Re: difference Apple iic german version <-> us version

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

Matthias S�llner <soellner.matthias@t-online.de> wrote:

> Can anyone tell me the difference between the german and the us version
> of the apple iic? Which chips are different? Is the ROM the same?

The differences are covered in the IIc technical reference.  I have a US
IIc (and I've seen inside it), and I've also seen the International
English version.

The most obvious difference is the keyboard layout.  The US keyboard has
the left and right shift keys the same width, a horizontal rectangular
return key, and a half width caps lock key below the left shift key.

The International keyboard (based on the ISO layout) has a reduced width
left shift key, a full width caps lock, and a vertical return key
(rectangle with a notch cut out on the lower half of the left side).

The key that is above the return key on the US keyboard (backslash and
vertical bar) moves down to the bottom row between the left shift key
and first letter on the bottom row (Z for the US keyboard).  The key
that was to the right of caps lock (reverse quote and tilde) moves to
the left of the return key, on the same row as the control key.

The next difference is the layout and symbols on the the individual
keys, which are rearranged for convenience of the local language.  (I
can provide details if anyone cares.)

The switch above the keyboard with the keyboard icon toggles between the
local and US keyboard.  For the US version of the IIc, this switch
toggles between QWERTY and Dvorak layouts.

The other differences I'm aware of:

- Power supply "brick" input voltage and a frequency will be appropriate
for each country (220/240 V at 50 Hz or 110 V at 60 Hz).

- Video output will be PAL instead of NTSC.  This affects several
components on the motherboard, requiring a different IOU and timing
chips.  It probably also involves a different motherboard.  The master
crystal frequency is slightly lower for PAL, which means the
International IIc runs a little slower than the US model.

- The character generator and keyboard decoder ROMs are different.


The main firmware ROMs will be identical to the corresponding revision
of the US IIc.