Re: *** APPLE][+ Schematic diagrams or Technical Manual ***

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

David Wilson writes ...
> 
> david@uow.edu.au (David Wilson) writes:
> 
> >Lurge <lurge@iname.com> writes:
> >>Jeff,
> >>Thank you for your suggestion. I have contacted Sams, but they are only
> >>capable of make photocopies from their old stored copy since it is out of
> >>print for 15 years. They also want to charge me $40 for it! More then I
> >>paid for the A2!
> 
> >>I have to see if there is some other ways to get the reference manual or
> >>loose schematics.
> 
> >I have two books with Apple ][+ schematics.
> 
> Make that 3 (if you consider the ][ and ][+ to be the same).
> 
> >1)     Jim Sather's Understanding the Apple ][
> >2)     another one I cannot remember the title of (I will try to
> >       remember to look it up when I go home)
> 
>         This is called "The Apple II Circuit Description" by Winston D. Gayler
>         and was published by Howard W. Sams & Co (ISBN 0-672-21959-X)
> 
> 3)      Apple II Reference Manual January 1978 Apple Part No. 030-0004-00
>         (aka The Red Book).
> 
> Perhaps this should be added to the FAQ (along with the //e & //c technical
> reference manuals and the //gs hardware reference manual).
>

     A Q&A dealing with Apple II diagrams including some of the above
info will be a good addition.

     Regarding the Apple II Reference, the Red Book was, I think, the
first edition. A later (1979) version is white with a picture of the
Apple ][ on the cover. It includes the diagram plus annotated listings
of both the 'old' (][) and the new Autostart (][+) F8 ROMs (i.e. $F800 -
$FFFF).

     The IIe Technical Reference 1986 edition also includes diagrams and
an annotated firmware listing. The style is more sophisticated and, in
general, a bit too concerned with impressing the reader rather than
delivering useful information. 
     IIe's tech ref is a good manual; but, not as well put together as
the Apple ][ Reference white manual. (I do not know what the original
IIe manual looked like-- was it called a "Technical Reference"?) Come to
think of it, I've never come across any computer manual which got the
job done as well as the ][/][+ reference.

     Probably, the IIc and IIc/IIc+ Technical Reference manuals are
similar to the IIe Technical Reference-- not sure, since I have not seen
a IIc manual.

     By the time we get to the IIgs, the art of manual writing has,
largely, been lost at Apple. Hardware is split off from Firmware
resulting in the user often having to hop back and forth between the
manuals to make sense of either. The presentation is even more concerned
with making Apple look sophisticated at the expense of communicating
information.

     A major weakness of the IIgs manuals is that there is no longer any
annotated firmware listing. No doubt, generating such a listing would
have been a major task-- there is a lot more firmware to know about.
(Plus, mode and reg-size switching and use of stack pushes to simulate
JSR-relative calls makes the code harder to follow.) Still, such a
listing would have been _very_ nice to have. It would be nice to have
now. As far as I know, no one has ever produced one.



Rubywand