Re: videx video card or getting lowercase display on a II+

[David Wilson <mcs6502@gmail.com>]

On Jul 10, 9:49 am, s...@alfter.DIESPAMMERSDIE.us (Scott Alfter)
wrote:
> My II+ had a lowercase ROM installed when I acquired it.  AFAICT, there were
> no mods to the motherboard needed to make it work.  (It makes you wonder a
> bit why the II+ shipped with an uppercase-only keyboard and character-
> generator ROM...would an extra key for Caps Lock really have been that much
> more expensive?)

The original Apple II motherboard (Rev 0 through Rev 6) all use an
upper case only 64 character generator chip so I guess having a lower
case keyboard did not make any sense.

See http://www.sbprojects.com/projects/apple1/terminal.htm for some
info on the 2513 64x7x5 bit ROM.

Only with the introduction of the Rev 7 motherboard did the character
generator chip get replaced by a 2KB ROM with a 2716 pinout allowing
third parties to enhance the display with lower case or other custom
characters.

If a lower case keyboard had been used you would have needed to add
extra keys for [ \ ] ^ _ @ (some of which are available on the ]
[ keyboard by shifting uppercase K L M N O P respectively [why not all
of them I have no idea - I seem to recall that the keyboard encoder
can do all six if the correct matrix cross points are chosen]).