Re: SlotBuster II chip and clock...

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Jay replied:

><< I noticed in a pricelist I received from RC Systems, that there is
>a clock/calendar option for the card.  Does anyone have this or
>know what it is?  Is this just a Dallas "no-slot clock" to put under
>the card's SRAM/ROM? >>
>
>
>Yes, it's a standard No-slot Clock.  As memory serves, it has it's own socket
>on the board and doesn't share with anything.

There aren't any sockets on the board that are dedicated to a no-slot.

The no-slot device goes under the ROM or either SRAM (there are
three possible sockets on the board), all addressed not by the Apple,
but by the on-board Z80.  Firmware in the Z80 fields the request to read
the time by the Apple driver software, then reads the no-slot clock,
and formats it to pass to the Apple software to use in emulating a
ThunderClock interface (time only, no interrupts, I think).

A little more reverse-engineering of the Z80 firmware and I'll know if it
is tolerant of the no-slot being in any of the three sockets, or if it has
to be under a particular one...

-michael

 Email:  mjmahon@aol.com
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