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Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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Some links on the Apple IIc Plus (Apple IIc + on the boot screen) likely the rarest from the Apple II series

Posted by jpluimers on 2025/05/16

A while ago I bumped into this video about likely the rarest model in the Apple II series: the Apple IIc Plus:

[Wayback/Archive] Apple IIc Plus – the rarest and fastest Apple II! – YouTube

Returning to one of my favorite subjects – the Apple II – I decide to finally repair a broken Apple IIc Plus gifted to me a little more than a year ago. This machine was the final true hardware revision to the Apple II line, coming in 1988, and the last standalone machine in the line released. It was also the fastest, with a 4Mhz CPU (vs. 1Mhz in most other Apple II’s, and 2.6Mhz in the IIGS). But it was a problematic machine for Apple, with a concept that had been watered down to the point of, well, pointlessness.

The market wanted it even less than it wanted the original IIc (which was my first computer – the one in the thumbnail is my original machine). Still, it is an interesting computer for its accelerated CPU, and its somewhat anachronistic nature at the time of its launch.

It has a cool demo of Flight Simulator II demo mode (which back in those days crashing the plane – demo modes luckily improved from there :) at both 1 Mhz and 4 Mhz. It indeed is not smooth, but a lot faster.

The problem back in those days with acceleration is it would not just improve render speed, but also increase clock time speed. It made most games almost impossible to play in accelerated mode.

If I ever get one, I need to replace the 110V power supply with a 240V/110V auto-switching one as per [Wayback/Archive] IIc + 240v Power:

So you have bought a IIc +

The IIc+ was the last Apple II to be released (Unless you count the IIe card for the LC Series Macs) it had a 4MHz Zip Accelerator in it and could be booted up into 1MHz by holding the esc key on boot.
These units have become quite popular with collectors of vintage computers but due to them only being released in North America a 240v version was never produced, this limits their usability in countries on different voltages.
I set out to fix this by replacing the internal power supply with an auto switching 100v – 240v power supply. So lets get to it.
Apple IIc + universal power supply

Apple IIc + universal power supply

Below is a custom build one universal power supply for the Apple IIc + by ReActiveMicro, but if you insist doing more work with a more expensive non-custom power supply, or build one from scratch, then go ahead and follow any of these links: :

The last one build their own PSU, the first two use a power supply like [Wayback/Archive] EOS VLT40-3200 – Google Search which is USD 100 plus over here in Europe and on ebay as well:

This one would work well: Apple IIc + universal power supply[Wayback/Archive] IIc+ Universal PSU | ReActiveMicro.com

The Apple IIc+ Universal PSU is a Power Supply replacement designed by ReActiveMicro and installable by the end user. It replaces the old Power Supply PCB with a new, modern solution while reusing the old Power Supply Enclosure. As with all our Power Supplies, this unit runs on all standard AC voltages from 90-264VAC, 47-63Hz.

It is user installable in your existing metal Power Supply Enclosure. Takes about 15 minutes with basic tools.

[Wayback/Archive] IIc+ Universal PSU – The ReActiveMicro Apple II Wiki

Apple IIc + tear-down

There is/was a great Apple IIc+ tear-down article [Wayback/Archive] Apple IIc Plus – Teardown | Blondihacks on the Quinn Dunki .com domain which sadly is only available in the first two archive links. Quinn’s very short video is still on-line though: [Wayback/Archive] IMG 4721 – YouTube.

The domain going away might have to to do with the thread [Wayback/Archive] Where is Blondihacks moving? | The Hobby-Machinist and these videos:

Quinn moving happened when I was recovering from all the cancer treatments, and by now I am slowly catching up on people who I followed on their blogs, podcasts and video channels. Quinn was one of them and I really hope Hopefully Quinn is doing well in her new place. Looking at their YouTube channel [Wayback/Archive] Blondihacks – YouTube, she is and her pace of videos have not slowed down: [Wayback/Archive] Blondihacks – YouTube: videos.

This has to do with the YouTube channel now being their full-time job, and their other channels just being in a supportive role for that.

So their blog is still online at [Wayback/Archive] Blondihacks including an page [Wayback/Archive] About Blondihacks – Blondihacks and blog entries. I was pleasantly surprised with the 2024 entry [Wayback/Archive] Reversing Choplifter – Blondihacks with source code at [Wayback/Archive] GitHub – blondie7575/ChoplifterReverse: A full reverse engineer of Choplifter, the Apple II game written by Dan Gorlin. It means they still love the Apple II part of retro-computing

Back to their YouTube channel, these are videos having to do with the move:

  1. [Wayback/Archive] Moving A Hobby Shop … To Another Country?! – YouTube
  2. [Wayback/Archive] Shop Move Q&A – YouTube
  3. [Wayback/Archive] Uncrating and Setting Up My New Shop! Also Lighting! – YouTube
  4. [Wayback/Archive] Setting Up a New Hobby Machine Shop! – YouTube
  5. [Wayback/Archive] Fourth Anniversary Q&A! Also Antique Tractors! – YouTube
  6. [Wayback/Archive] New Shop Tour! – YouTube

They also taught me about Surface plate – Wikipedia. Cool!

Anyway, back when writing this, there was one very interesting item on ebay, that also had a few YouTube videos:

  1. [Wayback/Archive] Apple IIc+ – 3.5″ Apple Tour Disk & Muppet’s on 5.25″ – YouTube
  2. [Wayback/Archive] Apple IIc+ – Testing Rodger Rabbit Game – YouTube
  3. [Wayback/Archive] Apple IIc+ – Playing Galaxian w/ Joystick – YouTube
  4. [Wayback/Archive] Apple IIc+ – Testing Printer – YouTube

It was listed in [Wayback/Archive] Apple IIc Vintage Home Computers for sale | eBay and [Wayback/Archive] A2s4500 for sale | eBay with these two links:

Selling my vintage Apple IIc Plus (A2S4500) and all accessories and software shown.
The monitor is an AppleColor Composite Monitor (A2M6020).
The printer is an ImageWriter II (A9M0320).
The external 5.25″ floppy drive is model A9M0107.

Queries:

--jeroen

Apple IIc Plus – the rarest and fastest Apple II! – YouTube

[Wayback/Archive] Apple IIc+ – 3.5″ Apple Tour Disk & Muppet’s on 5.25″ – YouTube

[Wayback/Archive] Apple IIc+ – Testing Rodger Rabbit Game – YouTube

[Wayback/Archive] Apple IIc+ – Playing Galaxian w/ Joystick – YouTube

Apple IIc+ – Testing Printer – YouTube

 

This entry was posted on 2025/05/16 at 18:00 and is filed under 6502, Apple, Apple ][, History, Power User. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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