magnusfalkirk wrote:
Not to try to sound overly stupid, I've got a Carte Blanche card reserved but I'm trying to figure out what good it will do me in my Apple IIGS. Can somebody explain it to me? Dean
First and foremost CB is an extremely flexible platform to add custom hardware to an Apple 2 without touching a soldering iron. Depending on the configuration loaded - pretty much like changing firmware - it can act as almost any other card. What will come pre-loaded: VGA "repeater" that shows on a VGA monitor any standard Apple text or graphics. You can also add GS graphics and/or special modes that do not exist on real Apples. In addition there is a MMC/SD interface for mass storage, also as a part of the default configuration. I'm still finalizing the details. There is an IDE interface that could be made to work as a CFFA clone. The creative possibilities are literally endless. For example: 1. Logic analyzer showing everything happening on the slot bus. 2. Hardware breakpoints. Single step execution. 3. Use IDE as a general purpose bi-directional 16 bit port plus a few extra signals. Use that as a logic analyzer for EXTERNAL signals. 4. A very fast co-processor. Say a z80 at 50-80 MHz is not too hard. 5. A whole soft Apple on a card running at 28 MHz CPU rate. No floppy, but uses MMC as a hard disk. 6. 256K RAM disk. Too trivial. Probably quite a few other things can be done. My hope is that it will take off as a development platform with many participants. -Alex.