More broken Apples...

[Mike van Bokhoven]

Pete Turnbull wrote:
> There's a standard modification to add lower case to an Apple ][, 
> which consists of merely replacing the chargen (EP)ROM for the 
> display, and adding a wire for the keyboard.  I guess Apple just 
> decided to economise so the keyboard didn't generate lower case, and 
> hence there was no need for lower case in the chargen either.
>
Yes - my II+ has the shift mod fitted, though I don't know if it has the 
updated character ROM (I've never seen it run). Your explanation sounds 
about right to me. Though it still seems strange, adding lower-case 
support can't have been that hard or expensive? It must have made sense 
to Apple at the time I guess! The clones had it built-in, no 
modifications required. The one I have working does lower case in the 
regular way you'd expect, and both clones have a shift lock key.

I remember using a word processor on the II+ I had in the mid 80s; that 
had the shift mod, but no lower case ROM. The software indicated upper 
case characters by showing that character in inverse video.Quite clunky, 
but it worked fine; I was quite happy with the results by the time they 
made their way out of the printer. It's surprising that it worked as 
well as it did I guess. Having said that, I was very pleased to upgrade 
to a IIe.

Cheers,

Mike.