Apple ][ forever!

[Jonathan Schattke <wizwom@ripco.com>]

These are the sorts of crazy ideas that float through my head in the
middle of the night, and come out when my newborn son wakes me before
they are properly consigned to oblivion.

I was thinking (oh no, not again!) that it was not only possible and
plausible, but desirable to make a _fast_ Apple ][gs machine, with a
fully extensible and compartmented architechture.

Modern RAM is 60ns - which allows 33 MHz operation.  The precessor
series used in the gs goes up to 14 MHz, right?  So, that leaves us with
RAM that can interleave at the fastest speed.  That interleave cycle can
be used just as the original used it: DMA access to RAM (the original
Apple ][ only allowed for video real-time DMA).

By putting in glue logic and an I/O processor, one could glue the Apple
][gs RAM bus to a PCI interface, and then use commonly availiable SVGA
cards, with the //e Text and graphics modes handled by DMA data transfer
to the SVGA memory mapped space in real-time.  The PCI bus could also be
used to decouple the RAM and add cache for a modern compatible
processor, allowing an upgrade path for the venerable line.

Anyway, am I goofy or what?
-- 
\  /\  /                                       If you aren't happy,
 VVizVVom - Wandering Kernel of Happiness           it's not my fault.
 ~~~> homepage at http://www.ripco.com/~wizwom <~~~