My "new" Apple //e

[ScanDisk]

So I finally became an Apple II owner, Apple //e specifically.

It got it off ebay, for a reasonable price.

It seems to be in good cosmetic condition, with slight yellowing (as common), the seller said it boots and I saw a photo of the blank screen with Apple ][ at the top, so that was a good sign for me. The inside from the ebay photos looks good, too, just a little dusty, nothing an air compressor can't fix.

The air compressor will have to wait until tomorrow though, because of the rain here today.
I've ran the built-in diagnostic test, and both times it returned "KERNEL OK" so it passed both times, and from that I also figured out it's apparently an 'un-enchanced" model, where as an "enchanced" model would say "System OK".

The rest button doesn't seem to work from what I have seen so far and after manually resting, it always seem to print some garbage characters on screen, but does work. I don't know if maybe some cards are a tad loose inside, or its set in some mode that is causing that.

Obviously tomorrow after dusting it out with that high compressed air, I'll make sure the cards are good in the slot. Eventually I will be taking it completely apart giving the case a bath, and maybe cleaning the cartridge ports, and the contacts on the cards as well.

Anyone have any pointers?

 

[ScanDisk]

Another thing I just noticed:

Pressing the delete key, does not delete anything or functioning as a backspace, instead it prints a square character on the screen.

Edit:
I just figured out that you need to press control + reset for it to reset, and reset alone won't do anything.

After resetting with control + reset, there are no garbage characters on the screen, though the delete key still prints the cursor on the screen....
Edit #2: Appears the delete key is functioning as it should as well, and it only works as a delete key if a program supports it, otherwise it will print the "delete character".

 

[olePigeon]

Welcome to the quirky Apple II. By the way, there's a built in hardware test you can run to make sure all your RAM is OK. Hold down both the closed and open apple keys, and hit reset (or turn on the computer while holding them down.)

This will run a built-in diagnostic.

 

[ScanDisk]

Welcome to the quirky Apple II. By the way, there's a built in hardware test you can run to make sure all your RAM is OK. Hold down both the closed and open apple keys, and hit reset (or turn on the computer while holding them down.)

This will run a built-in diagnostic.

Yes, I have done that, it passes each time.

Yes, I guess there are lots of things I will have to learn about how it operates.

Interestingly it doesn't work with the reset button (running the diagnostic test), but it does when you hold the apple buttons down before you turn on.

 

[olePigeon]

Oh, might need to hold down control as well. Control-open-closed-reset. It's been a while for me.