Exegete wrote:
Speaking of which, is there technical documentation on the Applicard, describing the registers as seen from both the 6502 and Z80 side, and any other software-visible features of the hardware?There was documentation with a vengeance! This was easily the most thoroughly documented Apple II board of its day (and maybe of any day.) There was a complete OEM development kit available with all the various APIs (6502 and Z80) and a lot of the BIOS code. It was a pleasure to write drivers for, and I earned quite a few bucks in the mid-80s doing precisely that. Among others, I'm responsible for the AE RamworksWait a minute! Hold the phone here. Are you telling me that the PCPI card can acess the RAM on my RAMWorks III card? This enquiring mind wants to know more!
Well, technically it's the host processor which talks to the RamWorks, but the end result is that you can use it for a ramdisk under CP/M, ZSystem or whatever you've got running on the Applicard. One of the reasons that the Applicards were so fast was that they made efficient use of the 6502 for I/O. Unlike the original Microsoft Softcard, both CPUs are running at the same time (the Softcard is an either/or proposition.)
The Applicard driver support was on one of the RamWorks support diskettes. Steve