Apple II ADC...

[fl332@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (John L. Graham)]

I ran across something interesting this weekend I thought I'd pass
along to the folks that were kicking around doing ADC work with
Apple IIs. The problem we face is that outside the temperature
sensor card from Omega Engineering I wasn't aware of any ADCs for
the Apple II. I know at work we've been encountering more systems
with built-in RS-232 ports to export data so it hasn't been a big
problem with an Apple II fitted with a serial card, or even a IIc
or IIc+ using their built-in serial ports. A friend of mine, who's
a heck of a lot better at computer interfacing than I am, showed me
some nifty little PICs he's been using to interface stuff to his
IIs. Essentially, the PICs he's using are leetle single board
computers with 8-8 and 12-bit ADCs built in and a serial I/O chip.
In his applications he just burns a little BASIC program onto the
board's EPROM that continuously reads the ADCs and send the data out
over the serial port where he can read it with just about anything,
including an Apple II. He's even used TimeOut Telecomm to take data
from within AppleWorks, ports it into a spread sheet, and plots it with
TimeOut Graph. Soooo, ADC work can still be done with Apple IIs,
even the IIc+. If there's interest I'll get the manufacturer info
and post it so folks can get the spec sheets on the PICs.

Have fun!

John