CompactFlash / IDE Interface for Apple II

I hate first posts by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 10:55 · Score: -1, Offtopic

So I decided to wait!

Re:I hate first posts by Klerck · 2002-01-17 10:57 · Score: -1, Flamebait

Fuck you AC

* g o a t s e x * g o a t s e x * g o a t s e x * g g o / \ \ / \ o a \ a t `. : t s` \ s e \ / / \\\ -- \\ : e x \ \/ --~~ ~-- \ x * \ \-~ ~-\ * g \ \ .--------.___\ g o \ \// ((> \ o a \ . C ) ((> / a t /\ C )/ \ (> / t s / /\ C) (> / \ s e ( C__)\___/ // _/ / \ e x \ \\// (/ x * \ \) `---- --' * g \ \ / / g o / \ o a / \ \ a t / / \ t s / / \/\/ s e / e x x * g o a t s e x * g o a t s e x * g o a t s e x *
Re:I hate first posts by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 11:28 · Score: 0, Insightful

The last few months I have been doing some research into the trolling phenomenon on slashdot.org. In order to do this as thoroughly as possible, I have written both normal and troll posts, 1st posts, etc., both logged in and anonymously, and I have found these rather shocking results:

More moderator points are being used to mod posts down than up. Furthermore, when modding a post up, every moderator seems to follow previous moderators in their choices, even when it's not a particularly interesting or clever post [slashdot.org]. There are a LOT more +5 posts than +3 or +4.
Logged in people are modded down faster than anonymous cowards. Presumably these Nazi Moderators think it's more important to burn a user's existing karma, to silence that individual for the future, than to use the moderation system for what it's meant for : identifying "good" and "bad" posts (Notice how nearly all oppressive governments in the past and present do the same thing : marking individuals as bad and untrustworthy because they have conflicting opinions, instead of engaging in a public discussion about these opinions)
Once you have a karma of -4 or -5, your posts have a score of -1 by default. When this is the case, no-one bothers to mod you down anymore. This means a logged in user can keep on trolling as much as he (or she) likes, without risking a ban to post on slashdot. When trolling as an anonymous user, every post starts at score 0, and you will be modded down to -1 ON EVERY POST. When you are modded down a certain number of times in 24 hour, you cannot post anymore from your current IP for a day or so. So, for successful trolling, ALWAYS log in.
A lot of the modded down posts are actually quite clever [slashdot.org], funny [slashdot.org], etc., and they are only modded down because they are offtopic. Now, on a news site like slashdot, where the number of different topics of discussion can be counted on 1 hand, I must say I quite like the distraction these posts offer. But no, when the topic is yet another minor version change of the Linux kernel [slashdot.org], they only expect ooohs and aaahs about this great feat of engineering. Look at the moderation done in this thread [slashdot.org] to see what I mean.
Digging deep into the history of slashdot, I found this poll [slashdot.org], which clearly indicates the vast majority does NOT want the moderation we have here today. 'nuff said.
Feel free to use this information to your advantage. I thank you for your time
Re:I hate first posts by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 13:41 · Score: 0

you forgot the links... :(

addition: I always change my threshold to -1 to see what _smart_ people with an _opinion_ have to say...

That would be the best performing Apple ever by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 10:56 · Score: 0

Beats the freaky POS AIO they just made. Ick.

why? by miked50 · 2002-01-17 10:56 · Score: -1, Troll

Is this worth it other than the geek factor?

oh yeah FP..

Re:Why? by sacherjj · 2002-01-17 10:58 · Score: 2, Insightful

Seems like it would be easier to program the interface to the many Apple II emulators out there. Man, Apple II assembly seems so long ago. I guess it actually was so long ago...
Re:why? by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 11:00 · Score: 0

If you read the article instead of being a fuckwhat first poster you'd know that answer to that, as it's explained right at the top.

Oh well. I guess it's no more idiotic than other posts you've done (Like _Support_ and _Do_you_have_a_clue_)
Re:why? by Yakko · 2002-01-17 11:13 · Score: 4, Interesting

Why? This is easy! I've dreamed of designing my own IDE/PCMCIA/CF board just for this purpose. I have a IIgs and a IIe. The motivation stems generally from the scarcity of mass storage solutions for the IIe -- the UniDisk 3.5 is VERY hard to get your hands on today, and I have yet to see the fabled "SuperDrive" card that lets you use a 1.44MB drive. In the IIgs arena, the Apple High-Speed (or any other) SCSI card is very hard to acquire without fierce competition on ebay.
Some outfits sell the Focus Drive, which purportedly works with a 2.5" IDE disk... But seeing as how CF has dropped in comparison to a hard drive, and it's smaller, and it generates no(t a lot of) heat, and doesn't make you waste loads of space on the IIe, it has appeal.
I see the guy uses the same emulation tools I do -- I ported ADT to ProDOS chiefly to get my 6502 mojo working again... and Apple II Oasis is the best IIe emulator out for win32.
I'll most likely throw my name into the hat for a board... hopefully this is US-based. All the neat AppleII boards seem to originate in Europe for some reason.

--

-- Me spell chucker work grate. Need grandma chicken.
Re:Why? by dmarcov · 2002-01-17 11:15 · Score: 2

Ok -- I'll just risk the off-topic mod-smack-down -- but Damn!

How can the parent post be modded down as redundant when it is the 2nd post made? That just makes no sense.
Re:Why? by damiam · 2002-01-17 11:25 · Score: 1

Probably because the first post asks the same question.

--
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Re:Why? by Mr_Matt · 2002-01-17 12:23 · Score: 0, Offtopic

...and the first post to ask the question got modded out of existence. It's redundant to...a post that nobody can see. Gotta love it. :)

--

But what does my opinion matter, I just vote here. It's not like I have any money or anything.
Re:Why? by seanadams.com · 2002-01-17 13:09 · Score: 2

How can the parent post be modded down as redundant when it is the 2nd post made?

Posts which state the obvious are usually modded down as redundant, and rightly so. We don't need to be told that non-geeks would find this practically useless.
Re:Why? by Zeinfeld · 2002-01-17 13:30 · Score: 4, Insightful

How can the parent post be modded down as redundant when it is the 2nd post made? That just makes no sense.
Perhaps because the question is so obvious it hardly needs to be stated.
The IDE controller/emulator in the CF card is almost certainly many times faster and more powerful than the Apple II.
Still I can see a reason for building a device like that. The Apple ][ disk drives were 5 1/4" and sloooooow. Maintaining them is tricky and the media is rapidly reaching its sell by date. The interface would be worth it simply to be able to take a library of Apple ][ floppies and read them onto a modern media.
The apple II might be somewhat defunct, but there are still important bits of data stored on Apple II disks, like experimental results, audit reports and the like. The kind of information that you simply don't want to lose. Unless perhaps your accountants are you know who and your tax strategy consists of forming 861 shell companies and making large campaign contributions...

--
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
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Re:Why? by damiam · 2002-01-17 13:36 · Score: 1

Possibly the parent got modded down before the original first post. Or maybe the moderators were browsing at -1 and saw the first post anyway. Or maybe the other posters in this thread are right that it was modded down because it's a dumb question. Or maybe someone should just mod this whole thread offtopic.

--
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Re:Why? by jejones · 2002-01-17 14:17 · Score: 2

Well...I personally have three CoCo 3s, and I wouldn't mind a flash card to move data among them. Mark Marlette of Cloud-9 is working on the ultimate CoCo 3 add-on card, to support 2 Mbytes of RAM, flash, ethernet, two good serial ports, clock, an AT keyboard interface, SCSI, IDE, and MIDI. (I may have overlooked some things.) He's already done SCSI, the 2 Mbyte RAM hack, the clock, and the AT keyboard interface on other addons in the past, so I'm confident he can do it. IDE's already been done for the CoCo at least a couple of times--once as a Glenside Color Computer Club project, and once by a fellow who has done an amazing number of CoCo hardware projects on his own.

I have deposits down on three of the cards, one per CoCo of course. Now, if only someone would put one of the 6809, or better still, 6309, reimplementations on a FPGA or ASIC...
Re:why? by jdavidb · 2002-01-17 14:35 · Score: 2

In the IIgs arena, the Apple High-Speed (or any other) SCSI card is very hard to acquire without fierce competition on ebay.

Really? Wow; I never knew that. I've got one of those; we bought one along with a hard drive and IIGs System 6 when I realized the Apple II was dying.

--
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
Re:why? by Yakko · 2002-01-17 15:17 · Score: 1

I should add, in all fairness, that such a setup (IIgs with SCSI) may be common in conventional areas, like the garage sale, or the Goodwill... I just prefer finding this kit online. Perhaps something like reading the classifieds would help. :o)

--

-- Me spell chucker work grate. Need grandma chicken.
Re:why? by ncc74656 · 2002-01-17 17:37 · Score: 2

In the IIgs arena, the Apple High-Speed (or any other) SCSI card is very hard to acquire without fierce competition on ebay.

Really? Wow; I never knew that.

Accelerators and SCSI cards both get bid up into the stratosphere. I got my ZipGS and RamFAST for reasonable prices in the early 90s (somewhere around $100 each, IIRC), but they'd probably get 2-3x that if I put them on eBay.
I wish I still had my RocketChip. 10 MHz on a IIe was schweeeet. The guy who bought it from me still has it AFAIK; I wonder if I could buy it back...

--
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 20:32 · Score: 0

If all of your important tax information is residing on rapidly deteriorating 5.25" floppies and you don't have a backup already then you shouldn't consider yourself a geek and you shouldn't be attempting an IDE card for your //.

Do not attempt run-on sentences like this at home.
Re:Why? by CrazyBusError · 2002-01-17 22:24 · Score: 1

And it would be backed up onto what?

--
-Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience-
Re:why? by JimPooley · 2002-01-17 23:07 · Score: 1, Troll

How the hell does this get moderated as a troll?
It's a perfectly valid point.

WHY!

Why the hell bother? Does the guy building this thing have absolutely no life?

Why hark back to "The Good Old Days" when they weren't "Good" at all! What was so good about the "Good Old Days" when computers were painfully slow and unfriendly and games consisted of "move the blob and fire a smaller blob at another blob", and if you HAD a wordprocessor you had no idea what stuff was going to come out like or even if it would at all!

Fuck that. I'll take my 2Ghz P4 over any clapped out old Apple II any day.

This whole exercise is a pointless waste of time. The guy doing this obviously has some skill, knowledge and talent, and it's a damn shame he's choosing to waste it on some old crap.

--

"Information wants to be paid"
Re:why? by gozar · 2002-01-18 02:03 · Score: 1

This is obviously someone that does not have found memories of '80s computing. I still have my Atari800XL hooked up to dink around on. I've also bought several Apple //'s because I could never afford them in the day.

The old computers are not there to replace, but enhance.

It is the same as people who put so much work in classic cars...

--
What, me worry?
Re:Why? by PatMouser · 2002-01-18 03:16 · Score: 1

Well, I'm not sure about the Apple 2 series, but I've been thinking about this for my VAX. It's got this little firmware issue. It won't boot off of a disc larger than 1 g. Those drives are getting a little harder to find, and having something like this would help.
Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-18 12:18 · Score: 0

Because the OS only supported disk volumes in 32MB max size. 8-bit directory mapping I think. Seems only compact flash comes in sizes small enough to meet this limitation now.

Hard Drives are ridiculously huge, and it would be pointless to create 50 or more disk volumes at 32MB a chunk for even a rare 1GB drive.

Why? by damiam · 2002-01-17 10:56 · Score: 2, Redundant

Aside from the coolness factor, why would anyone want to use CompactFlash on an Apple II?

--
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.

Talk about pinching pennies by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 10:56 · Score: 3, Funny

For god's sake, man! Get yourself a newer computer!

Re:Talk about pinching pennies by hans_e · 2002-01-17 11:15 · Score: 1

No doubt. Or just print yourself one.
Re:Talk about pinching pennies by Mr_Matt · 2002-01-17 12:30 · Score: 3, Funny

In related news, NVidia announced today it's providing binary-only driver support for its line of GeForce video cards used in wooden abacuses. When asked about this, a company spokesperson replied "Well, we know there's virtually no market for putting a 3-D accelerated device driver for an analog computer without a display, but what the hell, it's a slow newsday on Slashdot, so why not get the geeks drooling?"

--

But what does my opinion matter, I just vote here. It's not like I have any money or anything.

Finally! by Drakula · 2002-01-17 10:56 · Score: 5, Funny

The last piece I need for my Apple ][e mp3 jukebox!

j/k

--
"It's comin' back around again..." -RATM

Re:Finally! by PorcelainLabrador · 2002-01-17 11:23 · Score: 2, Offtopic

If we head down this road =) , would an Apple IIe have the horsepower to decode mp3's in realtime? I'm tending not to think so.
Has anyone tried this? =)
Re:Finally! by Yakko · 2002-01-17 11:33 · Score: 2, Funny

Quoting from Dilbert here in regards to the time required to decode an mp3:
I don't have an exact timeline, but it's about the same time the Sun becomes a cold dark chunk of coal the size of your forehead.
I think you'd at least be able to go grab a pizza before you hear anything. :o)

--

-- Me spell chucker work grate. Need grandma chicken.
Re:Finally! by jerrytcow · 2002-01-17 11:36 · Score: 2, Informative

would an Apple IIe have the horsepower to decode mp3's in realtime

Even Macs with a 68K CPU aren't fast enough (all PPC Macs can though), so if your question is for real, then no, the 1.8 MHz MOS 6502 won't cut it.
Re:Finally! by Toraz+Chryx · 2002-01-17 11:44 · Score: 2, Interesting

I think a 68060 would probably be just about fast enough...

'except no mac ever actually shipped with one of those :/

(Amiga's did though :)
Re:Finally! by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 11:47 · Score: 1, Informative

Wrong. There is a port of mpg123 for 68k mac. However, you need at least a 68040LC to use it.
Re:Finally! by NoMoreNicksLeft · 2002-01-17 12:25 · Score: 2, Informative

Amigas never shipped with an 060 either. Those were after market boards.

And to reply to the parent post, while an Apple IIe could never decode mp3's, I see no reason why someone couldn't design a real sound card for the thing, with enough co-processor power to do that also. It wouldn't be impossible, even to intercept the "bell" device in system memory, and play a nicer fm tone, giving it backwards compatibility.

Oh, and as for the questions regarding compact flash, he chose that undoubtedly, because CF is actually the same as IDE electrically. Only the mechanical interface is different. If you were to make a converter cable, windows or linux would even recognize it as a valid /dev/hdx device.
Re:Finally! by cpt+kangarooski · 2002-01-17 12:39 · Score: 2

A standard one? Probably not.

But I imagine that if you had a chip fab available, it wouldn't be particularly difficult to apply modern manufacturing techniques to develop a single CPU package with multiple, multi-gigahertz 6502 processors.

Who said it had to be stock hardware? ;)

--
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Re:Finally! by Yakko · 2002-01-17 12:41 · Score: 2, Interesting

It wouldn't be impossible, even to intercept the "bell" device in system memory, and play a nicer fm tone, giving it backwards compatibility.
Hrrmm... I'm now thinking of ways to do that.
1) Watch for accesses to $C030. The problem here is that any program accessing the speaker this way gets intercepted.
2) Alter 3 bytes starting at $FF3A to jump to your routine. The chief problem with this is you'd be having to alter ROM. Not impossible; just a little more difficult, depending on which Apple ][ you have.
3) Use the Language Card's version of the Monitor ROM at all times, and have its $FF3A patched. Big drawback here is you'll lose the nice bell the instant you want to use ProDOS. :o)
Thought-provoking, tho...

--

-- Me spell chucker work grate. Need grandma chicken.
Re:Finally! by dbremner · 2002-01-17 12:54 · Score: 1

IIRC, some guy wrote an mp3 player for a NEXTSTATION in 68k assembly. So it's possible, if painful.

--

Life is a psychology experiment gone awry.
Re:Finally! by NoMoreNicksLeft · 2002-01-17 13:00 · Score: 1

Any program that accesses the speaker would be a good candidate for interception. Even if they only want the beep, we could give them a choice of beeps, for instance. And if they try to play music with the thing, it's difficult, but not impossible, to intercept that, and generate FM tones that sound alot better (tough because you have no idea how it should sound, until it's almost too late to play it) Imagine playing donkey kong, but with better music. Hell, with a real sound card, and a real hard drive for the thing... it's halfway to being usable in a modern sense.
Re:Finally! by Parsec · 2002-01-17 13:14 · Score: 1

The co-processor may have enough power, but would the system bus? My guess is that the co-processor would require its own IO interface, and then why bother with the Apple II.
Re:Finally! by NoMoreNicksLeft · 2002-01-17 14:09 · Score: 1

Why wouldn't it? Moving a 3 meg file across the bus, over a period of roughly 3 minutes, is certainly possible for the Apple II. This is mp3 after all, not CSS encoded mpeg2.
Re:Finally! by JabberWokky · 2002-01-17 14:13 · Score: 2

would an Apple IIe have the horsepower to decode mp3's in realtime?
You might be able to reprogram the IDE controller... it is more powerful. Heh.
Or, much more likely, get a PlayStation MP3 decoder slap on the back style chip and interface that. Wire it in so the thing interfaces through a Game Boy, and strip it all down so it's portable.
Instant Karma's gonna get you...
--
Evan

--
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Re:Finally! by Jaysyn · 2002-01-17 14:44 · Score: 1

Would that be a gPod?

Jaysyn

--
There is a war going on for your mind.
Re:Finally! by Toraz+Chryx · 2002-01-18 00:47 · Score: 1

Actually, when Escom were selling Amiga's after the Commodore buyout, they shipped an A4000/60 Tower.. until they went under themselves :p

like so (note the "Motorola 68060 50Mhz optional")
Re:Finally! by Chelloveck · 2002-01-18 02:20 · Score: 2

Way back in the day, some smart cookie wrote an audio digitizer for the Apple ][ series. Plug an audio source into the cassette jack, and the software did a 1-bit digitization of it. It could even play back though the Apple's speaker. Sure, the audio quality was crummy, but hey... It was digital audio. It was cool. I think I typed the assembly listing in by hand from some magazine.

And Ozzy's "Iron Man" came out sounding pretty much the same as the original album...

Just last night some buddies and I were talking about Stupid Networking Tricks. We decided that writing a PPP-over-cassette-port hack wouldn't be too difficult. Wonder what kind of bandwidth you could get?

--
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
Re:Finally! by NoMoreNicksLeft · 2002-01-18 03:39 · Score: 1

You already have uIP and lwIP to use, so only the ppp portion is necessary. Would need more than that, an ftp client, ping, and telnet would be enough to play with. But, if I were you, I'd buy a $5 super serial card off of ebay. 19.2k would be pretty awesome on the thing.

Or, you could grab a Workstation card, and a Localtalk PC isa card (for the linux box, of course) and try to implement the MacTCP over ltalk protocol. Even with overhead, that coud probably reach 50-70k speeds.

And then, if you want to send me $100, I'd build you an ethernet card for the thing. The design is as finished as it can be on paper (actually gerber and vhdl files). But, having learned not 2 hours ago, that my project is canceled, and I'll be scraping by on unemployment again, my plans to save up some cash for a prototype pcb to be made are on hold once again.

Oh, and completely off topic, but if I see another letter to the editor, with HR people complaining they can't find qualified IT people, I will go insane and murder as many people as I can before they shoot me down like a rabid dog. :-)
Re:Finally! by UberLame · 2002-01-18 07:06 · Score: 1

Are you sure he didn't make use of the DSP chip for a lot of the work?

--
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me.
Re:Finally! by Timex · 2002-01-18 08:25 · Score: 1

The magazine was probably either Nibble or Compute!.... :)

If you follow usenet, comp.sys.apple2 talks about all sorts of things that people are doing with their Apple II systems. (I still have my Apple IIgs, so of course i'm interested in this story!)

There's stuff like a PPP protocol written by a gentleman in Australia, there's GNO/ME (a unix-like overlay for the IIgs's GS/OS), and more.

--
When politicians are involved, everyone loses.
Re:Finally! by dbremner · 2002-01-18 14:29 · Score: 1

Here's a ref from google, make of it what you will.

--

Life is a psychology experiment gone awry.

Never underestimate the power of a by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 10:57 · Score: -1, Troll

true mac geek

Re:Never underestimate the power of a by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 11:45 · Score: 0

Never underestimate the power of a (Score:-1, Troll)

You said it, brotha!

Propz to all ma dead sporkies!!!

Timothy ... by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 10:57 · Score: -1, Offtopic

Slow Down Cowboy.

Slashdot requires you to wait 20 seconds between posting stories.

the first time I saw this... by Em+Emalb · 2002-01-17 10:57 · Score: 1

I thought it read Compaqflash. I was like, "why the hell would anyone wanna use Compaq? They are mainly proprietary." *snort* Ah, time to make the donuts.

--
Sent from your iPad.

I love my Commodore 64! by diwolf · 2002-01-17 10:58 · Score: 4, Funny

When I was a lad, and my brother had a C64, and I bought an Apple //c, he laughed at me because my Apple only went 'beep, beep, beep' while his C64 played music, and had better graphics. Well, the jokes on him now! I can still use my Apple to play Asteroid--now with 64MB!! Geeze, I can load Appleworks into memory like 500 times, and still have room left over!

Boy, technology sure has come a LONG way!

Re:I love my Commodore 64! by jimmcq · 2002-01-17 11:05 · Score: 1

I can still use my Apple to play Asteroid--now with 64MB!! Geeze, I can load Appleworks into memory like 500 times, and still have room left over!

These are used as storage (ala hard-drives)... not memory (ala RAM).
Re:I love my Commodore 64! by mikolas · 2002-01-17 11:19 · Score: 3, Informative

Have you ever checked out the IDE64 project or the CMD product portfolio? I'd love to have those for my C64, but I'll save the money for a G4 turboboard for my Amiga 3000. :-) Retro is cool!
Re:I love my Commodore 64! by Lars+T. · 2002-01-17 11:30 · Score: 2

Time to build Virtual Memory into ProDOS. Ohh, and the drives are faster than the original RAM.

--
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Re:I love my Commodore 64! by NoMoreNicksLeft · 2002-01-17 12:29 · Score: 1

You'd have to settle for a g2 board for the 3k, it's limited in which accelerators it will accept. And if you haven't already, PLEASE open the thing and rip out the original battery. I just bought my 3000 a week ago, for $10, thinking I had such a great bargain. A 1/6th of the motherboard now has blue fuzz, and it will take me at least 40 hours of free time to repair it correctly. Damn you C=, for using cheap batteries (and murdering the coolest computer platform ever).
Re:I love my Commodore 64! by Toraz+Chryx · 2002-01-18 04:38 · Score: 1

?

I've seen an A3000 with a G4 500/68060 card in it?

(It was an A3000 tower tho')
Re:I love my Commodore 64! by NoMoreNicksLeft · 2002-01-18 05:57 · Score: 1

G4 amiga boards are the very definition of vaporware. In addition to that, you have the few vendors that make such things catering only to the a4000 and a1200.

You certainly mean you've seen a 604e/060 board, which is a generation 2 PPC ("G2"). And with amigaOne ("We've stepped 3999 steps backward!!!") coming out, or not coming out, soon... most of those vendors have put on hold the few new products they might have released.
Re:I love my Commodore 64! by mikolas · 2002-01-18 10:52 · Score: 1

This is offtopic, but do you happen to know a good way to expand A3000 RAM without using ZIP-packeged DRAM? I only have 8 megs of fast RAM on board and that's hardly enough for running Linux...
Re:I love my Commodore 64! by NoMoreNicksLeft · 2002-01-18 11:20 · Score: 1

Email me at jojo4@spamsucks.mediaone.net.nospam, that is, provided you can decode the address. ;-)

preview feature by anal-johnson · 2002-01-17 10:59 · Score: -1

....it's not just for lusers

"I am very impressed with the work this guys work."

One Simple Question by Fecal+Troll+Matter · 2002-01-17 11:00 · Score: 0, Insightful

Why?

Huh? by TheGreenLantern · 2002-01-17 11:01 · Score: 1

IDE / CompactFlash Interface card for 8 bit Apple II series of computers

What, for when you absolutely, positively have to access a ton of information very, very slowly?

OK, I know, it's not the end result so much as it is the process. Still seems rather odd.

--

It hurts when I pee.

Re:Huh? by Smoking · 2002-01-17 11:06 · Score: 1

What, for when you absolutely, positively have to access a ton of information very, very slowly?

Yeah, you mean like when surfing the web?
Re:Huh? by Magus424 · 2002-01-17 11:09 · Score: 0, Offtopic

You surf the web slowly? Get broadband :P

--
-- Gone Crazy, Back Later
Re:Huh? by Yakko · 2002-01-17 11:57 · Score: 1

What, for when you absolutely, positively have to access a ton of information very, very slowly?
Even if the data gets presented thru ProDOS and to the system at 50kB/sec, it's still a whopping improvement over what most Apple IIe users use now: the disk][ and ProDOS8's disk][ driver. This is like having a BUNCH of copies of /RAM all accessible as one volume, and just as fast as /RAM... and you don't have to worry about losing its contents when powering off or waiting for /RAM to load when you boot.
I wonder if it's SmartPort-compatible. . .

--

-- Me spell chucker work grate. Need grandma chicken.

The real question on everyones' minds is.. by sid_vicious · 2002-01-17 11:01 · Score: 5, Funny

Can you punch a hole in the corner of the flash card and flip it over?

--
If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.

I appreciate this on merit... by mystery_bowler · 2002-01-17 11:02 · Score: 2, Troll

...but usually when I see an article or bit of "old-meets-new" tech news, it has a real purpose. Like having a better way to get old heirchical (sp?) data off a legacy system mainframe. But this piece leads to the question of "Who needs to expand their Apple II?"

The Apple II was a desktop system, not a big mainframe. I have my doubts that many critical systems were built for the Apple II. I doubt even more that those critical systems, if they ever existed at all, weren't converted to some other system years ago.

Again, I don't want to take away from the sheer "geek-cool" factor of this. It's a neat little technological achievement. But, for the life of me, I can't think of a useful thing to accomplish with it.

--

My sigs always suck.

Re:I appreciate this on merit... by swb · 2002-01-17 11:10 · Score: 2

I have my doubts that many critical systems were built for the Apple II.

Since the Apple II was an early personal computer and highly hackable, I knew of many that got pressed into service as data collection devices in labs and so on, not to mention as word processors or small databases where some analog solution would have been used otherwise since the cost of your critical systems would have been prohibitive.

Just because you didn't do anything useful with it doesn't mean others didn't.
Re:I appreciate this on merit... by gregbaker · 2002-01-17 11:47 · Score: 2, Insightful

I have my doubts that many critical systems were built for the Apple II.

I remember once talking to a computer dealer who was one of the last to sell and support Apple II hardware in Canada. He said he had a customer who came in about once a year and bought an Apple II system. He had some system (probable not "critical" in the purest sense, but important anyway) that ran on the Apple. It was cheaper and easier for him to have a good store of backup hardware than port the system up to something else.
You never know where old machines are running in forgotten corners of the world. I do agree that most of them would have been long since ported over to current hardware.
Re:I appreciate this on merit... by joe90 · 2002-01-17 11:50 · Score: 4, Interesting

The state owned TV company in NZ (TVNZ) up until very recently (Q4, 2001) used an Apple ][+ or Apple //e to power their Teletext system (a simplex news & info terminal built into most TV's sold in NZ). They've recently upgraded to a Sun Solaris host to provide the same functionality. The reason: they were no longer able to get spare parts and the system did start to become somewhat unreliable.

So while the system may not have been critical, it did provide a public service, produced revenue and worked moderately well - hardware faults excepted.

It wouldn't surprise me that much to hear that other organisations still use older technology to deliver a solution. After all, why fix it unless it's broken?

--

Fast, cheap & reliable. Pick two.
Re:I appreciate this on merit... by NoMoreNicksLeft · 2002-01-17 12:41 · Score: 1

Usefullness? Try these...

Teaching the guy who designed it, how hardware really works, how to manage a complex hw project, etc.

Allowing those that can't afford $1000 for a modern pc, to still be able to do something useful.

Keeping a computer out of a landfill, that while cool, has who knows how many toxic metals and chemicals in it (cadmium in the plastic shell comes to mind).

Historical reasons, by making it possible to easily and quickly backup 5.25" media that is quickly succumbing to bitrot.

Making it all the more possible to port linux to the Apple II, and don't you dare call it ridiculous. Progress has been made porting ELKS to the z80, and I see no reason that the 65c02 is any less worthy or capable.

The truth of the matter is, if I had to use an Apple IIe as my only computer, it wouldn't be that painful with enough upgrades like this. I spend better than 50% of my computer time in console mode, and when I don't, all I have open is Netscape and a dozen terminal windows. And as far as your game fix goes, I hope I can find the time someday to design the SVGA card I want to do for the Apple. As a teaser, just think 100mhz StrongARM doing accelerated blitting and vector functions, and maybe even to the point that Doom would run on the thing.
Re:I appreciate this on merit... by Zeelan · 2002-01-17 12:42 · Score: 1

You have never worked for a government contracter have you? We still had critical systems running on C64s as of two years ago. I think they still do actually.
Re:I appreciate this on merit... by danb35 · 2002-01-17 13:17 · Score: 1

Actually, there was an SVGA card out about 7-8 years ago; I had one. Don't remember the name (Second Sight, maybe?), or even the manufacturer, but I recall that Jawaid Bazyar (pretty sure I spelled that correctly) was involved with the project.
Speaking of Linux, Jawaid was also involved with the GNO/ME project, which brought Unix-like multitasking to the Apple IIgs (it did require the '816 chip, though, so it wouldn't run on a //e).
Re:I appreciate this on merit... by osu-neko · 2002-01-17 13:42 · Score: 2, Insightful

This would not surprise me. Most people who actually have working systems doing a job know that, despite popular myth, computers don't become obsolete. They break down eventually, but until they do, they can still run all the software they ever could at the same speed they always did. If an Apple II was fine to do a job in 1979, it's still fine to do that same job in 2002. If the job requirements haven't changed, and it's still working, why waste money upgrading to something you don't need and throw away a perfectly good solution because some idiots think if it's not the latest and greatest hardware it's useless?

--
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Re:I appreciate this on merit... by NoMoreNicksLeft · 2002-01-17 14:07 · Score: 1

A gs only board, and high priced on the used market. Not nearly powerful enough to suit my tastes... so eventually, I'll get around to doing my own.
Re:I appreciate this on merit... by ncc74656 · 2002-01-17 15:34 · Score: 2

The Second Sight worked on the IIe as well, though most of 'em more than likely ended up in IIGS systems. My understanding was that it mostly worked, but had a few issues (IIRC, it didn't do fill-mode SHR and might've had problems with 3200-color mode). I ended up eventually tracking down a VGA monitor that'd plug directly into my GS instead and work with its slow refresh rate (60 Hz vertical, 15.75 kHz horizontal)...an NEC MultiSync 3D, which works great through the "Mac adapter" that came with it. As an added bonus, it's compatible with everything else around here with a VGA port.

--
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Re:I appreciate this on merit... by nzhavok · 2002-01-17 16:10 · Score: 2

I never knew that ran on IIe's, for some reason I always thought it ran on BBC computers, live and learn I suppose.

I still reckon teletext is a pretty good way to get snippets of news, just wish I could get it on a web page some times.

--

He who defends everything, defends nothing. -- Fredrick The Great
Re:I appreciate this on merit... by mrdogi · 2002-01-17 17:28 · Score: 1

I can easily think of a use. First one that came to mind was to put one of these in my //gs. Or better, put one in all 6 of them. Yeah, it's just for 8-bit right now, but I'd bet somebody will create a driver for GS/OS before long.
Re:I appreciate this on merit... by joe90 · 2002-01-20 09:40 · Score: 1

This article contains an extremely non-technical article on the port from an Apple ][e to the Solaris based solution. I believe that the UK used to have a similar system - maybe that was powered by a BBC computer?

It always surprised by that Teletext didn't jump on the Internet bandwagon - I would have thought that a Teletext set-top box would have been the next logical progression from what they currently do.

--

Fast, cheap & reliable. Pick two.

what is the real life application to this? by sniepre · 2002-01-17 11:02 · Score: 4, Interesting

just think how much space 64mb is to an apple ][e.... no more flipping disks!

true the technology of the host machine is slightly outdated but hell.... you could probably fit one's entire software collection onto a single card, and not have to worry about changing a disk. program the flash and just pop it in, run whatever you like.....

my question is , is there an easy way to access the filesystem other than on an apple?

--
Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves? -Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Re:what is the real life application to this? by Yakko · 2002-01-17 11:28 · Score: 2, Informative

my question is , is there an easy way to access the filesystem other than on an apple?
It's off the top of my head, but I believe that AppleII::ProDOS can do this from Perl... it'd be a fun project for me some weekend, as my perl-fu needs work.
Not exactly easy, since you do have to write an app, but there're tools out there.

--

-- Me spell chucker work grate. Need grandma chicken.
Re:what is the real life application to this? by mrseigen · 2002-01-17 11:45 · Score: 1

The Classic MacOS (dunno if OS X supports it) can read/write/format ProDOS filesystems natively. It can even burn ProDOS cd's.
Re:what is the real life application to this? by edrugtrader · 2002-01-17 11:54 · Score: 1

thanks for inventing the hard drive...

i actually had a 40MB HDD in my Apple ][
cost like $5000 for the whole system, and needless to say, i was the coolest kid on the block.

--
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E

Apple II led me to the NES scene by yerricde · 2002-01-17 11:03 · Score: 2, Interesting

Without the experience I had with 6502 assembly language on the Apple II trying to get a gambling game suite called "Place Your Bets" to respond to keypresses and draw graphics faster than Applesoft Molasses Basic, I never would have had the knowledge of the 6502 processor necessary for NES development.

That's funny... the last computer I owned that I didn't write a Tetris clone for was an Apple II.

--
Will I retire or break 10K?

spoke too soon by nzhavok · 2002-01-17 11:04 · Score: 2

If there was enough interest in this project I would love to make a small batch of boards to sell to those interested. But I would need at least 10 orders, and it may be hard to find 10 people interested in something like this

Looks like you spoke too soon pal, bet you'll wish you hadn't asked in a few hours ;-)

--

He who defends everything, defends nothing. -- Fredrick The Great

Re:spoke too soon by Tackhead · 2002-01-17 11:55 · Score: 2

> > If there was enough interest in this project I would love to make a small batch of boards to sell to those interested. But I would need at least 10 orders, and it may be hard to find 10 people interested in something like this
>
> Looks like you spoke too soon pal, bet you'll wish you hadn't asked in a few hours ;-)
In a few hours, it'll be "I need to sell at least 100 to pay my bandwidth bill!"

How about the other way around? by d5w · 2002-01-17 11:05 · Score: 2

I spent my first few glances at this wondering whether it was more likely that someone would put a compact flash slot into an Apple II or whether someone would put an Apple II (equivalent) into a compact flash device. I wonder if the latter wouldn't be marginally more useful: got an old Apple II program? Run it on your handheld.

Re:How about the other way around? by Mean_Nishka · 2002-01-17 11:14 · Score: 1

Ah! But you can! Go here and you can download a fully functional Apple ][+ emulator for your PocketPC. It's great stuff and I believe the current version even works with the Targus stowaway keyboard.

--
www.lonseidman.com
Re:How about the other way around? by clarkgoble · 2002-01-17 12:09 · Score: 0

Damn but that brings back memories. I hadn't considered Crisis Mountain in years. Great game. And who can forget the first version of Castlewolfstenstein? (With yet an other sequel) Unfortunately he hasn't ported the original Wizardry or Utlima - the grand-daddies of all turn based RPGs.
Re:How about the other way around? by seanadams.com · 2002-01-17 13:18 · Score: 2

I spent my first few glances at this wondering whether it was more likely that someone would put a compact flash slot into an Apple II or whether someone would put an Apple II (equivalent) into a compact flash device.

You mean an emulator? There are tons of Apple ][ emulators already.

What I'd like to see is a complete Apple ][ on a single chip. The ][+ schematics used to come with the computer, and I think 65C02 cores are freely available. You could easily fit an entire Apple ][, along with disk controllers, video, etc in a single $200 FPGA. Screw emulators, I want a hard Apple ][ clone!
Re:How about the other way around? by osu-neko · 2002-01-17 14:28 · Score: 1

Actually, the Mega II VLSI chip on the Apple IIgs motherboard is an entire Apple IIe minus CPU, RAM, and ROM, shrunk onto a single chip...

--
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Re:How about the other way around? by bjb · 2002-01-18 01:37 · Score: 1

What I'd like to see is a complete Apple ][ on a single chip.

Actually, I believe the Mac LC's //e board was built around a single-chip ][. Here is a picture. I might be wrong, but I believe the surrounding chips are simply interfaces to the disk drives and Macintosh.

--
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...

Yee-haw! Let me know when the Commodore 64 version by Myself · 2002-01-17 11:06 · Score: 2, Funny

is finished. :)

LOAD "*",8

(retrieve munchies from fridge)

(complain that the 1541 drive is a slow P.O.S.)

(fall asleep)

READY.

When I was a kid (Apple II Plus) by Ralph+Malph+Alpha · 2002-01-17 11:07 · Score: 1

We used to have a saying in my family about our Apple II Plus. It was something along the lines of "Apple? Or Japple?"

I would always say Japple just to piss my father off. He sure was crazy.

--
_________________
EBAY SAFETY TIPZ!

Re:When I was a kid (Apple II Plus) by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 12:56 · Score: 0

That's just because your dad was Japanese.

By the lack of activity on that link... by BoBathan · 2002-01-17 11:08 · Score: 2, Funny

I'd have to say that the Apple II doesn't make a very good web server.

--
EOF

Re:By the lack of activity on that link... by emmons · 2002-01-17 14:26 · Score: 1

To my knowledge, none of the origional Apples have been made into a webserver yet. Only a souped-up Lisa.

I'm determined to be the first to do it with a ][e. :)

--
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.

IIgs compatible? by Mean_Nishka · 2002-01-17 11:09 · Score: 1

Anybody know if this is IIGS compatible? I'd like to get my old friend fired up again with some 'large' storage. SCSI cards are hard to come by for the Apples.

--
www.lonseidman.com

Re:IIgs compatible? by NoMoreNicksLeft · 2002-01-17 12:54 · Score: 1

Yes, and it should also be compatible with most of the clones, such as my Franklin 2100 (with it's cool internal floppy drives).
Re:IIgs compatible? by Mean_Nishka · 2002-01-17 13:34 · Score: 1

I think the big question is whether or not it'll be compatible with GS/OS. If memory serves there was a driver needed for non-apple disk interfaces.

--
www.lonseidman.com
Re:IIgs compatible? by NoMoreNicksLeft · 2002-01-17 14:05 · Score: 1

Well, good point. But enough are made, I forsee GPL drivers for this device. Someone out there has the free time, expertise, and desire to write such drivers.
Re:IIgs compatible? by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-18 04:54 · Score: 0

There're already IDE Hard Disk controllers for the AppleIIgs (and looks like for the IIe too). This one "allows the use of _all_ kinds of IDE hard drives with Apple II computers", so I bet it would work with compact flash cards if you get a normal CF to IDE adapter too.

If you're into tricking out your IIGS, then checkout the LANceGS Ethernet Card. It looks so sweet!

ATTN: Gordie by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 11:10 · Score: -1, Offtopic

Saw this on www.woz.org by TotallyUseless · 2002-01-17 11:10 · Score: 5, Interesting

The guy that did this had written into the letters section and sent a link to Woz. Woz seemed impressed, understandably so. The funny thing is that this is considered mass storage for the ][e. For those that still put their old apples through the motions, this could save them a lot of disk swapping, as they could more than likely fit their entire software and data library onto a single 64meg card. neat!

--

Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!

Re:Saw this on www.woz.org by Tackhead · 2002-01-17 11:32 · Score: 2

> The funny thing is that this is considered mass storage for the ][e. For those that still put their old apples through the motions, this could save them a lot of disk swapping, as they could more than likely fit their entire software and data library onto a single 64meg card. neat!
I've been looking for a good use for an old 8M CF card.
Having 128 64K memory images of a ][+ (or 64 128K //e images with the bank-switching) would be great for retro-gaming. Get tired of playing one game, save the RAM image and continue tomorrow!
Having about 57 floppy images on an 8M card wouldn't hurt either, especially for Wizardry V, which came on something like 5 double-sided floppies.
Plus, for "hack value alone", this is one hell of a cool hack.

First post! by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 11:11 · Score: 0

I dedicate this first post to They Might Be Giant's Particle Man

Re:Yee-haw! Let me know when the Commodore 64 vers by AnonymousDot · 2002-01-17 11:17 · Score: 1

Yeah right:
LOAD "BRUCELEE",8,1
(plug back the second joystick with a faulty button)
ERROR READING DRIVE: TOO OLD CRAP, GET A LIFE! READY.

Sounds cool but I've been doing this for years by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 11:17 · Score: 0

Cool sounding project (can't access the link yet though). I like the Apple II and have played around with Apple II hardware but since the Apple is such a simple machine and Apple emulators do (almost) everything the original hardware can, why bother with the original hardware anymore?
I claim that I have been doing this because I use ApplePC with an emulated hard drive that resides as a file on my PC's IDE HDD.

Why in the world? by Uttles · 2002-01-17 11:20 · Score: 2

I can't imagine the motivation behind this... I loved my old Apple IIe but damn that was like 15 years ago!

Of course, you can never get too much Oregon Trail... I wonder how fast it runs with these mods!

--

~ now you know

Oh, you commited a wrong, sir... by clump · 2002-01-17 11:20 · Score: 1

Thats:
LOAD "*" ,8,1

,1. Don't forget the ,1!

Commodore 64 machines were fun. Some of my favorite games were on the Commodore. Games like Jumpman, Racing Destruction Set, Skyfox, and Mail Order Monsters.

Man, those honestly were some great days. I wouldn't be a computer professional without those Commodore games.

Re:Oh, you commited a wrong, sir... by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 11:37 · Score: 0

Ah yes, good old Mail Order Monsters. I would love to see a newer verion of this game running on a QIII graphics and with smarter AI. The C64 was my first computer (like from when I was 7) and it definetly influenced me to join the tech world.

Just think og it, you could probably fit 200 C64 games on a single CF card... Now I can finally get rid of those decaying floppies...
Re:Oh, you commited a wrong, sir... by waitdyahoo.com · 2002-01-17 12:54 · Score: 1

Wow, it has been years since I though of Racing Destruction set. All the different Gravities and making tracks...

Think any one could make an updated copy for Windows.

I would glady Beta Test
Re:Oh, you commited a wrong, sir... by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-18 09:03 · Score: 0

If memory serves, the if you leave out ",1", it loads the disk file at the start of BASIC RAM. If you use the ",1", it loaded the file at the memory location designated in the filesystem for that particular file.

Scary that I remember that. I'm feeling old.

This seems backward by pagercam2 · 2002-01-17 11:22 · Score: 2, Funny

The controller in the harddisk is probably 10 times faster than the 2MHz 6502, so isn't this really an apple II emulator for an IDE drive/CF card???

Re:This seems backward by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 14:22 · Score: 0

Whoa - that's a whopping 1.024 MHz! If you were running at 2 (or 4) MHz, you had replaced the trusty 6502/65c02.

This is great news. by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 11:25 · Score: -1, Offtopic

A bombshell was dropped on the already fragmented linux community today when it was revealed by slashdot.org and linuxnews.com that linux is unsuitable in the server environment. This is is a particularly brutal blow, because the server market was the only area the linux ever had any success. Sadly, this will be hereafter known as the day linux was diagnosed with its fatal disease, a disease that's ultimate cause is poor engineering and programming practices in the linux community.

Linux rode a wave of greed from the dot-bomb bubble to achieve its current height of popularity, now it will crash hard, like a big-wave surfer going over the falls. People are busily distancing themselves from linux. Linux supporters are looking like a bunch of incompetent fools now. Who would want to be associated with such a dismal failure as linux?

The slashdot take:

http://slashdot.org/articles/02/01/17/0240242.sh tm l

From linuxnews.com

http://www.linuxworld.com/site-stories/2002/0114 .k ernel.html

Avast mateys! by The+Pirate · 2002-01-17 11:26 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Arg! I be The Pirate! Arrrrrr! Back in my day, we didn't be havin' none of this Apple, nor any of this Compact Flash bull ya'll be touting at this here ... dot, slash... whatever! Why back in my day, you were lucky to get a lime for dinner! And if i here just one limey joke, i'll cut yer tounge out and eat it, served up with a side of liver!

But, at any rate, arrrr, i suppose i could be seein' the fun of makin' yer apples more compact. I mean, more room for plunder and women! And, if there's more room for women, there can be more for raping, of said women. YARG!

Re:Avast mateys! by Renraku · 2002-01-17 11:58 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Arr! Shiver me timbers! We be looting and plundering on the high seas! We picked up a shipment of apples and in celebration got drunk and ate the apples! Ye olde mixture of rum and torn metal hurt, but its nothing us pirates can't take!

--
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Re:Avast mateys! by The+Pirate · 2002-01-17 13:12 · Score: 0

Ar... exactly me boy, quite right! yarg... the metal had been givin' me quite the shits, yar that was no fun 'tall. But i'm better now, yarg! Us pirates are made from tougher stuff than you pansy linux vikings. YARG!

Sentence structure by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 11:28 · Score: 0

"I am very impressed with the work this guys work."

What the hell kind of sentence is that anyway!?

Bring on the nostalgia! by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 11:29 · Score: 0

I've still got my Beagle Bros. disk nodge device. It's in the 5 1/4" disk box.

Re:Bring on the nostalgia! by Negadecimal · 2002-01-17 11:37 · Score: 3, Interesting

I miss Beagle Bros. I remember having their giant chart of peeks and pokes on my wall... man, that was useful.
Re:Bring on the nostalgia! by sid_vicious · 2002-01-17 11:46 · Score: 2

I've still got my Beagle Bros. disk nodge device. It's in the 5 1/4" disk box.

My pop was too cheap to actually *buy* the disk notching device.

Instead, whenever we'd run out of room on a disk, he'd take a kitchen knife and veeeery carefully cut the notch out by hand. I'd run interference so my mom wouldn't see what he was doing with her good kitchen knives.

--
If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
Re:Bring on the nostalgia! by aussersterne · 2002-01-17 11:51 · Score: 3, Informative

Hand-operated paper punch. Just pull up the inside edges on each side of the ring, *punch* *punch*, and then one on the side where the WP notch was, *punch* and it's done.

--
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Re:Bring on the nostalgia! by sid_vicious · 2002-01-17 11:54 · Score: 1

Hand-operated paper punch.

Hey, that's pretty clever - never saw anyone pull that trick!

:-)

--
If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
Re:Bring on the nostalgia! by Parsec · 2002-01-17 13:21 · Score: 1

Geez, an Xacto blade works a whole lot better! Wish I'd thought of using that paper punch, though.
Re:Bring on the nostalgia! by ncc74656 · 2002-01-17 15:26 · Score: 1

Hand-operated paper punch. Just pull up the inside edges on each side of the ring, *punch* *punch*, and then one on the side where the WP notch was, *punch* and it's done.

You only needed the notch at the edge to write-enable the disk. Apple IIs don't use the index hole.

--
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.

Why not a simpler smart media or mmc interface ? by tempmpi · 2002-01-17 11:32 · Score: 3, Interesting

Compact Flash cards are controlled like a ide harddrive, wouldn't it be much easier to use a other flash media with a much simpler serial interface ? Like a smart media, multi media card or a memory stick ? (memory stick specs are now for free on www.memorystick.org)

--
Jan

Memories by DunbarTheInept · 2002-01-17 11:35 · Score: 2

RUN

(cyan screen)

"Anana Visita. (hisss) Shtay a ile. Shtay foreveva.."

- "Wow dude. That sounded so real. You could actually hear words and stuff."

(step, step, step, step)

"Deshtroy chim my row-bots"

- "Woah cool."

"aaaahhhhhhhhahhhhahhahhhh..."

- "oops."

= "Dude, do that again - that was awesome."

- "No way man. I'm trying to win."

= "come on, that was great. Do it again."

- "Okay, just one"

"AAAAAhhhahhaaaaaahhhhahhhhhhahhhhhhhhhh..."

- "Okay, that was kinda cool."

"AAAAaaaahhhhahhahaaaaaaaahaaaaaa..."

= "Dude, this game is totally awesome. Say, are those dalek-things or whatever they are dangerous?"

"BBBzzzzzzttttztzztt."

- "Yep."

= "That was kinda cool. But fall off the screen again, that was great."

"Aaaaahaaaaaaaaaaahhhhahaahaaaa...."

...[A little later]....

- "What on earth is that?"
= "I think a bowling ball is chasing you."
- "Uhhhm - right."

--

Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.

Re:Memories by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 11:40 · Score: 0

Ah but the real question is did you ever finish the game? I could collect a bunch of pieces, but never managed to finish the Impossible Mission. Its still among my favorite games though. Destroy Him My Robots...
Re:Memories by CommanderTaco · 2002-01-17 11:51 · Score: 1

that game was so much fun to play... the funny thing is, i had no idea what do actually do with those pieces. i just liked running around the rooms and collecting items...
now i'm curious... what WERE you supposed to do with those pieces?
Re:Memories by The+Flymaster · 2002-01-17 18:34 · Score: 1

I agree...that had to be like the most confusing game ever. It probably didn't help that I got like a 5th generation pirated version and had no manual, but many a night was spent using the elevators, beating those crazy zappy R2D2 like robots, stopping time, and wondering just what the hell I was supposed to do at that big tic tac toe board.
Re:Memories by CommanderTaco · 2002-01-17 19:01 · Score: 1

hahahaha... i had forgotten about the tic tac toe board. i remember playing with my brother, and we would get so excited when we would find the room with the board. one of us would then try to use the board, fail miserably, and then receive a punch to the arm (how could you mess it up???)
great memories...
ok, this has gotten far too off topic
Re:Memories by Ch_Omega · 2002-01-18 11:33 · Score: 1

" I could collect a bunch of pieces, but never managed to finish the Impossible Mission."

That's why it's called Impossible Mission, stupid! ;)

I just picked up a IIc by Kymermosst · 2002-01-17 11:35 · Score: 2

for a couple of dollars so I could go through my old collection of stuff. I used to program assembly on the Apple II, and was writing a CP/M-like OS for the 6502, which promptly got scrapped when I got my '286 way back when.

I want to see what I was up to then, so I got the IIc.

Only problem is, some of the memory is bad... need to get some replacements... unfortunately, soldering them into the board isn't going to be fun at all.

--
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.

against this by greymond · 2002-01-17 11:36 · Score: 0

not that im against improving on old technology but this seems rather useless considering the apple II's are more than obsolete

--
Ave Molech Setting

Re:against this by NullProg · 2002-01-18 02:59 · Score: 1

Why,
My son and I just salvaged an original ][e from the scrap heap and rebuilt it. He learned more about micro computers this past summer than he will ever learn in school. Bank switching, Hi-Res graphic swapping etc. Obsolete? We now have this computer sitting in the corner of our computer room displaying random line art. We also use it to play load runner for hours on end.

--
It's just the normal noises in here.
Re:against this by greymond · 2002-01-18 05:51 · Score: 1

in that case why not rebuild an IBM PC-JR and run jump man jump on it? it just seems like there could be better things to put effort into - such as linuxing your dreamcast :)

--
Ave Molech Setting

Lust for an Apple II by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 11:36 · Score: 0

When I was 14 back in 198whatsit I used to go round to Compshop and lust after their Apple IIs.

I had a zx80 then and an Apple was just like sex on a stick. It had sound and colour!

Can you still buy these things? Might get one for old times sake - but then maybe its best not to relive the past :->

ANd I thought my SS20 was some obsolete kruft by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 11:37 · Score: 0

Holy shit! I have thrown away so many Mac Pluses and SEs over the years. And they are worlds faster than an Apple ][.

I'm running a 1993 Sparc 20, and I thought that gave me obsolesence points. This is wild.

Wil this Apple be able to compile and run gkrellm now?

Buckethead by Genghis+Troll · 2002-01-17 11:37 · Score: -1

for president. GWB clearly wasted his formative years in the coop. Only Buckethead will give this country the nunchaku and shredder-style chicken pickin' it so sorely needs.

Re:Yee-haw! Let me know when the Commodore 64 vers by AnalogBoy · 2002-01-17 11:38 · Score: 1

LOAD "WINDOWS.BSC",8,1
(Start Associates)
(Finish Ph.D.)
(Retire)
(Swim the Sytx)
(Golf with Jesus)

READY

Apple ][ MP3 system by dstone · 2002-01-17 11:40 · Score: 3, Informative

I don't believe there's a flavour of Apple ][ that can decode MP3 streams real-time in software. However, an Apple ][ should be able to easily run a GUI (and now IDE filesystem), and just send the resulting raw MP3 bitstream to to an inexpensive outboard decoder chip. (Some buffering for constant data rate may also be required).

FWIW, if anyone wants to take the leap, the standard homebrew decoder chips used today seem to be one of these...
Micronas MAS3509F Compressed-Audio Decoder
SGS Thompson STA013 MP3 Decoder
The Micronas chip is newer and doesn't require an external DAC.

Re:Apple ][ MP3 system by benwaggoner · 2002-01-17 12:52 · Score: 1

In software? I doubt it. My 33 MHz NeXTStation Color Turbo can't do high bitrate MP3 decodes, even when using the onboard DSP. The Apple II has a couple magnitudes less horsepower than that 68040 + DSP system.

Still, I have to appreciate the persevernce of the folks who are still hand-opimizing code for those 10-year old beautiful black boxes.

--

My video compression blog
Re:Apple ][ MP3 system by danb35 · 2002-01-17 13:05 · Score: 2, Interesting

Around 1993-94, I remember a vendor (allegedly) working on a DSP card. If memory serves, it was to have had a 16 MHz or 20 MHz Motorola 56k-series DSP on board, along with I don't remember what else (probably some RAM at least). I don't remember ever seeing one, or hearing that they'd gone into production, although it certainly sounded cool at the time. Don't know that it would have been very useful for anything, though (I recall suggestions of software modems, but that's about it). Anyway, this probably could have done the trick...
Re:Apple ][ MP3 system by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 22:34 · Score: 1, Interesting

The person doing it was named Pete Snowberg. I still have the sheet he handed out at an expo or developer con listing all the wonderful things that the DSP board would make possible... somewhere. I'm not going to bother trying to find it, now (but I know where to look should I feel the perverse urge :).

It never even made it to the prototype stage, but it sure generated a lot of buzz in the community.

Work by Nickovsky · 2002-01-17 11:42 · Score: 1

I am very impressed with the work this guys work.

I am also very impressed!!!! ;)

Re:Work by zoid.com · 2002-01-17 15:24 · Score: 1

I'm impressed by this guy's impressed as well.

--
Zoid.com

Old Apple Hacks by _flan · 2002-01-17 11:46 · Score: 1

This is excellent. I'm going to have to try building on myself. I have bins of old Apple ][ disks that I'm trying to save and I'm guessing that moving to a hard drive would be a good idea.

Back in the day (1994), I started making a remote filesystem for my Apple that would communicate with my Sparc via serial. Unfortunately, it was dog slow and I gave up.

BTW, if anyone really wants to start hacking on the Apple //e, I would recommend "Understanding the Apple //e" by Jim Sather. It is fabulous. It is out of print right now, but I managed to pick one up a couple of years ago by being resourceful. ;-)

8-bit access to Compact Flash/IDE?!? by strredwolf · 2002-01-17 11:48 · Score: 2

Wait... that's...

The Parachute for Palm III/Handeras, a PCMCIA controller over serial port. Hey, if they can port it to serial port (shouldn't be too hard), you'll have generic access to compact flash/IDE.

Someone pass the Basic Stamp II's...

--

--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";

SST Compact Flash in my Apple ][e = tiiiiight by edrugtrader · 2002-01-17 11:50 · Score: 1

i got tons of SST Compact Flash around (SuperFlash)

now i have a use!!

--
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E

Apple users vs. Apple users by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 11:54 · Score: -1, Troll

That's an obvious case of hacker-type Apple users vs. stupid Mac Apple users. People owning Macs are so stupid they cannot use 2 mouse buttons, let them play with their tupperwares and let big guys work!

What an amazing waste of effort by CDWert · 2002-01-17 11:54 · Score: 0, Offtopic

An absolutley amazing wast of effort,

A nice accomplisment, but man why no do something worhtwhile ?

Hell 3rd world countries have better than Apple 2's
Then again they cant affor flash ram so its moot.

Seriously Why not do SOMETHING USEFULL like , Oh take your pick, me writing this crappy slshdot article about it has to me more usefull, man I got sucked in again...............

--
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........

Re:What an amazing waste of effort by bubbaD · 2002-01-17 12:58 · Score: 1

Next they'll probably try to figure the speed of light, or go to the gosh darn moon!
Write intelligent or interesting flamebait if you must
Re:What an amazing waste of effort by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 17:12 · Score: 0

Yes, they should TEACH YOU TO SPELL, you fuckwit!

RTFM! by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 11:55 · Score: 0

Jeez people, READ his page before you make comments on it. He explains exactly why he's doing this project.

This is nothing by Astrorunner · 2002-01-17 12:13 · Score: 1

I built a flatbed scanner port for my Timex-Sinclair over the weekend. I can scan in any post stamp ever made.

almost as useful as an MP3 player for a Newton by option8 · 2002-01-17 12:14 · Score: 3, Interesting

this sounds like a really good hack, by my own definition of Good Hack, which is "do something nobody else has done yet, that's really hard and at the same time, almost completely useless to most people"

up there in my book would have to be the MP3 player for Newton MessagePads (which i installed, and it works really well. streaming MP3 on a newton? oh yeah...)

though, along with the ATA flash card driver for Newtons, it almost turns my MessagePad 2100 into my portable MP3 player. saves me $400 for an iPod (though i'm lacking about 4.9G of the storage...)

kudos to the hack, and massive props to apple][ users still out there who can take advantage of this and all the cheap storage of the new CF cards.

--
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree

Re:almost as useful as an MP3 player for a Newton by psych031337 · 2002-01-17 15:49 · Score: 4, Funny

this sounds like a really good hack, by my own definition of Good Hack, which is "do something nobody else has done yet, that's really hard and at the same time, almost completely useless to most people"

To quote the (in)famous words of Wau Holland (founder of the german EFF-pendant CCC): "You're a hacker when you're stuck with nothing but a cup of noodles and coffee machine but still manage to have a warm meal."

May he rest in piece.

--
+++ath0

How about one for the Tandy 100? by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 12:19 · Score: 0

You know, that laptop that is still around after 18 years because it's tough as nails. I would be willing to port my software to it, if only it would run a real OS, and that's impossible without more storage. C'mon folks, let's rally around this!!!

Don't forget the 8GB of the IDE64 :) by mbpark · 2002-01-17 12:28 · Score: 5, Insightful

It's about time Apples caught up to the Commodore 64 ;).

IDE64 has given them that ability for a while, since all you need is a CF to IDE adapter, and you can have up to two 8 GB harddrives on a c64, or a few CF cards, or a couple of IBM Microdrives :).

16GB on that machine is completely nuts. You could quite possibly store every c64 game ever made (which I estimate at over 30,000 .d64 images total) and still have room left over for the applications.

Of course, you can go for the 8GB HD and a CD-ROM :). Some of those screenshots are pretty nuts. I can't imagine loading the Windows 95 CD-ROM using LOAD"$",8

Meanwhile, Nate has nearly hacked together an MP3 player for the c64 based on the MAS chip. That, and a quickcam, and a few other things. Look at the C= projects page. That's some wicked stuff.

Now that's a hacker's machine. Give them enough time and they even get a workalike UNIX with a GUI and IRC client, as well as a 20Mhz CPU, 16MB RAM, and many other cool things. From what I hear, XGA video and PCI are next.

I always did like these hackers of older systems. I would enjoy seeing those optimization techniques applied to modern code and compilers, especially gcc :).

Re:Don't forget the 8GB of the IDE64 :) by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 18:38 · Score: 1, Interesting

16GB on that machine is completely nuts. You could quite possibly store every c64 game ever made (which I estimate at over 30,000 .d64 images total) and still have room left over for the applications.
Well, that gives you some more room to store web pages on that C64 web server!
Re:Don't forget the 8GB of the IDE64 :) by Dahan · 2002-01-17 22:25 · Score: 3, Informative

It's about time Apples caught up to the Commodore 64 ;).
An IDE card has been available for the Apple II for a few years now... see the Turbo IDE from SHH Systeme. Dated October '94...
Then there's GNO (GNO's Not Orca), a preemptively multitasking Unix-like environment. Was fun to play MODs while IRCing and such :)

Mirror by seanadams.com · 2002-01-17 12:37 · Score: 5, Interesting

I've mirrored it at the URL below. Photos will be up as soon as they've finished downloading. :)

http://www.slimdevices.com/CFforAppleII

I dunno if my server's going to hold up any better, but it's worth a shot. :)

Just in case, a couple snippets from the page:

ast Update: Jan 17, 2002 - 11:40am CST

Project Introduction:

This page describes a project to create an IDE / CompactFlash Interface card for 8 bit Apple II series of computers. The
card is ProDOS 8 compatible. I did this project over the span of several months. Although it took much longer than
expected, it was a fun project. This project is very much a case of old technology (the
Apple II computer) meets new (IDE / CompactFlash cards and Altera CPLDs).
My reasoning for this project is described in detail in the last section, but suffice it to say, I
wanted to be able to pull out my old Apple and use it from time to time to reminisce about the
early days of personal computers. I wanted a reliable way to store my Apple II programs and
data files for many years to come. Due to the Apple II's floppy drives long term reliability
prospects and my general laziness, I decided a mass storage device is what I needed.

If there was enough interest in this project I would love to make a small batch of boards to
sell to those interested. But I would need at least 10 orders, and it may be hard to find 10 people interested in something
like this. I can be reached at rich@dreher.net
Currently I have only built a prototype, which means no extensive testing has been done
yet.

The Apple II was an excellent example of an open system, with unheard-of-today
documentation like system schematics, firmware listings, and peripheral design tips. Indeed
the only thing that was totally hidden was the source for the BASIC interpreter - "AppleSoft"
written by giga-monopoly Microsoft. In the spirit of the Apple II this project is completely
open.

Project Definition:

A CompactFlash/IDE Interface for 8 bit Apple II family of computers
Support for up to 64 Meg, (two ProDOS 32Meg drives)
On board EPROM for the ProDOS 8 driver code
Allow booting ProDOS directly from the Interface card (for a floppy-less system)
Current version of driver code requires a 65C02. (IIe Enhanced or later)

Project Prototype Hardware:

My first prototype used no discreet 74HCTxxx series parts and all logic was in the CPLD, but due to several unrelated
problems with construction and the consumption of all PLD resources, I decided to build a second prototype with using
74hct373 parts, this time paying more careful attention to power distribution. I still believe it would be easy to eliminate
the discreet 74xxx series parts if you used a larger PLD, like the EPM70128S. Although it might not be very cost
effective.

Here is the schematic I developed AFTER completing my prototype. That means this schematic has not been tested. If
you decide to build this project, you might want to check with me for any changes first. Also if you find any mistakes
please let me know. Project Schematic: ORCAD Capture Format

If you just want a quick look at the schematic click here to view a 640k jpeg of the schematic. Modem users: sorry about
the size, but I wanted it to be clear and readable as possible.

Prototype Parts List:

1 - SanDisk CompactFlash 64Meg or 32Meg
1 - CompactFlash to IDE conversion board - Adtron SDDA-03 available from EMJ Embedded
1 - ISA bus prototype board (trimmed to fit into the apple bus) Jameco part #21531
1 - 44pin PLCC socket. Jameco part #71618
1 - 44pin PLCC wire-wrap socket. (http://smt-adapter.com/ - part #44PG-W or similar)
1 - Altera EPM7064SLC44-10F
1 - 27128 EPROM
2 - 74HCT373 transparent latch
2 - 74HCT245 bus transceiver
7 - 22ohm 1/8w resistors
5 - 0.1uf capacitors non-polarized (used for power supply bypass)
3 - 1.0uf capacitors non-polarized (used for power supply bypass)
10 - 30 pin wire wrap SIPP sockets. Jameco part #104053 (there were some leftover)
misc wire wrap tools and wire

Already been done! Sort of.. by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 12:47 · Score: 0

There's a piece of software called "Server64" (there's another one too but I forget the name) that you run on a PC. Then you plug the serial cable from the computer into the PC instead of the 1541 disk drive and you can use the PC's hard disk as storage space! Works well, and you get directory support as well.

Transfer speed isn't much better than a 1541 though, no fastloader.

Re:Already been done! Sort of.. by CrazyBusError · 2002-01-17 23:56 · Score: 1

I thought C64 serial ran at a different voltage to PC serial, which was why it was a bugger to link the two. Anyway, considering how cheap 3.5inch drives were and how many games they would hold on a 720k disk, there didn't seem much point.

--
-Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience-

snack attack, lode runner, beyond the root, by bruceg · 2002-01-17 13:00 · Score: 1

drol, sneakers, choplifter, joust, beyond castle wolfenstein, beagle brothers

oh, the memories :-)

did anyone else ever dream of the "perfect" lode runner level?

Re:snack attack, lode runner, beyond the root, by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 14:39 · Score: 0

Dream?
There was a level construction to the game.
I made a few levels that were fun to play!!!

WhatMeWorry
Re:snack attack, lode runner, beyond the root, by bruceg · 2002-01-17 23:28 · Score: 1

i should have mentioned, that's what i was talking about :-) dreaming up the perfect level, one that involved the perfect timing, or you couldn't complete the board, and had to commit suicide!
Re:snack attack, lode runner, beyond the root, by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-18 18:30 · Score: 0

Not the perfect Lode runner level .. but my beloved wife got a perfect score on Choplifter...

The idea of mass storage on an Apple II sure beats using the emulator program on the pc ..still cant give up North Atlantic 86 and Three Mile Island.

And Apple Mechanic from Beagle Bros .. you have a problem...you talk to the programmer..not tech support

Same with Galactic Empire from Broderbund .. I wound up talking with Doug Carlston about a bug I found

Incidently..anybody want a MICROSOFT 16K memory board cheap?

Dr Forbin

There is no coolness factor by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 13:02 · Score: 0

It's just plain stupid, like putting rollerblades on a cow.

Re:Why not a simpler smart media or mmc interface by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 13:39 · Score: 0

The 6502 has to do bit banging to talk to serial devices such as MMC. I would be impressed if anyone can get more than 30K/sec this way. IDE/CF on the other hand can be read a byte at a time.

Question to 6502 hackers: by haggar · 2002-01-17 13:53 · Score: 1

Does anyone of you know where can I find/download the NES console's schematics? I have been long wanting to start hacking away atone of my NES consoles, but I need the schematics for the kind of hacks I want to do.

your help is appreciated.

--
Sigged!

Re:Question to 6502 hackers: by emmons · 2002-01-17 14:36 · Score: 1

http://www.google.com/search?q=NES+schematics

--
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.

FocusDrive Hard Card by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 14:03 · Score: 0

This has been done about 7 years ago. It's a machine called the FocusDrive which is a 2.5" IDE HDD bolted to an IDE controller on an Apple II card. Works with the Apple IIe or IIgs. It was being sold by Parsons Engineering, now Tony Diaz at Alltech Electronics of Oceanside, CA sells them. As far as the CF part, I've never heard of it, sounds interesting.

lode runner by benjamindees · 2002-01-17 14:11 · Score: 1

I did :)

--
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"

Re:Why not a simpler smart media or mmc interface by Jay+Carlson · 2002-01-17 14:45 · Score: 3, Interesting

Yes, I was thinking that too.

Serial interfaces are especially nice on the Apple because you don't have to build an expansion card to talk to them---you can use the game port. There are four outputs and three inputs there. You'd need a level shifter to get the voltages down to the 3.3v range those flash cards want.

I just wrote out a little 6502 assembly bitbanger to talk to a purported SPI device on an Apple game port, and it looks like it's around 40 cycles per bit. So that's around 3kBytes/sec, raw. Not too bad for a 1 chip interface that doesn't take up a slot!

I don't remember if the analog electronics on the gameport inputs let you pump bits that fast. But it sure would be cool to have a single module plugged into the gameport, with 64M of storage---on a package smaller than the 6502.

I would have killed for this 15 years ago... by Agent+Green · 2002-01-17 14:45 · Score: 2

Imagine...64mb of hard storage on a space less than an eighth of the side of my RamWorks III 1mb board!

Now I wish I had a ZipChip and the entire GEOS line of software...

--
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
// IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us

Re:I would have killed for this 15 years ago... by bjb · 2002-01-18 01:43 · Score: 1

Zip chip? I've still got a 5MHz Rocket Chip in my //e. I always wondered who where the lucky people who had the 10MHz version (if it ever was sold, that is). Probably one of the best investments I ever made on my ][, besides the Sider 20MB drive.

--
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...

Great system for it's day by rogue5 · 2002-01-17 15:34 · Score: 1

The Apple II series were great systems - too bad, in Apple's infinite stupidity, they killed the machine off and let so many people (Customers!) down. Reminiscing: Was a great hackers system - it was just a matter of time till someone did this ;-) (only took 10+ years) Of 18 years of hacking/coding - had by far my most fun coding on an Apple IIGS and only regret not having done more at the time.

/.ed ... mirror anyone? by psych031337 · 2002-01-17 15:41 · Score: 2

The site seems to run off that Apple II... no response for me :(

Anyone got the content mirrored?

--
+++ath0

Slashdoting Apple ][s... by deander2 · 2002-01-17 16:00 · Score: 2

Are they running their web site off of said CF card? ;-)

--
http://kered.org

Re:Why not a simpler smart media or mmc interface by Jay+Carlson · 2002-01-17 17:01 · Score: 3, Interesting

The 6502 has to do bit banging to talk to serial devices such as MMC. I would be impressed if anyone can get more than 30K/sec this way. IDE/CF on the other hand can be read a byte at a time.

Yeah, if you talk to SPI devices through something like the game port you're stuck with relatively slow rates. But if you're going to the trouble of building an expansion card for IDE, you could build an expansion card for SPI.

I'm guessing the easiest thing to do is build a small FPGA that lives on the 6502 bus that has a shift register and a one-shot 8-clock SPI clock generator. (FPGA clocked from the pin 36 7MHz signal?) I'm already way past my knowledge of design, but it seems like this would be very easy to build, and should deliver bytes as fast as the 6502 could digest them---reading from a slot address takes 4 cycles, and writing somewhere takes at least 4 more. Likely this kind of system would end up blocking on the flash device itself some of the time.

Anyway, I think it's possible you could have a two chip design: FPGA and level shifter. Amazing what might be possible with just a few chips these days!

UNIX for the IIGS - by phandel · 2002-01-17 18:29 · Score: 1

This would be great for GNO/ME, which is a UNIX for the Apple IIGS. There's also a TCP/IP implementation for GNO, called GS/TCP, which has httpd, ftp, ftpd, telnet, telnetd, screen, irc, etc.

It's pretty cool to serve your web page off of your Apple IIGS :-)

This controller is nice but... by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-17 18:42 · Score: 0

this is old news.
Check this one out.. this girl knows her stuff. She actually bothered to make it possible to connect any IDE device by buffering the 16-bit data path. CD-ROM on Apple ][ baby!

http://s.guillard.free.fr/

This is like... by volpe · 2002-01-17 18:50 · Score: 2

... building a Dolby Pro-Logic encoder for an Edison Cylinder Phonograph

in other news.. by ImaLamer · 2002-01-17 19:50 · Score: 2

...there has been a 'hack' released to hook up your TI-99A to a cable modem.

--
Get your Unix fortune now!

Re:in other news.. by RocketJeff · 2002-01-18 01:18 · Score: 1

Cool, where? Now I can give my wife a real reason not to throw it away!

oh, I bet you're just joking...

Re:Why not a simpler smart media or mmc interface by chazbot · 2002-01-17 20:17 · Score: 1

Yeah, but what if he wants to use the gameport to play games?

CF to PIC interface by pacc · 2002-01-17 20:51 · Score: 2, Informative

A CF to PIC interface was described in Circuit Cellar a while ago. A word of caution if you plan something like this is that the 8-bit ATA mode might or might not be supported on newer CF cards. (What! I NEEDED 256 MB)

I found the link att Jeff Frohwein's

IMPORTANT by baron000 · 2002-01-17 21:53 · Score: 0

IMPORTANT: Please read the whole post

I'm sure many of you are aware of this thread already.

If you are interested in helping against the moderators who have been "editing" the thread, please read this.

Please do not moderate this post down. It is good for the long term, but if you still feel like being someone who denies the horrible truth, give me your best shot. You will help hold all of Slashdot users back in the long term.

For more info, read this piece from an apparently superior news site.

A thought.. by Toraz+Chryx · 2002-01-18 00:55 · Score: 1

would it be possible to hang a compactflash card (big one, 128MB or more) off an Amiga 1200's IDE interface?

128MB is plenty of storage for amigaOS + games
and it would be faster than the harddisks they shipped with by an order of magnitude (the 120MB seagate 2.5" ide disks were SLOW, probably 500-600KB/sec)

Just a little bit late... by What'sInAName · 2002-01-18 01:41 · Score: 1

Wow, someone finally answered my question!

Re:Why not a simpler smart media or mmc interface by Jay+Carlson · 2002-01-18 01:55 · Score: 2

(Replying way past the moderation horizon)

Yeah, but what if he wants to use the gameport to play games?

The gameport outputs are not used by conventional Apple II joysticks. We do need to steal a pushbutton, but standard joysticks only have two buttons, so PB2 is free. So you could build a passthrough connector that would allow standard joysticks to continue to work.

The only problem I see is the shift key mod. Because the original Apple keyboards didn't support lower case, it was common for users to run a wire from the shift key to PB2 to let software interpret upper and lower case.

Bob (?) Bishop by hawk · 2002-01-18 04:46 · Score: 2

He also had a talking calculator.

hawk

Rapidly deteriorating? by AndyChrist · 2002-01-18 09:56 · Score: 1

ALL of my Apple II floppies still work with no problems.
Back then they knew how to make them.

I'm sure they aren't going to last forever, but even if an Apple II disk is 20 years old, I'd trust it more than a modern floppy or hard disk, and if I were to back up to CDR, I'd make multiple copies (due to CDRs being of inconsistent durability).

Of course, though the media may be okay...the hardware gets gradually harder to come by.

Re:your sig by AndyChrist · 2002-01-18 10:02 · Score: 1

"Fast, cheap and reliable; pick two"

I guess with the apple II, we're looking at cheap and reliable.

NASA used them.... by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-18 12:25 · Score: 0

At one point they were used to help the Space Shuttle as well as to plot trajectories for rockets. When I first came to NASA back in 1986 - Apple //es and //gs's were still being used here and there. Either as equipment to record test data from various sensors or just to do word processing, accounting, et al.

For me - I've owned almost every type of Apple computer ever made. ][+, //e, //c, //gs, Lisa, and even a few of the knock-offs. My //c went to some guy in Japan, the ][+s went to schools as did the //e. The Lisa finally went belly-up and I sold it for parts. The //gs I still have and use occasionally. After all - I've got about 2000 floppy disks with games, CP/M stuff, et al. A collection of original disks from everyone I ever knew who owned an Apple (and their back-ups). I asked them to give me their disks when they upgraded. Some really weird games were written for the Apple systems. Anyone remember Sneakers?

Why not? by Anonymous Coward · 2002-01-22 10:50 · Score: 0

PC's these days are becoming more and more like household appliances, if you REALLY want to tinker and build your own electronic devices, going back to old machines like the Apple II isn't such a bad idea. Cheap, no risk of damaging expensive hardware and the cool factor of adding modern features to something ancient. Granted what you build will have no commercial value and just a hobby these days, but that doesn't mean it won't serve as a stepping stone to greater things.

Someone interested in learning electronics but doesn't have the money and resources may find modifying an old Apple II or C64 a great way to get their feet wet, so to speak.

Oh yes, another thing. People seem so shocked to hear of anything added to Apple II's beyond their original 140K floppy drives and 1 MHz CPU's. Well, sitting next to my PIII is my old Apple IIGS
I bought 14 years ago. It's undergone a few chances since then...

- 15 MHz CPU accelerator
- DMA SCSI controller with 1MB cache buffer
- internal 1.2GB SCSI hardrive
- 8 Megabytes of RAM
- 24-bit SVGA video card
- Video genlock card
- 1.44MB floppy drive
- greyscale hand-scanner
- Stereo mixer with MIDI and audio digitizer
- 2x CD-ROM drive
- 2GB tape backup
- IOmega Zip drive
- NEC MultiSync monitor

It's a neat machine for its age, even has a graphical mouse-driven OS and a wavetable music synthesizer built-in. It's really a cousin of the Amiga and Atari ST that few people ever discovered.

Slashdot Mirror

CompactFlash / IDE Interface for Apple II

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