Re: Accelerator / VGA Graphics card

["Bill Garber" <willy46pa@comcast.net>]

No offense my man, but you put those chips anywhere near an Apple II, even
a IIgs, and that would be the worse case of injustice that you could ever
impose.
The Apple IIgs could not even dream of using 1/10 of the power that chipset
holds. Just the 478 pin configuration alone should have told you that it
would
not be possible. It's too much power for what you propose.

Sorry for the top-posting.

Bill @ GarberStreet Enterprizez };-)
Web Site - http://garberstreet.netfirms.com
Email - willy4SPAM6pa@comXcast.net
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"Sheldon Simms" <sheldonsimms@yahoo.com> wrote in message
pan.2003.10.21.21.32.42.506869@yahoo.com">news:pan.2003.10.21.21.32.42.506869@yahoo.com...
>
> We've talked about this before, and I feel like it is probably futile
> to bring it up again, but I was looking around the Intel website last
> night and got to thinking again...
>
> If such a card were to be made, I think it would be important to
> control feature creep. In other words, it should accelerate Apple II
> programs, it should provide a standard graphics output, and (as a
> side effect) it would provide 8Mb or more RAM to Apple II programs.
> The card would perform no other function. No SATA, No USB, No NIC,
> and so on. This restriction is made to prevent the card from trying
> to be a PC-on-a-card, and to make it as simple as possible (given
> the primary requirements).
>
> The card would include a low-power modern CPU, graphics adapter,
> and memory. A 65816 emulation program would run on the CPU and
> emulate a 65816 at speeds of more than 20Mhz (i.e. - faster than
> any real 65816). The emulation program would also emulate all
> Apple II & IIgs video modes, in the same way an emulation program
> would do it, and provide the video output to a VGA connector on
> the back of the card.
>
> Now the reason that I decided to post about this again is that
> it seems to me that Intel has pretty much the perfect solution(*)
> for this card: The Pentium M and 855GM northbridge.
>
> These two chips combine everything necessary. The Pentium M is
> a low power P6 processor, and the 855GM has a DDR memory
> controller, and a graphics controller. As far as I can tell, these
> two chips would be the only parts needed apart from the various
> analog components and whatever logic is required to interface the
> Pentium M with the Apple II bus.
>
> Intel provides a design guide at
>
> http://developer.intel.com/design/mobile/desguide/252616.htm
>
> That covers most aspects of designing a board with these chips.
> The design guide also includes design guidelines for the matching
> southbridge (ICH4-M), but that would be left off of the proposed
> card.
>
> If there were some interested person(s) in the Apple II community
> capable of laying out this board, it could become a reality. After
> reading the design guide I almost feel like I could do it myself,
> but since I'm not an electrical engineer and have never designed
> or laid out an actual computer, I suspect that is not actually the
> case :-). I could write the software, however.
>
> Would it be possible to get a group of people together to do this
> project? We could call it the "comp.sys.apple2 card".
>
> -Sheldon
>
> (*) An alternative would be a Transmeta Efficeon together with
> a third-party graphics controller, but this would likely require
> more design effort.
>
>


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