Re: Need help with this card

[pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)]

Dan Ritter wrote:
 
> I got this serial card.  But it came with no disk or manual so I'm not
> sure how to use it.  It has a 6850 UART on it so that's why I figured
> it was a serial board.  I am hoping I can use it to transfer disks
> between the apple and the pc.
> 
> On the box it say's intelligent interface series Communications
> Interface Card. A280003.
> 
> On the card I see Rev 1 DP8304.
> 
> The date on the box and the chips on the card is dated 1979.
> 
> Anyone know this card and what I would need to make use of it?  Any
> help would be appreciated.
> 
> Thanks 8-)
 
This sounds like the old Apple Communications Card, the very first serial
card available for the Apple II.
 
You can do several things with it:
 
1. Output to it by PR#<n> (where <n> is the slot number of the card)
to e.g. a serial printer
 
2. Input form it by IN#<n>
 
3. Use it from serveral communications programs for the Apple II,
e.g. ASCII Express or ZTerm.
 
4. Use it to transfer disks to/from the Apple II with the ADT program,
if you get the Comm Card version of ADT -- it's available on my
Apple II web site at  http://hotel04.ausys.se/pausch/apple2
 
5. Figure out how to access its UART from assembly language by
disassembling its onboard PROM, or by reading the source code for
the Comm Card version of ADT (in S-C Assembler format, which is a
tokenized form of assembly source and which are stored on Apple DOS
disks as 'I' type files.  Download my FID utility from the site
above and use it to convert S-C Assembler source files on disk
images to ASCII files on your host computer).
 
 
The Comm Card had a quirk: it supported only two baud rates (by
default 110/300 baud, byt by simple hardware modifications this could
be changed to 300/1200 or 1200/4800 baud), and the CTR signal from the
UART was used to select baud rate!!!!
 
-- 
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Paul Schlyter,  Swedish Amateur Astronomer's Society (SAAF)
Grev Turegatan 40,  S-114 38 Stockholm,  SWEDEN
e-mail:  pausch at saaf dot se   or    paul.schlyter at ausys dot se
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