Strange //e card, etc

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

	Just bought an Apple //e tonight (yup, another :) and found this
strange card installed which I've no idea what it does. The card itself
is a breadboard with about a dozen multi-colored wires across it. In the
center are two socketed chips marked "MC14503 / BCPRR8xxx". Also on this
slot-card are two ribbon cables leading off it -- one is a 16-pin male
plug and the other (much longer) is a D-style 15-pin male plug. I found the
card in slot #7 and the 16-pin plug was in the paddle/game I/O on the //e's
motherboard. My guess (probably wrong) is it's some kind of screen-grabber
which dumps text or graphic images to a printer or disk, and activated with
one of the Apple keys. So, anyone out there know what this is, and what
exactly would I connect the D-style plug to...?

	This system also came with a "Monitor II" screen. I noticed it
creates a kind of snow every time I turn the contrast-knob on the side.
I also noticed an exteremly _slight_ flicker when certain graphics images
are displayed, almost simular the same effect that occurs with interlaced
screens displaying high resolutions (don't notice it in text mode, so maybe
it's just my imagination). Another thing which seems strange is the monitor
kind of shimmers whenever the DuoDisk floppy drive writes to disk, but is
fine when it reads. If any of these problems aren't normal, is there an easy 
way to solve them? I'd be more interested in solving the "snow" affect whenever
adjusting the contrast though.

	This part is not a question really, but I found it rather curious.
The part # on the //e motherboard is "820-0087-A" (607-0187 underneath), but
someone at Apple placed pre-made sticker over it with the older part #
"820-0064" (and 607-0164 underneath). The underside of the motherboard had
the same 820-0087-A part #, but strangely enough a yellow sticker marked
"S/O" was covering the "0087-A" part of the serial number. Could this have
been done because of the confusion between the old and new revision 'A'
motherboards? Also interesting to note is it has the French-Canadian/USA
character set all on a single 24-pin EPROM chip (my old revision 'B' //e
has a 24-to-28 pin daugtherboard plugged into the Video-ROM socket). BTW,
the motherboard is (c) 1984 and came with the unenhanced chip set. Sigh,
had it's former owner waited a couple of months in 1984, I could have had
an enhanced machine! :/ I'll eventually upgrade it though, I'd love to
get it running ProTERM 3.1 and use it as a dumb terminal for GNO running
on my GS! :)
	
Mitchell Spector
sb_spec@pavo.concordia.ca / spector@vax2.concordia.ca