Re: APPLE ][ Clone-Project?

["Allen Bong" <sfbong@tm.net.my>]

"Andrew Trotman" <andrew@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov> wrote in message
news:6XA58.622$%D6.1662065@mencken.net.nih.gov...
> > > is there a project out there in the endless net space, to build a 100%
> > > compatible apple II clone with modern chips?
>
> I paid $5.00 for a stack of 30 Apple file://e motherboards on ebay.  They
don't
> boot without the keyboard attached, so I bought a keyboard for $5.00 too.
>
> This seems like the currently cheapest wasy to solve this problem at the
> moment.  They are all original components and when I finally blow one up
> I'll fix it from bits on the other motherboards.

I totally agree with you on this aspect as the price of the IIe motherboards
are coming down.  I have a few ordered just for spare.

But doing such a II+ clone project would be costly but interesting.  This
involved testing the board using wire wrapping board, programming PALs or
GALs, replacing the DRAMs with a 128K x 8 static RAM or 4 pieces of 4464
4*64K DRAM.  And some one has to provide a completed double-sided, eched,
with plate-through holes PCB before the rest can take advantage of the
project.

I am interested in the idea of making such a II+ clone,  provided some one
would burn the PAL/GAL and FPGA for me.  Further more the project should not
use any surface mounting chips except the FPGA which would go into a socket.
I have some spare II+ motherboards and I can cut the part with the eight
slots on it and join it to the II+ clone prototype  board by wires for
testing.  That will cut down the board size by 50%.


> There are some obvious projects to make this "more modern":
>     Replace the Apple keyboard with a PC keyboard.

On my next project list.

>     Replace the Disk ][ with IDE controller / zip-drive.

My current project at the moment.  Following Stephane Guillard's IDE for
Apple2.  See http://s.guillard.free.fr/Apple2IDE/Apple2IDE.htm

>     Replace the 80 Col card with a polygon rendering card.

I doubt the 6502 running at 1.02Mhz has the horse power to work with this
type of card.


Allen.