Re: Apple II Memory Expansion Card

["David Wilson" <mcs6502@gmail.com>]

mdj wrote:
> David Wilson wrote:
>
> > I have a RamFactor in my hands and it has two jumpers joining pins 1-2
> > and 3-4 on the 4 pin connector. As two of the pins must be +5V and GND
> > I cannot see how either of the other pins could be clocks.
>
> Interesting... It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to deliver two 5V
> lines only to simply join them in parallel though. Perhaps the jumpers
> are intended to be removed to provide additional injection points, for
> example in the case of a 4mb expander on the card?

The jumpers are actually on the pins that the RAM Charger would plug
into (they would have to be removed first). Perhaps this is to allow
the RAMCharger to detect when the Apple II is powered up?

> Wasn't there a Slinky card produced by Cir-Tech that used static ram
> plus simple power provision to keep it's contents? The Stat-Disk or
> something like that ... ?

Yes, I remember that. I just pulled out my old A2 Product Catalog from
9/88 and it lists the StatDisk (from CIRTECH without a hyphen). It has
an onboard battery that can run the card for over two months at a time.
The prices were:

128K $209
256K $269
384K $329
512K $389
640K $519
768K $579
896K $639
1M  $699

The reason for the jump in price past 512K is that you needed a
piggyback board. This card uses 32Kx8 CMOS static RAM chips - 62256 if
I recall correctly. CIRTECH actually called it the plusDisk, the
StatDisk name is what Open-Apple/A2-Central called it.