Re: APPLE ][ Clone-Project?

["Bryan Villados" <news002@macgeek.org>]

Whatever the size ends up being, I'd still like to see all seven slots so I
could pop my old cards in. Unless you can stick an Apple Cat II onto a
single chip! :)

Right now, I'm visually looking at the Apple IIe card that fits into a
Macintosh PDS slot (I have a ton of these). How much of the IIe hardware is
on this card, and how much is it "borrowing" from the Macintosh hardware? In
theory, would you be able to (I'm totally exagerrating here for mental
visualization purposes to make an intellectual point) stick a power supply
onto the IIe card and run by itself without the Macintosh? Yeah, I know it's
missing a video port, keyboard, etc., but again just an intellectual
thought. In looking at the card, I can see the 256K x 4 DRAM. But I don't
see a 65C02 CPU, so I'm figuring they integrated the logic for this CPU into
a single chip, along with the other ICs and such. It would be very
interesting if someone could build a device (leave out the Macintosh here)
that compensates for what's missing on the IIe card (and have the seven
slots), connect the IIe card to it, then have a complete system. The value
of the IIe card would obviously go up if this existed. Might as well re-use
the hardware that already exists instead of re-inventing the wheel.

--- Bryan

"David Wilson" <david@uow.edu.au> wrote in message
news:3c66e26b$1@news.uow.edu.au...
> Stephen Shaw <xstephenx@apple2.org.za> writes:
> >On Mon, 28 Jan 2002 11:16:24 +0100, E.-R. Bruecklmeier wrote:
> >> Hello Group,
> >> is there a project out there in the endless net space, to build a 100%
> >> compatible apple II clone with modern chips? I think it should possible
> >> to build such a device with just a few components. I've searched google
> >> but there wasn't any hint.
>
> >In theory, quite easy. In practice no. You would need somebody to "glue"
all
> >the 74LS series chips into an Application Specific Integrated Circuit
(ASIC).
> >Thoe software is available but is costly and then finding an IC
manufacturer
> >who is willing to do small runs...
> >The RAM could be combined into one chip by now, etc, etc...
>
> You don't need an ASIC, a CPLD/FPGA would suffice. CPU+RAM+ROM+GLUE=Apple2
> The GLUE could be a number of smaller CPLDs or one large FPGA. It would
> be interesting to see how small a //e could be made.
> --
> David Wilson  School of IT & CS, Uni of Wollongong, Australia