Re: Need Passport Soundchaser interface card schematics (or close-up photos)

[Ralph <rwhyre@gmail.com>]

On Aug 13, 5:17 pm, Toinet <antoine.vig...@laposte.net> wrote:
> On 13 août, 22:29, Ralph wrote:
> > I'm looking for information on the keyboard interface for the Passport
> > SoundChaser keyboard.....  All I need
> > is the Apple 2 interface card, which has only 5 chips onboard.
>
> There has been a recent auction on eBay which included a detailed
> picture of the interface card, try to get it, it may help you,

Could you post the auction ID?  The only detailed photo I've seen so
far from a recent auction is
for the Passport MIDI interface. (Auction ID 260642281880. - ended Aug
4th)

Unfortunately, that's a 6840/6850-based card, which was developed
after the Soundchaser
keyboard.  MIDI cards have those round DIN connectors on them, while
the Soundchaser
interface used a 16-pin DIP for the interface cable.  So it's not MIDI-
compatible.  I suspect
that the 16-pin DIP is enough for a matrix-encoded keyboard.

There are different interfaces in the pre-MIDI gear from Passport /
AlphaSyntauri.
The Syntauri line used a DB-25 connector on the back of the keyboard,
and what looks
like a dual-row header pin confguration on the Apple // card.

The Soundchaser card uses a 16-pin DIP connector, and is a pale green
two-layer card,
with 5 7400-series TTL size chips onboard, based on what I see in
these photos:

http://www.mozomedia.com/apple2/media/sound_cards.jpg
http://www.applefritter.com/node/137