Mac84: Repairing an Apple III Profile Hard Drive - Apple's $3,499 5 Megabyte HD from 1981
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- Опубликовано: 30 сен 2024
- Back in the spring of 2018 I acquired an Apple III computer, along with a matching Monitor III and a hefty Profile hard drive. At the time I did test the Apple III successfully, but when it came time to test the Profile hard drive the unit was unresponsive. So take a trip back in time with me to 1981 and let's see if we breathe new life into this "silent" (to quote the manual) hard drive. Oh, and this is the first video of mine shot and saved in 4K, so enjoy!
Special thanks to Mike & everyone at the Mac Yak podcast (www.Mac-Yak.com) and the Apple III Facebook group.
Resources:
en.wikipedia.o...
adtpro.com/
apple3.org/
Music via the RUclips Audio Library, featuring:
Puppy Love
Leveled Up
In the Atmosphere
Future City Funk
Easy Saturday
Good stuff! Very cool to see these classics in action
One interesting detail is that that large chip on a Profile's internal controller card is an uncommon Zilog Z8 (not Z80!) microcontroller. Some of the early ones had piggyback ROM/EPROM sockets on top of the Z8 itself, in lieu of internal mask ROM as seen here: mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20Project/Peripherals/Hard%20Drives/Apple%20ProFile/Photos/Apple%20ProFile%20-%20Controller%20Card.jpg
So now I know why there is one chip ontop of another on my board! Thanks!
It is criminal that you don't have more views! Please keep your videos coming!!
Thank you, I will! If you feel like it - please share the video, hopefully others will agree :)
Kevin Flynn used this computer when he attempted to hack the MCP, be careful.....
It’s okay, I fight for the Users!
Would one of these work with an Apple ][GS or ][E if you could find one ?
Thanks for filming it.
I heard ProDOS supports the ProFile on the //e but you need a //e ProFile card to use it.
The ProFile was the hard disk equivalent of a Commodore 1541 or an Atari 810/1050. It has its own operating system and it presents itself as a simple parallel bus device. This meant it could be used with any computer with the right parallel interface and which supported its instruction set.
I wonder how hard an HDA swap would be? I know you would have to low-level it but that can be done with firmware commands.
I was one of the people who suggested that the motors were just seized btw :P
Yes you were - thank you for that sir. I was amazed that it was something relatively simple. I just assumed it was a giant paper weight!
Wow, seeing files "last modified" around the time I was born is, humbling : )
Amazin how these old hadware were resilient. Tks for this content!!!!
This is quality content. Keep it up!
Great vid dude, I love your content!
Looks like the yoke on that display needs to be adjusted a bit, rotated a bit more clockwise 😉
Thanks Mac84 for publishing this video on the Profile Drive on an Apple III. The only thing I would suggest is about your lighting when recording your video. I'm sure you are aware of it, but your fluorescent lighting was on and can be seen reflecting on the Monitor III screen. Beyond that it was an informative video.
Thanks for the kind words.
This video was filmed 3 years ago, since then I've gotten new camera gear and equipment. However, it's nearly impossible to remove glare and other lighting artifacts when trying to film reflective surfaces such as CRT monitors. Even Clint of LGR made a whole video about these difficulties. Reflections are just part of life when it comes to these screens... unless you have a boat load of money to spend on special lights. (Feel free to donate!)
Data
Awesome video! Great watch :)
Interesting to see the internals of the ProFile HD! I still regret passing up one locally for a mere $5 back in the late 90's. At least I still have my Apple III, and should I ever come across another ProFile HD, I do have the Apple II interface card for it.
Yeah it was fun to see what was required to get it all working! I still regret passing up some things... like an Apple IIc green-screen 9” monitor hanging out in a trash bin. But at the time I had no idea what it was for. 😮
Heh you don't even want to know what I've missed out on over the years! Still, I was fortunate enough to start collecting at a time when people were selling old Apple hardware dirt cheap or even free! I do have the 9" IIc monitor and stand, and even a pair of vintage IIc LCD screens (well, the third party C-Vue--a clone of the Apple Flat Panel Display, but still just as unusual and ultra rare).
Fascinating.
Awesome video!!!
Fun
just buy a 5 mb profile and waiting to fix it..is the low format easy to do it?
I am trying to resurrect four ProFiles myself, and your video was most helpful!
Glad to hear it!! Let me know if you need any other tips. 👍
@@Mac84 Doing your tips, and swapping power supplies with HDs, I got at least 2 working! :D
Sweet!! Best of luck! 🤞
Very interesting quality video. Can't wait to see this machine again
amazing video !!👍🍎🙏🏻
What a beast! It'd be fun to read through those old files. I enjoy looking through data on old hard drives.
I opened the ADTPro file (*.po) in TextEdit and it's about 26 thousand pages of text, basically it's the entire disk crammed into one file. I'm sure not all the right data is being displayed, but it is visible to a degree.
One of the funny things I found inside was a list of liquors to purchase for a Christmas gifts in 1986. It's a printed list of names and what drink that person would be getting... with a total price of a mere $272.09. Hah!
@@Mac84 That's amusing haha I bought a big box of used ZIP disks that must've been owned by a conspiracy theorist. Some very interesting things on those
Haha, wow. Now that’s much more amusing than a list of old office documents. 🤣
USB to serial to connect a 5 1/4 drive ?