Re: WANTED: Apple III info

[spector@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article phs172m@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au (Stephen Harker) writes...
>
>I can remember a Softalk article in early 1984 describing the changes.
>If I remember sufficiently accurately the main changes they were
>(apart from the modified keyboard you mentioned later in your
>article).  Improved FCC compliance, I think due to a modified
>motherboard and improved back plain.  Overscan giving an `effective'
>doubling of the vertical resolution.  Putting the clock chip back on

	I've heard of Overscan being a feature of the Apple III+. It
would be interesting if it truely did double the resolution, as this
would give the Apple III+ a 560 x 384 mode. This is a slightly higher
resolution than that of the original Macintosh (512 x 342).

>the motherboard and a later version of SOS.  It _may_ have also had
>256K as standard, which is likely given the lower prices for 64K chips
>at that time.  The clock chip was removed from the motherboard of the
>fixed version of the III, though the location was kept.

        A clock chip? I do know SOS can do time/date stamping of files,
but my "fixed" Apple III doesn't appear to keep track of either. Is
this middle version of the III incapable of keeping time? I didn't see
any NiCad (or other type) battery on the motherboard.

>There was a comment to the effect that the only changes that were not
>available to older III's were the FCC compliance, overscan and new
>keyboard.  I think this article also mentioned the Mouse III as being
>available, though how many were sold is doubtful.

	Here's an interesting tidbit I found in Addison Wesley's
'Technical Introduction to the Macintosh Family' on a chapter about
the mouse... "On the Macintosh and Macintosh Plus, the DB-9 connector
labeled with the mouse icon connects the mouse. (Apple II, Apple III,
Lisa, and the Classic Macintosh mouse devices are all electrically
identical.)"

	If Apple did produce a Mouse III, it was just the old Macintosh/
Apple II mouse with some cosmetic differences. You should be able to
use an Apple II mouse card within the Apple III, though I'll have to
search through my disks and see if a device driver was written.

>Another point I remember from an old description from late 1980 is
>that the first version of the Apple III had 96K as standard.  That may
>have changed by the release, or 128K may have become the base with the
>fixed III.

	I'm not sure about the original (circa 1980) Apple III, but my
fixed Apple III has a sticker on the bottom plate with a box for two
memory configurations. Something such as "[] 128k [] 256k". Mine has
a checkmark in the 128k box, but it appears it's former owner upgraded
it to 256k. I'm fairly sure all Apple III+ units came with 256k RAM as
standard.

>Stephen Harker			was phs172m@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au
>ex Monash University		now sjh@phadfa.ph.adfa.edu.au
>now ADFA (Canberra)		Baloney baffles brains: Eric Frank Russell

Mitchell Spector
m_spect@pavo.concordia.ca / spector@vax2.concordia.ca