Re: Parallel Zip Drive, One More Time

[heuser.marcus@freenet.de]

Greg Andrzejewski schrieb:
>
> Did Apple produce more than one parallel card? I seem to remember
> having an Apple-branded parallel interface card with a date if 1978 on it.
> I could be wrong, though.

There are at least two different cards:

a) "Parallel Printer Interface Card"

A relatively simple card with a firmware PROM, four TTL-chips
and a jumper pad.
The manual includes the schematic and firmware source code,
which is dated "WOZ 11/1/77" - so I guess that's the first parallel
card from Apple, designed by The Woz himself. ;-)
And because of the good documentation it got cloned like Woz's
floppy controller...


b) "Apple II Parallel Interface Card"

I guess this is the card Rich meant, as it is bidirectional.
It's a bit more complicated, has more chips, a better connector
and switched instead of a simple jumper pad.
I have photos with a copyright year "1981" on the card, but I
think that it was sold much earlier.
The manual is also very extensive: Schematics and firmware
(dated 3/17/1978) are documented.

Download at:
http://1000bit.net/support/manuali/download.asp?id=539

bye
Marcus