Re: Mistery card

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Don Bruder wrote:

>In article <3f1ce711.259793933@news.edisontel.com>,
> andrea@modelNOSPAMberg.com (Andrea) wrote:
>
>> On 22 Jul 2003 06:51:47 GMT, quadrajet1@aol.com (Quadrajet1) wrote:
>> 
>> >  Fits the Apple ][+ and //e.
>> 
>> Does it mean it is useless for a ][?
>> 
>> >I have been selling these cards brand new from
>> >time to time on eBay, along with the 768k of additional memory.  Still
>have a
>> >few left. It does not replace the 64K / 80 column card on the //e however.
>> 
>> Of course, given the different slot.
>> 
>> >Does fit in one of the slots across the back.
>> 
>> Which one, usually? 3,4,7?

Any slot that can have a slot ROM is fine--meaning 1 through 7.

>Someone (Quadrajet, perhaps? I've lost track) mentioned using an 
>on-the-card  RAM test by calling out to $C20A, which would indicate that 
>they used theirs in slot 2. (A $CXYY jump implicitly indicates that 
>you're calling a routine in the ROM of a card in slot "X") With any card 
>that meets minimum specs, the slot number is irrelevant, since the card 
>will, all on its own, figure out what slot it's parked in. 
>
>Really, Andrea, you're thinking about it too much. A slot is a slot 
>(except in the case of interrupt-producing cards, where you want to have 
>the card in slot 7, or have ALL higher numbered slots filled so that the 
>INT signal can get through. But since a memory card doesn't produce 
>interrupts, that's a non-issue) 

This is not generally true.  /IRQ is available on all slots, and can be
pulled low from any of them, regardless of other cards.  The INT IN,
INT OUT daisy chain is what you are thinking of, but it is only there
for hardware slot priorities, which is very rarely used in an Apple II.

>Pick a slot - any slot - except the AUX slot - and plug that puppy in. 
>You'll quickly find out if it does anything useful in your rig. It's not 
>like you're going to fry anything. Voltages and connections on the slots 
>in the Apple II series were essentially constant across the line - a 
>couple of very minor changes to signals that were rarely (if ever) used 
>are the only variations, and to the best of my knowledge, none of them 
>are in any way "dangerous" to a card. With the exception of the //c (no 
>slots to plug into), a card made for one machine will *AT LEAST* survive 
>being plugged into any of the others, and in most cases, it'll work 
>exactly like it's supposed to.  
>
>Worst-case scenario: It doesn't do anything useful for you, so you pull 
>it back out.

Right.

It's a "Slinky" Apple memory expansion card with built-in RAM disk
firmware.  These cards were quite plentiful, so there must be some
documentation available...  I've seen several sold on eBay in their
original boxes!

Appleworks began to suport it with version 3.0, IIRC, and, as noted
earlier, there are patches to make it useful with earlier versions.

As a RAM disk it survives a reset/reboot, it can be booted from,
and, of course, it loses its mind upon power off.

-michael

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