Outdoor photos: Apple IIc shown at Blue Water Lake, NM, March 2014
APPLE IIC BATTERY-PORTABILITY KIT!
Includes wires and connectors to operate your Apple IIc outdoors,
off-the-AC-power-grid! Do Apple II computing at the beach, on a mountain top,
or at any campground, even when the campground has no AC 115v outlets!
Use your Apple IIc with your car battery from the cigarette-lighter socket,
_or_ with a jump-start DC 12v battery, _or_ with alligator clips directly from the 12v
battery terminals. You will need to get a 12v flat-screen TV to use with your Apple
IIc, new on Ebay from $150.00. This battery-portability kit will work for overseas
international buyers also, because car batteries and jump-start batteries are 12 volts
DC, everywhere. My $22.22 battery portability kit supplies everything you will need
to run the IIc on a 12c DC source. I demonstrated this kit to the Apple II experts
at KansasFest, July 2014.
12v DC BATTERY PORTABILITY
KIT FOR APPLE IIc
"Its one small step for a IIc; But one
giant leap for the Apple II community."
For thirty years, the best feature of the Apple IIc
has been completely overlooked: This is the only
model of Apple II that is capable of running on DC
battery voltage. Not even the IIc Plus can equal this.
The IIc is different from all other Apple II models
for this reason: It has a two-stage power supply:
An external DC 15v power brick, combined with
an internal power converter. The external power brick
has a simple task of supplying just one DC voltage, and
+12 volts DC is in the middle of its acceptable voltage
range. The IIc Technical Reference manual states
that the internal voltage converter can receive
any DC voltage from 9v DC to 20v DC. The internal
converter then creates the several voltages used at
various places in the computer. All other Apple II's
require the power supply to create four separate voltages:
+5v DC, + 12v DC, -12v DC, and -5v DC.
WHAT YOU GET IN THIS PORTABILITY KIT
For $22.22 plus shipping, you will get the following:
IIc Battery portability kit with 4 items: (A) 12v plug with 4 ft. cord
to DIN-7 female plug (to connect to the IIc power input socket on
rear panel), (B) twin-splitter adapter (to supply 12v power both
to the IIc and also to the 12v DC monitor screen), (C) female DC
12v socket, with two alligator clips (To connect directly to 12v
battery terminals), and (D) 16 ft DC 12v extension cord (To
connect IIc and the monitor to a distant car cigarette lighter
socket, or directly to battery terminals, with car parked up to
15 ft away from picnic table), and instruction sheet. Three of the
four items have red LED indicator lamps, to help you monitor the
power flow through the IIc system.
WHAT IS PICTURED BUT IS NOT INCLUDED:
Apple IIC CPU, Jump-start yellow external 12v DC battery,
19" 12v DC color video monitor, Composite video cable
(RCA male to RCA male; everyone already has this cable.)
BASICS OF OPERATING THE KIT
The first two items, A and B, are essential and will always
be used when operating the IIc on a battery. Items C and D
add flexibility, if you wish to get DC power with alligator
clips or from a car parked as far as 16 feet from the IIc computer.
ITEM A has a cigarette lighter male plug (with LED lamp,
fuse, and push-on, push-off switch). At the end of the
four foot cable is the female DIN-7 power plug, that is
to be inserted into the IIc power socket. Insert the
cigarette plug into a power socket, and also plug
the other end of the short cable directly into your IIc.
The IIc will now be battery powered.
ITEM B is a DC12 volt dual-splitter, with red LED lamp. This
must be used every time, because your DC 12v flat screen
monitor must also be plugged in to receive power. In one
of the photos, you will see ITEM A plugged into the left
side of the dual-splitter, and the video monitor
plugged into the dual-splitter, on the right. With the
IIc and also the flat screen monitor connected via
short cable from the nearby DC Jump-Start battery
on the tabletop, you can start computing with the IIc.
ITEM C is a female cigarette lighter socket, attached
to two alligator clips. Polarity is color-coded:
Red is positive, black is negative. Connect the alligator
clips to the car battery, then plug the ITEM B dual-splitter
into the female socket of ITEM C. ITEM C is used if you wish
to run power directly from an independently-carried 12v
car battery, OR from the battery in your car parked at the
tent site. You may use a battery that is too dead to start
a car. In the photos, the yellow jump-start battery is my
old one; it is too weak to start a car, but it works fine with
the IIc computer. In a later update, I will tell how efficiently
the yellow jump-start battery will operate the computer;
I also have a newer jump-start battery and I will
also test its longevity in operating the IIc.
ITEM D is basically an extension cord, 16 feet long. It has
a male cigarette plug at one end, and a female cigarette
socket at the other end. The sole purpose for ITEM D is
flexibility, to allow the computer to be powered from
the car or RV camper 12v power socket, up to 16 feet
away from the picnic table where the IIc is positioned.
The wire in ITEM D is top quality! It is pure copper stranded
wire, AGW-16 or AWG-18 gauge, wire made in U.S.A. I nearly
was suckered into buying lower cost imported wire that had
the same red/black color; luckily, before buying it, I learned
that "CCA" means "copper-clad aluminum," an inferior
wire to pure copper stranded wire.