Re: Returning Apple User

[Alex Freed <alex_news@mirrow.com>]

Steven Hirsch wrote:
> I have the complete sources for both operating system (including device 
> drivers) and system utilities.

Cool. Then we are in business.
Which e-mail address can I use to reach you?

> Interesting about the Z181!  That was one of my pipe dreams, to code an 
> Appletalk server based on the CardZ180.

Z181 is a natural. We had a client, not server of course for the printer
but AppleTalk was still very tricky. Most early printers had a 68000 
handling both printing and AppleTalk, but there was a serious problem: 
during a transfer the CPU was too busy to keep the FIFO full of bits for
printing. It was solved by software means, but was not pretty.
The real nightmare came with the PowerPC computers that sent stuff much
faster than the good old 68K Macs.
So the "bufferred localtalk card" with a z181 was born. The localtalk 
stack in "C" was bought from a third party and ported to z181. However 
this was relatively late in the game - mid 90s - and few printers had 
LocalTalk.

> This weekend I'll dig out all the cards I have left and see if any of 
> the PALs are readable.  I suspect they are.

That would be nice, but just a list of registers with their addresses as
seen from both z180 and 6502 sides would be great too.


> Steve

-Alex.