Some questions about a2 upgrading

["**** ****" <***@***.com>]

Guys,
    Still focused on the "economy" a2 ethernet board, not to worry. Just
taking a break from PLD coding hell, and somehow find myself un-discouraged
from doing even more in the future.
    First off, I've just bought my first IIe recently, and I'm sad that I
didn't have one of these as a kid. Beats a handmedown TI994a, even without
boot disks for it. If I understand the recent postings, I have an enhanced
version, and it is in the platinum case. 80 column card in the aux slot, no
manufacturer's name on it, assuming a standard apple card. Actually says 80
column/64k memory on it. What total ram do I have then, 128k? Super serial
card in it and apple 5.25 controller in it. I also got a single 5 inch
floppy drive with it, and a couple boxes of blank floppies. Not to mention
all original manuals. For only $4 total, I think I got quite the bargain.
    After opening it up for a few peeks though, it really got me to
wondering. Just what is there that we can't do with this? I mean, supposing
that I can realistically homebrew hardware (big test likely comes this
weekend, expecting the cs8900's tomorrow) there is quite a bit I can imagine
doing. The first thing that jumps to mind is whether or not you could
install a standard PC floppy... assuming someone hasn't made a controller
for this yet, that might be within my abilities. More so, there looks to be
quite a bit of room internally, enough for this anyway. Only thing stopping
me from this, is a great reluctance to go butchering the case, no matter how
carefully I do it. Among other things, I've recently been researching
getting custom injection molded plastic done. Maybe for some small things it
could be affordable, but not something the size of the IIe shell.
-( Besides, even if it could, it would be missing the rainbow apple logo.
Still, internal metal brackets could be rigged, and if I'm willing to take
the time to do it right, I'm confident that the hole could be cut looking
professional enough. Maybe with careful placement, there'd even be room for
a half height hd. What are your thoughts on this?
    The second thought that I can't escape, is what exactly is it that keeps
there from being a relatively cheap/simple VGA card for this? Am I right in
understanding that not only is the seondsight expensive, but a GS only card?
It seems to me that even the 40/80 column text modes could be displayed with
a bit of trickery. A lookalike font,  and a coprocessor to repaint the vga
buffer with a lookalike screen. I haven't checked into graphics chipsets
yet, but assuming that no one wants anything absurd like a geforce2 in it,
it seems that it couldn't be prohibitively expensive. I'll have to check up
on that. At least for the GS it has to be possible, on a IIe not really
until someone bothered to write software for it though (I can just imagine a
40 column app displayed on my 21" viewsonic, heh). Is there something that
I'm missing about this, some secret I'm not privilege to?
    And of course, there is the question of how to beef up the power supply.
I have noticed that several vendors sell aftermarket power supplies, are
these refurbished, or even new? Are any of them enhanced in any way? I'm
thinking the ideal would have at least 2 of the plugs suitable for hd/cd
drives, and one for 3.5 floppy drives. Power supplies are something that I
know little about, so this is something I would have to research quite a bit
first. Is this something others would be interested in?
    Another thing that I can't let go of, is a localtalk hub. At least at
first, something really simple, passive, no switching or anything. I know, I
know... I'm the guy who claims he'll make a2 ethernet cheap, even for the
IIe and ][+ as far as that goes. So why do I still care about localtalk? I
also own a few early macs, and it'd be nice to network them with something a
bit more sophisticated than phonenet. What I'm thinking, is 6 or even 12
rj45 ports, with cables that have rj45 on one end, mini8 on the other (or
db9 alternatively). Eventually, maybe even LEDs, a few cheap cpu's (65c02?)
in it to switch, or hell, even for ethernet bridging. Is this pointless, or
would anyone like to brainstorm (bull****?) about this more?
    Back to the floppy controller, suppose I were to design one... would it
make sense to do this alone, or add a few things to it? I mean, if we're
gonna be using up a slot, why not put either or both, a IDE controller on
it, or maybe even a ps2 mouse port? Heck, even a PC style joystick port
wouldn't be entirely useless. Any and all suggestions, comments, and
criticisms welcome.


Thanks,
John Oyler
http://aIIethernet.tripod.com/
jojo4@va.mediaone.net