Re: II+ vs IIe Char Gen PROMs and Shift-key mods

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

James Higginbotham writes ...

 ....
>>

With the Upper/Lowercase chip I used, all that was required was the chip
(provides upper/lowercase output) and a shiftkey mod (provides
upper/lowercase input) which was only a wire attached to ground and
connected to one of the pins on the keyboard.  No F8 mod was required
with this chip.  Believe the chip was made by Dan Paymar??  I still have
it around here somewhere in one the II+s...

<<
 ....

     Your chip sounds like one of the Character Generator PROMs or ROMs
that users were plugging in to get both upper and lower case letter
display on the II+. It's all you would need for the display.

     The Shift-key mod was fairly popular. It lets you input lower case
when using various pieces of software such as Screenwriter II.

     The big limitations in using the Shift-key mod come from the fact
that your II+ firmware does not know anything about it. So, for example,
you can not enter a program line like this from the usual BASIC prompt:

100 INPUT "Please enter your name: ";N$


     Even if you swap in a new keyboard which outputs upper/lower case
letter codes, instructions in the $F800-$FFFF ROM will change any lower
case letters to upper case. Probably, the rationale for this feature is
that, with no lower case display, users might somehow mistakenly  input
BASIC commands in lower case and end up with mysterious SYNTAX errors.

     Whatever, killing off lower case letter inputs via firmware with no
easy way (e.g. a jumper at some Soft Switch input) to get rid of the
feature turned out to be a really bad idea. Unless you are willing to
change the firmware, you are left with needing to load software which
employs workarounds like using the ESC key to toggle upper/lower case or
checking some joystick button input instead of a real Shift key.

     Of course, the II+ has many 'features which need to be added'--
which may seem like an obtuse way to describe "deficits". However,
fiddling with the firmware and hardware was an ongoing source of fun and
learning for many Apple II users for years. In many ways the II+ was the
perfect computer for its time.



Rubywand