addition.

The Apple IIGS was my first computer and seeing the box brought me back. Thanks for that. EDIT: That book came with my IIGS and somewhere around 1990 when i was 10 i went through the book and learned programming. I creeit that book with starting my love for programming.

Great video! I went through the same progress a few months ago, when i wrote my Basic-3d and SVG-renderer for the Apple II. It has really wierd BASIC and features. Copying files from windows to floppy image was also a big headscratcher. Awaiting you next episodes--

I'm a simple man, I see a new video from you Shelby and I instantly live whatever you're working on, personally used to own an imac and then another mac machine but can't remember the model, now all i got left is the mobo, keyboard (with the adb cable ends snipped) and mouse from a Mac Quadra 630, always love your videos, keep up the awesome work!!

The ROM on the Language Card only adds the ability of the system to autoboot a card with ROM like the Disk II Controller with the Apple II's firmware ROMs, not the II+'s. The II+ firmware does not need that extra ROM to scan the slots for bootable code.

i just love the whole Apple II concept.

Welcome to the world of Apple II! You see what is on the disk, you need to type: CATALOG

I always loved the rose hue that red LEDs had back in the 1980s.

I remember around 1990, when I was in first grade. They had Apple II's in elementary school, and would introduce computers early. There would be one in every class room. In the basement was a computer room with more recent Macintosh computers. Even in middle school, I remember some rooms still had an Apple II tucked in a corner, though the school had upgraded to what ever mac was around in 1996 in every room as the main computer.

Apple II+ My first computer. Still have it. Loved it!

Love it much! Have my one with fully equipment still over here and keep it "holy". Thx for that great backflash!

Your description of the Woz Disk Operating System is exactly right. It's a work of genius.

You can tell how excited he was simply by the number of times he called things by the wrong name. The excitement was palatable. (I'm a relatively recent Apple II collector myself. I've got a IIe and a IIgs and has a EuroPlus for a while before I sold it to a good home to free up collection space) There are some _amazing_ modern expansion cards for Apples. Booti, Yellowstone, Mockingboard (which I recently built one of), Dan II, ESP32, plus some classics. Getting an 80 column card, plus a z80 card is a period correct way to run CP/M. Bonus points if you can get a genuine Microsoft z80 card. 😀Super Serial Card is useful also to use with ADTPro so you can write your own disks.

26:23: On the _non-velcro but velcro-like_ lid-holding things: Yes, they're stock. Yes, it's pretty common for one to come unstuck. Some RU-vidr had a solution for how to glue them back on, because you need to bond them REALLY solidly, because there's quite some pull on them, but unfortunately I forgot whose video I watched that in and what the solution was, so someone else will have to help with the particulars.

In dos 3.3 I believe the command was catalog , d2. Used one in highschool around 1979 so I may be wrong.

The Apple II+ has two BASIC options, one is Applesoft BASIC, which is what you were using (with the "]" prompt.) The other is Integer BASIC, which can be loaded off floppy into the language card. Integer BASIC uses the ">" prompt. And as the name implies, it only handles integer math, no floating point. Programs on floppy can be listed as "A" = Applesoft, "I" = Integer, "B" = Binary, "T" = Text. You need to have Integer BASIC loaded in order to run "I" type files.

For the drilling you can get drill stops that wrap around the drill bit. I’ve used them when drilling into walls without knowing where mains wires were. Reduces stress sooooooo much.

By the time I was in Kindergarten and 1st grade, 1988, my school's Computer Lab was still 20 Apple 2 Plus machines with green phosphor, adjustable monitors.

OMG... That was me in 1984 in high school computer programming class, what a year, by the end of the year, talked my dad into buying me an apple 2e

There was another card in the IIGS that can be used with the II+. It was the one furthest from the PS. You can tell by the beveled front.

I enjoyed learning along with you. I did buy one of these in 87 as an 11 year old, but I only knew how to play games on it. As I have become nostalgic and want to learn what I didn't then, I've found myself owning a collection of Apple II's that I don't really know. I'm looking forward to more with this Apple II Plus.

The top plastic is so thick because it was designed to support a monitor on top of it. If it was thinner, it would probably have needed a metal reinforcement.

Looking forward to the next chapter of Apple II learning

If you're looking for other 'unique' or 'rare' old Apple ][ equipment, you may want to keep an eye out for the 'Black Apple's'. Ones that were made for Bell & Howell, they were loaded with more AV & I/O type features. Don't remember when they were made (only used them a couple times) think it was 1980 or 81. Seeing this video really brings back memories as I had a ][+, ][e, //gs all back in the day. :) Also if you're able, get the original docs. The original docs when you bought one included the entire motherboard circuit board schematic (which was GREAT), as well as assembly code dumps for all the ROM chips. (EDIT) actually your video got me to search my manual collection (still have my old ][+, //gs, etc manuals). Anyway the manual with the schematic & ROM dumps is "Apple ][ Reference Manual" (030-0004-C); for DOS you want "Apple II; The DOS Manual" (030-0115-B); "BASIC Programming Reference Manual, ][ Applesoft" (030-0013-E); "The Applesoft Tutorial" (030-0044-D). As for a general system overview you want the "Family System" manual (030-0287). And YES, the original apple ][ did have the 'velcro like' holders on it to keep the cover on. As for printers, the Apple ImageWriter I & II were common, however they were pricey so a lot of people (myself included) started with an Epson FX-80. As for the IIgs a good starting point for an overview would be the "Apple IIgs Owners Guide" (030-1292-B), and the "Apple IIgs System Software User's Guide Version 5.0" (030-1622A). I had the Woz version of the //gs (modified with extra memory and ramdisk card, plus a transwarp IIgs). Kind of sad that I got rid of the older systems now as the nostalgia is peaking. Need to probably start up KEGS and run some older programs for a bit. :) Oh, and BTW, 'CAT' is not a DOS command. it's 'CATALOG'. Don't be lazy. :P And that 'language' card is probably an integer basic card + memory. (you had to add that to get Integer BASIC as you only had Applesoft BASIC otherwise). And yes, math was interesting back then. Really was glad when math libraries got standardized back around 84 or so. Before that everyone ran their own.

I think my first encounter with an Apple II was 1980 in the high school library. The single Apple in the whole school was kept in the library and reserved for seniors use with maths II programming problems etc because it was 'special' while the many TRS-80 MIs and later on a couple of MIIIs, were kept in a general classroom for computer classes. The slots built into the Apple were a killer feature really. If the TRS-80s had that they could have gone a lot further than they did.

2:10 - Dude... you wanna get carpal tunnel? that's how you get carpal tunnel! (but props to the wrist strength)

Your comment about apples dysfunction regarding expandability is explained by the fact that there were two great minds at work inside Apple… Steve Wozniak was a brilliant hardware engineer and wanted to create a hobbyist computer and new people would want to add things… Steve Jobs on the other hand wanted to create a consumer appliance… He saw no need for anyone to ever open the computer much less add new cards… And that Becomes painfully clear when the Apple to see is released which is completely enclosed and has no expandability to speak of… I'm really loving your fresh eyes approach to the Apple… I'm going to subscribe and watch more… Continued success and best wishes

Sprinkling metal shavings into a power supply until it catches fire deserves it's own channel.

The only experience I had with the Apple II series when I was a kid was playing educational games on them. They all booted directly from the disk, so I never interacted with any kind of DOS or BASIC. Which is sad, because I think it really would've helped me get used to programming a lot earlier. I didn't get to experience BASIC until a few years later when my Dad bought an IBM JX (that's right, _not_ PCjr). Anyway, I'm really interested to see where you go with this series. It might be interesting to into the Logo programming language, since it allows you to draw nice geometric shapes on the screen and stuff.

Wow this makes me back to my school years!

Just hearing the psu click and the simple Apple ][ beep brought me back. Used to play a ton of games that were cracked by the steel rat, and ports from coleco and magnavox games. Crisis Mountain.. Below the Root. Droll. Captain Goodnight. I learned to type 'catalog' and brun before I learned to spell.

When we moved our Apple II s back in the day, we set the drives on top to carry them, and then put them wherever we wanted when we set it back down. ;)

Great video - thanks for making this. I can really feel your excitement in getting this awesome machine running!

I owned one of those! It was my favorite Apple II.

I had an Apple 2pluss in 1991. In a book store I found the only program on floppy for this computer it was Star Gate.

You can plug your card into any slot and then activate it using the command "PR#?" where ? is the slot number from 0 to 7. However, slot 0 usually is for the RAM/ROM card, slot 3 is for 80 columns card. I remember I put floppy controller on slot 5 and 6. Yes, back in the old day, I have 4 floppy. Mine have all 8 slots fully loaded with cards. Slot 0 and slot 2 have 2 128K RAM cards which form a 256K RAM disk, slot 1 have a super serial card, slot 3 have a 80 columns card, slot 4 have the CP/M card, slot 5 and 6 have floppy cards, slot 7 have a PAL card. I also remember if you do a "CALL -151" you can go into the monitor and then you can access the memory directly and write assemble code or disassemble program.

I bought one several years ago. First step, open power supply, replace RIFA caps. Badly cracked and almost falling apart. Power up, no smoke or flames. Great computers.

Your reaction to the spring resistance on the reset key 😅😅😅

Well done. Always enjoy your content.

When drilling out rivets, use a bigger bit. You don't push it all the way through. It'll cut the flange of the soft aluminum rivet.

Re. power cycling - Yeah. I never had a problem with this, but I remember we used to open the drive before power cycling, just because we heard rumors that a surge could scramble data on the disk.

The disk goes (usually) in slot 6, but works in any slot except #0.

First computer I ever used was a 48K Apple ][ plus back in 1980. Our school had one on loan for about 2 weeks. I didn't "get it" until I saw it run tic tac toe and our teacher wasn't able to defeat it. I have been hooked ever since. First computer I bought was in 1984, an Apple //c which I loved, but looking back, should have got a C64 and saved $$

Regarding your comment about the plastic being so thick, it was for interference suppression. New rules had been implemented in the late 1970s so that the wave of home computers arriving would not interfere with other devices. This is why the TRS 80 went from a separate keyboard design to an all in one. Apple used this thick plastic that was embedded with aluminum particles to help absorb any stray RF signals. This is also why the composite to broadcast converter was a separate device - Apple didn't make the converters, so an issues arising regarding interference were the responsibility of the converter company. Most were made to fit inside the Apple's case to take advantage of the RF shielding.

if I remember correctly, you would type Catalog to view the contents of the floppy. also, on a floppy disk, you will see a square slot on the side of the disk, if it is not blank, it may have a sticker looped over it. this is the write protect slot. you can make a single sided disk, double sided by using a hole punch to make another write protect tab on the other side. just put one floppy over the other, with the write protect slot over the blank side of the floppy you want to make double sided. to line the holes up correctly.

Holy crap it looks brand new!

I used an Apple II in 1982 on work experience at a local university Data Processing department. I had already used BBC BASIC and APPLE BASIC wasn’t too different. I had three programs to write in a week and I was shown the department. I’ll never forget the 10MB disk packs that were 14” in diameter, in a clear plastic cake drum…

i really enjoy your enthusiasm and detailed videos,. thanks,.

Yes they were stock. Yes they had a tendency over time to fall off. Many people replaced them with velcro. I prefer the Apple II with an 80 column card. Around the time of the Apple IIe, Apple sent a mouse and paint setup to schools. I have never seen anyone that hung on to them.

I got all the feels from this video. This is GenX nirvana. And the reference to Central Point Software...? Oh my stars. ❤

The automatic boot is part of the firmware of the Apple ][+, but the ][ needs the replacement F800-FFFF firmware to do that. (Most of the disk boot code is actually on a ROM on the disk controller.) Originally drives were meant to go into slot 7, but somehow they wound up going in 6 instead, which has become a convention for the Apple ][ line. The disk ][ is a single-sided drive. If there's a monitor I associate with the Apple ][+, it's the Amdek Color I. CAT is a ProDOS-8 command, so it won't work if you boot without a DOS. (It's CATALOG on the older DOS 3.3.)

I used to play Oregon Trail on it when I was very very young.

Had a Apple //e as a kid that a neighbor had given to us with a bunch of games. This happened in the early 90s. Favorite thing to do with it was play Archon and Galaxian (which auto booted) and borrow books from the library to type in games into the basic prompt. I think at the time the local library had Apple 2s and software you could borrow. I did not have experience working with copy 2 plus or ProDOS though. I do not recall saving any of the games typed in from the books to disk back in the day.

out of my 8 bit machines the apple is my favorite, but i still have lots to learn, or would like to.

it's simple to catalog in DOS by typing "CATALOG"

My 8 bit computer was hooked up to a 27 inch Emerson which was a very flat monitor for the time. I also had used a Sony Trinitron which was very good. No reason to use such a small monitor. The IIGS also was given a Mac like OS with menus and icons.

I was very happy when I recently came across an Apple II+ (europlus to be exact) as an attic find. When I took the power supply apart to check for Rifa capacitors, I was also very surprised that I seemed to be holding a kind of unicorn in my hand. My PSU layout looks exactly like yours, and i was'nt able to find a Picture of this version until today. Despite extensive documentation available from the manufacturer Astec from the time, I have not found an exact circuit diagram or technical documentation. Of course, I was still able to replace the two Rifa capacitors that were installed in my case compared to yours. Another difference: The built-in switch for different input voltages is covered on the outside with a sticker that says "230V Only" (I live in Germany, 230V/50Hz)

You can always use a vacuum cleaner as you drill out rivets to remove the metal fragments.

I got my start on plain Apple ]['s in high school, back in the neolithic age. Trying to dredge up helpful hints from my memory. VERY FEW commands are stored in ROM. For the most part, you need to have the disk with commands IN THE DRIVE and the disk you are operating on in the other drive, unless the disk is bootable. What you were missing is the suffixes ",D0" and ",D1" to select the drive you are referring to. You also may need to spell out CATALOG in full, not abbreviate it as CAT.

Next time use an oversized drill bit. That way you can just take the to little disk off and push the rest of the divit in. That way you only have to pick the rest of the divit out and all the metal shavings stay outside. Plus the drill bit won't poke inside whatever you are removing it from.

The apple 2 was the first ever computer my uncle ever used in high school uncle learnt how to use an apple to when he was in high school

The fact you could casually just place things on-top of a computer back then feels super weird compared to now where you wouldn't even think about anything making contact with one.

ahahah, I still have my II europlus, with 2 floppy disks too :D The IIgs was my dream in 1985 lol

I believe the language card is for Applesoft Basic. The Basic that is built in at power on, does not have disk controllers in it. So CAT wont do anything, with out booting off something, floppy or hard drive.

Nice video! Don't forget the Apple IIc (c for compact)

I'm going to toss a fun tip. You can substitute ? as a shortcut for typing PRINT when typing in that BASIC command. The Apple II will automatically translate the question mark to PRINT

Regarding the plastic "Velcro" latches: Yes, the adhesive does let go; you're lucky that it's still stuck to its mate and not lost. I've used "3M VHB Heavy Duty Mounting Tape 5952" to reattach mine (as I understand it, this double-sided tape has been used to attach trim to automobiles). It comes in large rolls, which is way overkill for the ~2" you need, but I've found lots of uses for it around the house.