Apple II Disk Drive Cleaning

How to clean an Apple II Disk II drive

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[TeamNES1]

Any advice for a faulty Disk Interface Card? We have an Apple IIe at work, and it doesn't get past the boot screen (where it says "Apple ]["), unless I disconnect the card. I must also mention that while the D.I.C. is connected, the spindle motor runs, and the disk activity LED remains on, but nothing else happens until I power the computer down.

It's not critical that I get the old Apple working, but it would be nice if I could. Then I wouldn't have to use the Apple II as a paperweight. XD

[retrorerun]

- Sure, the problem could be: 1) the floppy disk itself is unreadable, or 2) the drive is dirty or misaligned, or 3) there's something wrong with the interface electronics (only likely if it's the 20-pin header, early version of the adapter card). My money is on option 1. You can hit Ctrl-Reset to get control back and use Applesoft (or bootstrap via ADTPro).

[TeamNES1]

Thanks for the advice. :3

Just curious: would you consider an adapter card from 1978 to be an early model?

[retrorerun]

They all have that copyright date on them - that isn't necessarily when they were manufactured.

[rwdplz1]

Much simpler than the Unidisk drive!

[retrorerun]

That's true - but the concept (and the drive mechanism) is of course the same.

[Videooscopy]

Very Cool. Any plans for a guide on doing alignment?

[Nolito34]

Thanks for the video ; it helped me a lot ;-)

[Polaventris]

Love to see the insides of these old machines. Proper retro nerd porn!

[RetroGamerVX]

I use face cleaner on cartridges as it's alcohol based and evaporates quickly, so I assume this will work on any 5.25 :o)