My newest Apple, the Apple IIc

I've recently acquired a "new to me" Apple IIc.  A friend of mine who is also a retro computer enthusiast was keeping an eye out for me, and a friend of his was looking to keep their families Apple IIc out of the waste stream, so this was a win for everyone.

This lot included the computer, a carrying case, floppy disks, and manuals from the period.  I have a fascination with these manuals, and I'm currently about a 1/4 of the way through the Owners Manual shown on top of the computer here....

I didn't want to power the unit up till I'd done some preliminary checks and cleaning, so I started by testing the mouse on my 512K Mac, it is partly working, but there's something wrong with the Vertical encoder, as the mouse will go up but not down.  I spent an hour or two opening that up and trying to identify a problem, but I was not able to identify a broken connection, or dirt on the encoder wheels.  It's possible the IR LED or phototransistors are no longer working, and this is a repair that I have not yet been successful with on old mice that I've worked on.  Let me know in the comments below if you have any ideas or suggestions about resources for mouse repair.

I took the computer apart to check for condition, it all appears normal inside, not too dirty, although I did a through cleaning on the outside, and a bit of cleaning up of dust on the inside...

In addition to cleaning, I checked for leaking caps, and also took the drive cage off enough to clean the drive read / write head with rubbing alcohol.  I also checked the voltage of the external Power Supply at the plug, and it was reading good.

After putting it back together, the computer works as expected right away...

I checked the ROM version at the BASIC prompt, and it's ROM version 0, so SmartPort support is included (there's also a sticker showing a 3.5" floppy disk above the drive port on the back).  So, using FloppyEmu in SmartPort mode, Total Replay works, which is awesome!

Since I didn't get the matching 9" green screen with this computer, I paired it with an Apple IIe Composite Color Monitor, and built a little two sided stand for the monitor that still allows access to the floppy disk drive on the right side of the machine.

So, the Apple IIc takes its place in the collection both as an excellent gaming machine and as a disk imaging machine using FloppyEmu and the built in 5 1/4" floppy should I need to make disks for any of my other Apple IIs.

Remaining tasks for this computer include the mouse repair mentioned above, and repairing the Kraft KC3 joystick.  I'll try to buy another KC3 on eBay in order to harvest a potentiometer out of the stick too repair this one.  This stick was made for so long and in so many variants that not all the parts are interchangeable, so I'm trying to find ones with the right FCC ID hoping that the potentiometers will be interchangeable, as these are no longer being manufactured.

And finally, the case plastics have yellowed.  Perhaps when summer comes in Minnesota, I'll add this computer to the list of computer cases that need retrobright treatment.  The case did clean up pretty good, so I'm considering just leaving it as is.