On Jan 26, 2012, at 10:51 AM, Richard wrote: Clever web distribution of an old idea! The application-centered one (which, I see, you can download the Apple II side for on that site) is at: http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/ Transfer is *much* faster over serial than over the cassette port, for obvious reasons, but if you don't have a compliant serial card (ADT Pro only works with the Super Serial card and derivatives, and all I have is an Apple Communications Card which maxes out at 300 baud unless you mod it anyway), you're pretty much SOL. The Apple II ethernet card (Uther) tends to be relatively hard to acquire. I'm almost tempted to make one myself, but it'll have to go on the ever-longer queue... - Dave

Kind of makes me wish I understood Portuguese better. :-) I can make out the gist of it from my very limited Spanish, though.

Alexandre, about the 188 processor: it was just an 8088 with some peripherals built in (like the iAPX186 was the 8086 with the same devices). Unfortunately, this chip was designed before the IBM PC became important so it used different addresses for the same funcionas (timers, dmas, interrupt controllers). You could build a DOS machine with this, but not a PC clone so it didn't last very long in the market.

And dual TMS32025s (for some of the early ones).

David Riley wrote: It is a prototype of a pre-Ethernet network card for the Apple II. I don't think it is related to the game server at all. though even earlier networks were similar. If I remember correctly, Amplus always used red coaxial cables to distinguish themselves from the competition who all used black. I don't remember them selling Apple II boards, only for PCs. Perhaps this prototype never reached the product stage? Alexandre, about the 188 processor: it was just an 8088 with some peripherals built in (like the iAPX186 was the 8086 with the same devices). Unfortunately, this chip was designed before the IBM PC became important so it used different addresses for the same funcionas (timers, dmas, interrupt controllers). You could build a DOS machine with this, but not a PC clone so it didn't last very long in the market. If this board has a reasonable amount of memory, then it actually is a more powerful computer than its Apple II host. -- Jecel

I'll take issue with that, Rob. Bill Davidow was on our board of directors. When the software and hardware people ptiched the Moto 68K as a processor for the new machine, Davidow got mad (the 80286 was still not ready for prime time) and said it would be a cold day in hell if any product he had any say in wouldn't use an Intel processor.

On 27 Jan 2012 at 0:08, Rob Doyle wrote: I'll take issue with that, Rob. Bill Davidow was on our board of directors. When the software and hardware people ptiched the Moto 68K as a processor for the new machine, Davidow got mad (the 80286 was still not ready for prime time) and said it would be a cold day in hell if any product he had any say in wouldn't use an Intel processor. At the time, DOS (MS, SC, or PC) wasn't an issue. We were pointed at the 80186, along with the yet-nascent 80286 (they'd gotten real-mode sort of working, but PM wasn't there yet). The 80186 early steppings we were given were pretty buggy--one bug that still sticks in my mind is one where the SI and DI registers could be destroyed if an interrupt hit during a DMA operation. We went up to Bellvue and talked to Microsoft about Xenix on 2 CPU machines and came away with a listing of the I/O mechanism used on the TRS-80 model 16 (uses the Z80 for I/O, but otherwise executes on the 68K). At no time did the subject of the PC ever come up, although we did port an early copy of MS-DOS (1.something) to the 80186. The subject of IBM PC compatibility never came up. Altos and Televideo were also involved in using the early 80186 steppings. The problem was that Intel didn't really have anything ready to supplant the 8086, which was already showing its age, particularly in comparison to the 68K and the not-yet-ready-for-primetime NSC CPU. The 432 project had fizzled badly and the 186 and 286 were the only thing Intel had close to being ready at the time. The support peripherals for the 8086 were really old technology as well, mostly created to work with the 8085. It's interesting that the 80C186 EC contains several IBM-PC compliant components, such as cascaded 8259 PICs. So DOS was somewhere in their minds. --Chuck

Rob Doyle <radioengr at gmail.com> writes: > It was never intended to do DOS. It was an embedded controller. > Most of the peripherals were not PC compliant and they certainly > weren't mapped at the right IO addresses. > > In fact, Intel made it a point to tweak the embedded controllers so > that they *could not* run DOS and they could sell them at embedded > processor prices. Witness the 80376 and 80386EX.

So look at a Brazilian Prototype: http://tabalabs.com.br/apple/rede_amplus/ (it used an 80188 [!!!] as main processor!!!)

It's been a long time since I've seen an 80186 or 80188 in a ceramic LCC package! Almost all of the "regular" 80188/86s (save for 80188EC) have been PLCC. Vintage, indeed. --Chuck

The subject, minus the word game, brought back a few fond memories. The junior high I went to the longest, Horace Man Junior High, added a computer lab and computer science class my 8th grade year - '83/'84. I took the class and have been hooked ever since. The school had an Apple ][ Plus "network." I don't remember all the details. The host had half a dozen floppy drives attached to it and all the "network" did was give several other computers access to those drives. If I remember correctly it ran ROS, the Remote Operating System. All the boxes on the network were daisy chained off the host by narrow ribbon cables. It was a one semester class. I did well enough that the teacher asked me to be her student aid the second semester. Ah, the memories.