Apple //e - A UPS Horror Show
Errrr! I‘m so mad! I scored this Apple //e with monitor, 5.25 floppy drive, and a ton of software for a paltry $76 dollars.
UPS just dropped it off tonight, and upon opening the box, I discovered the horror show within. The seller thought it would be a good idea to put the monitor on top of the //e without any padding in between the two! There were some foam blocks on either end of the box, but no bubble wrap between the monitor and the //e. Plastic-on-plastic. Can you believe that!?
Needless to say, it’s pretty smashed up. Some of the keys are broken off. The monitor just kind of teeters on the one side since the front-right foot isn’t supported by anything.
The seller also included a ton of software. As you can see, the floppy holder was also smashed.
The //e was from an elementary school, so all the software are learning based tools/apps for kids. However, there were two original Apple floppies in the mix. That was a nice surprise.
Needless to say, I’ve already filed a claim with UPS for the damages. (Fingers crossed.)
Anyway, let’s have a look. It’s pretty dirty inside. I’m not going to bother cleaning it since I’m just going to replace this unit. On the upside, this unit came with a floppy controller and an 80 column / 64K memory expansion card.
The case is trashed, so for now I taped as much of it back together as I could.
Despite it having some broken keys and being all smashed up, it works. I got the chance to play around with some of the software and verify that the floppy drive works. For now, I’ll clean up the monitor and floppy drive and hop back on eBay for another //e.
For now, I put the floppy drive up against the side to try and conceal the damage. Once I get my hands on a new unit, I’ll most likely just sell this one. Worst-case scenario, I’ll buy a dead one on eBay on-the-cheap and swap the guts.