Monthly Archives: August 2017

CEC-I (beige/white)

img_20170729_1835272_sThis beige/white colored CEC-I i got from China as well. This must have been manufactured in different province and factory (if somebody know in which provinces & cities these were made at?). My knownledge of chinese relies on google translate, my wife and help of other Apple II-enthusiasts.

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The board looks pretty much the same as in the “red” one i got earlier. Sadly both CEC-I’s i have, do not power up. I have had no time to investigate (i am not so skilled with electricity afterall) why.

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All the connectors are well marked. Left: joystick, Right: Casette port.

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The backside is pretty much identical to the “red” one.

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This is the “Disk II” port in the back. The connector is integraded into the main logic board.

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Manufacturing information.

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ROM-chips.

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More ROM-chips.

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Power supply specs.

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Also came with slot extender (yes, externder as height!) as the slot is inside the machine and there’s an slot where you put the card inside, IF you actually could. But.. the card would be really small. So there’s this slot extender that allows you put cards to it as it extends outside the case…. like this:img_20170730_0913342_s
It does extend outside of the case. Wonder if something like FASTchip //e would work on it…. 🙂

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The in the main logic board you can actually setup the slot what number it is. Good idea, BUT you need to open the case in order to change it.

Got also few manuals (copies/reprints) but they are rather ok quality. Originals seems to be difficult to find in China. Lots of those are scanned and now in Archive.org.

Luckily there is now some CEC-I enthusiasts around the world to seek and preserve
these obscure and rare pieces of Chinese computer history. So much more specially software
should be found. If you can help, please contact using email address on this blog.

Now only if could find the CEC-E and CEC-1A.

If i ever get to go the KansasFest i’ll bring one along if somebody wants to take an shot repairing one.  Or any volunteers before that? 🙂

Moving to the “bunker”

moving_2_sI am in a process of moving my work/hobby-room to another floor, the 1st floor of our house which will mean some major reorganizing. The space should be slighly larger but i am not sure yet how it work out. And yes, the walls are pink, but they’ll be covered with Apple ][ flag, bookshelfs and such so i wont bother painting them white, yet.

Slight problem being the lack of ethernet/wifi access due thick walls and doors (it’s ½ underground) but i have few ideas to get it done. It’s nothing major in the end. Just tinkering around.

I’d love the name “8bit Bunker” but that name’s been reserved by Michael Mulhern 🙂 So i’ll have to come up with something else. I’ll call it for now just “bunker” that’s what it feels like (not a bad thing really).

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I’ll add 3rd Ikea-billy bookshelf there as there’s space & i need shelf-space. I am not showing here the total chaos the room is now at… this was just beginning when there was virtually nothing yet carried in 🙂

Moving:
One always underestimates the effort needed! I can’t believe how much work it all was. Really.
I thought i didn’t have “that much stuff” in my work/hobby room but oh boy, was i amazed! Slight suprise was that the “bunker” room was not as tall (i knew it, just didn’t relalize the measurements) so some stuff i kept in top of the bookshelfs, wont fit there anymore. I’ll work it out no problem.

I think for the beginning i’ll setup these units in use:
– Apple //e platinum (my main Apple rig)
– Apple IIgs (ROM3)
– Apple /// (this baby is so big & heavy so either it’s on table or stored in the floow heh).
– Atari 800 / Commodore 64 (swap in area)

 

Vintage Apple-logo signs

mainos_loydetty_sThese Vintage Apple-signs or trade show props, were donated to my by a friend and colleague. He used to work to repair Apple and Macintosh computers back in 1980 and 1990’s. He must have saved these and totally forgotten these for all these years. They came across his basement storage recently and he of cos,  knew my interested in the “old apples”, offered them to me right away.  There were supposed to be just one, but to his suprisement, there were two of them. One being more rough,  the sticker corners are peeling off due old age, but the other one is in much better shape.  Needs just some cleaning. The better one will make nice props to my work/hobby room.

manos_puhditust_2Cleaning was needed or at least trying …

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So basicly i tried just basic every household cleaning methods. Tolu-foam which really didn’t do much but maybe  polish the plastic a bit – the darker dirt came off however perfectly with Label-Off spray. The plastic itself was partly yellowed (I know! this sounds like a job for Mr. Retr0bright..). But i don’t think it’s much of a worth the effort to go that extreme on this case. If you want these, you can easily make your own copies.

mainos_puhdistus_1_sSo i was quite ok with them cleaned up, glued together the logo a bit and we’re good to go.

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I placed them to my work/hobby room against the wall. But. I had an idea. I need to find where i can cut another of them to perfect square around the logo itself, it would make great framed decoration to the wall..