Re: Building an Apple II from scratch

[steve@dosius.zzn.com (Dosius)]

mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon) wrote in message news:<20030715024834.02823.00000128@mb-m02.aol.com>...
> Great Hierophant observed:
> 
> >Yesterday, I took a look at the circuit diagrams and schematics of an
> >Apple II found in the Apple II Reference Manual (the Red Book.)  I was
> >struck with the number of components used, but also with their
> >commonality.  In an original Apple II, there does not seem to be any
> >custom chips or devices, unlike the later Apple IIes and IIcs.  Most
> >of the Apple II/II+ seems composed of standard TTL logic chips.  The
> >6502 CPU can be found.  The ROM, all 12-16KB of it, can easily fit on
> >one EPROM.  48KB of DRAM can be done with two chips.   The connectors
> >are probably standard.  Of course, one does not have to build a power
> >supply  and can use an Apple II keyboard.  So, has anybody ever
> >constructed an Apple II mainboard in the way I have described?
> 
> Steve Wozniak worked at HP Laboratories, and the Apple II was
> constructed from parts available from lab stock (with the exception
> of the 6502 itself).
> 
> HP at that time encouraged engineers to engage in projects on
> their own time, and happily supplied the parts.  Very enlightened.
> 
> The result is that the Apple ][ and ][+ are easily constructed from
> stock parts, and many were built like this in the early days, when
> $1200 was a little steep for a device with $200 worth of parts.  ;-)
> 
> -michael
> 
> Check out amazing quality 8-bit Apple sound on my
> Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

LOL, I once suggested to someone the possibility of building a 48K
Apple ][+ with a PS/2 keyboard port and disk ][ emulation into a
Commodore 1541 disk drive (also 6502-driven). :)

I wonder if it would be possible...

-uso.