On Thursday 05 June 2003 06:39 am, Jules Richardson wrote:
Hi,
I came across a whole boxful of Apple II cards at the weekend that I'd
forgotten I actually owned. Unfortunately nearly all of my Apple hardware
is too far buried to really dig out at the moment and play around with any
of this stuff, but there's still a few cards that I'd be interested in
finding more about if possible and getting necessary software for.
Card images [640x480 resolution and around 60KB or thereabouts] are at:
http://www.moosenet.demon.co.uk/temp/apple2
PAL Colour Card: No idea as to manufacturer; mainly analogue circuitry on
board plus the modulator and a bit of TTL. Am I likely to need software for
this to work with a UK TV?
IC Test Card: Made by a Japanese company called Fairy, given the 20-pin
ZIF socket that (I assume) goes with this, I imagine it's a tester for TTL
logic chips. Most of the card's logic is buried beneath black gloop with
black cardboard over the top, so who knows what's under there - the 40-pin
chip with the 'test OK' sticker on it has had the markings ground off too.
Anyone heard of one of these or have software for one?
Vitalograph card: I gather Vitalograph these days make medical equipment.
Whether this card is from the same company or not I don't know - and ideas
what the 3-pin (XLR?) connector would have hooked up to? Some TTL on board,
some OP-amp chips. 40-pin chip is a 6522. All chips are date-coded 1980 or
1981.
Z80 Card: Actually a "Z80 Card II" made by Creative. Presumably software
exists for one of these somewhere still. No on-board memory, and 4 unknown
DIP-switches in the lower-right corner. CPU is Z80-A, card seems to have
been made in late 1982.
ROM Card: No idea what this is; presumably the 6 ROMs (2716 chips) contain
utilities that could have been accessed under software control? No idea
what the switch at the rear edge of the card does either.
80-column card: Marked as 'Chinex' and made by Creative, presumably
necessary software for this still exists somewhere? Any ideas what the
'middle' connector (with no cable attached) is for?
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? The 40-pin chip is marked as "S6821P",
whatever one of those is. 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'.
Card with 8 LEDs and 4 empty 16-pin DIL sockets ("unknown_02.jpg" on the
website): Any ideas? Possibly a joystick controller or something and the
joysticks plugged in via the DIL sockets? The two 40-pin chips are 6522's.
There's a back of 8 DIP-switches on board, plus a switch in the top-right
which just seems to enable or disable the LEDs as far as I can see.
Card with remote pushbutton switch ("unknown_03.jpg" on the website): All
TTL logic on board, ROM is a 2716 chip. Underside is labelled "Wild card".
Anyone seen one of these or know what it is?
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.
cheers for any help or pointers on the above,
Jules