On Thu, 28 Feb 2013, Jayson Smith wrote:
Hi, Okay, so maybe I'm way off here. And before I start, let me say that I couldn't even begin to design this card. Here goes. A card that installs into slot 7 on an IIgs, thus being the first slot being checked for a disk controller if boot is set to Scan. When the system is first turned on, it shows up as a bootable device. When booted, a 'fake' bootloader program is loaded and run. This program communicates with the card to do its thing. The card, meanwhile, is connecting to a WiFi or Ethernet network and using NTP to obtain the current time.
You don't need Wifi to get the time.Those "atomic clocks" get their time from WWVB in Colorado. All you have to do is find one that has an RS232 output, and use that with the Apple II. Or get a WWVB receiver module (a tiny little thing, they tend to actually be in those 'atomic clocks", I dropped one of mine on the floor last week and it popped open, revealing the tiny board) and add the circuitry to interface it with the Apple. It's a very slow data rate, could very easily be done in software. Of course, you don't want the clock module close to the Apple II, likely too much noise from the switching supply and other TTL circuitry.
That said, if you did have wifi, there are plenty of other things that might be more important.
If you could interface an SD card to the Apple II, there are SD cards that have built in wifi, not sure if you need a driver to use it or not, or if they can be used more generally. They are intended to fit into a camera, for instant uploading of the pictures to your computer.
Michael