Subject: RE: Unknown Apple 2 cards

From: "Davison, Lee" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu Jun 5 08:33:39 2003

Hello Jules,

> ZIF-socketed card ("unknown_04.jpg" on the website):  The ZIF socket
> is a 28-pin unit. I'd say it was a programmer, but wouldn't it need
> an external 24V (??) supply if that were true?

Looks like the Vpp generator is on the far right below the multiturn
pot. It will be something like TL497.

> The 40-pin chip is marked as "S6821P", whatever one of those is.

68xx series paralell I/O chip.

> The first 3 of the switches are labelled as '16', the next 3
> as '32' and the last 4 (overlapping by 1 with the previous 3) as '64'.

First three on for 2716, next 3 on for 2732 and the last 4 on for 2764.

> Card with 8 LEDs and 4 empty 16-pin DIL sockets ("unknown_02.jpg" on the
> website): Any ideas?

Looks like a digital I/O card. The 6522s are also paralell I/O chips.
Leads to the outside world would plug into the DIL sockets.

Cheers,
	Lee.

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From: "Keven Miller" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jun 6 14:21:35 2003

>okay i don't remember the exact name of it the card with the button, but it 
>was used as a hacking card, the button when pressed issued a NMI, so and goes 
>into a program on the ROM, and allows you to debug any program running at the 
>time, and can also save memory contents, it was used for hacking games and 
>removing copy protection from programs.

And I was going to be nice and just declare that I remember it as a debugging
tool; such that the push of a button got you to a debugging status.

___________________________________________________________________
Keven Miller   mailto:[email-masked]   http://www.exegesys.com

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From: Jules Richardson<[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jun 6 14:24:21 2003

> Is that Mitac computer an Apple II clone?

I hope to find out in the next few days :-}  I believe I was given it about 6-7
years ago and it's been on the list of things to look at someday ever since!!
It was next to the box of cards in the room where most of my comps are stored,
so I fished it out with the hope of trying to see if it works sometime over the
next few days.

It almost certainly appears to be a Japanese Apple 2 clone though, with
built-in disk interface, 80-column output, RF output (unsure whether that's
NTSC or PAL or even something else yet), joystick interfaces etc. all on two
boards within the machine - there's even a Z80 CPU in there but I'm not sure if
it behaves like a 'proper' CP/M card or if it's just there to control some of
the machine's hardware. Pretty loaded-up little beast anyway.

I've got both 120V and 220V power supplies for it; why someone would have had
both I'm not sure but there you go. I've also got two of the units that connect
to the expansion socket at the back of the machine and provide standard
(assuming it is a clone!) A2 bus connectors - again I have no idea why I have
two, not like I can use more than one at once anyway!

My Apple 2 disk drives and any kind of suitable monitor are all too far buried
at the moment for me to get at them, but I'll check the machine over for
obvious probs before trying to hook it up to my TV sometime in the next few
days.

I couldn't find any information on the machine on the 'net, but then I suppose
in the Apple 2's heyday there were an awful lot of clone machines around.

cheers

Jules

---

From: Jules Richardson<[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jun 6 14:24:43 2003

>> I came across a whole boxful of Apple II cards at the weekend that I'd
>> forgotten I actually owned.
>
>        Things get buried way to easily in this "Hobby",

yes they do - I've been moving around too much the last few years so pretty
much everything's been in storage. Hopefully all of my Sinclair and Acorn stuff
should be going on loan to a local technology museum at some point for display
- I hate the way everything's shut away in a room at the moment (er, actually
rooms, loft and with the bigger stuff in the garage :-)

> I was never really much of an apple user, came by my collection by
> fluike and just kept adding to it.

nor me. I was given an Apple /// with a couple of ProFile hard drives a few
years back and it started from there - I'm not sure what strange cards are
lurking in the machines themselves at present. 

If anyone comes up with anything interesting on these boards I'll let you know;
I've posted the same questions to comp.sys.apple2 but I'm not sure how active
the group is these days.

As far as the Z80 card goes a quick search of the 'net revealed a lot of 'Z80
card' boards but not 'Z80 card II' boards. I have no idea if the different name
is significant or not yet :)

cheers

Jules

---

From: Jules Richardson<[email-masked]>
Date: Sat Jun 7 19:26:00 2003

>> yep - someone's found the user manual for me (complete with details on 
>> how to hack the card to work with 27128 chips - ahhh, the good old days 
>> of computing!)
>
> Hey cool.  Are these in electronic form?  I'd like a copy.

yep, see: http://home.iprimus.com.au/figjams/apple2/AP-64e.pdf

Initial tests on the card seem to show it's working anyway. I need to dig out
the Apple manuals themselves to see how to use the monitor, in order to look at
data I've read from EPROM chips plugged into the card (just to verify that it's
reading OK)

>> need to hook one of the Apple systems up to the PC somehow so it can
>> communicate with the outside world. Probably be via serial, but if I 
>> had a SCSI card in the Apple in theory it could share a SCSI bus with 
>> the PC would would be interesting :)  (I've only ever seen that done 
>> between two identical modern SGI boxes - not between hardware with a 
>> 20 year time difference!)
>
> I don't see why it wouldn't work though.

I imagine the controller in the Apple needs to appear as a device on the SCSI
bus; I believe that rules out some of the available cards at least. Plus the ID
of either the Apple or PC controller would have to change from the default
obviously - I think this can be done with all the Adaptec PC cards I have, not
sure about the various Apple cards that are available. Would be an interesting
experiment to try anyway.

cheers

Jules