Re: Apple II VGA Video Generator Card Project

[aiiadict@gmail.com]

>Hmm, yes, if the card replaced the ramworks... ?
>Great idea. Why just hold a copy of the aux ram when it can *be* the
>aux ram ?

6502 + RAM + ROM + video generator + keyboard decoder + disk drive
(flash memory card), all on a card...  Alex Freed, Gary Becker, Mark
McDougall
already have these things working.

These FPGA's have TONS of I/O.

add (within the HDL) references to the i/o pins, and change the state
of those pins depending on what is going on within the FPGA apple II.
put the data, address bus on the I/O pins, create an adaptor that you
can plug into the apple II slot, then plug the FPGA card into.  A
docking
station in an apple II slot.

Add a "slave" mode to the FPGA apple.  Instead of getting keyboard
data from the PS2 connector on the FPGA board, grab it off the
apple II bus.  Select which slots will be "emulated" by the FPGA,
and which Apple II slots should be accessed...

IE, FPGA has hard drive in slot 7, a flash RAM card, USB memory
stick, etc.  Set the FPGA apple to deal with $c700 accesses
INTERNALLY.

The apple II that it is plugged into has a 5.25 drive in slot 6.

Set the FPGA to do $c600 accesses EXTERNALLY, IE through
the apple II slot.

It is a complete apple II replacement/accelerator/VGA card etc,
that can be plugged into an Apple II (to use apple II cards, drives,
keyboard, etc)

Put a small LCD on it, and a laptop or foldable keyboard, some
nicad batterys (cheap).  Portable apple II (Accelerated, VGA output)
that can be plugged into the "docking station" in your REAL
apple II to use the old hardware.

(back to my VHDL tutorials)

Rich