Re: RFC : SOME IDEAS FOR THE APPLE II FPGA'ers

["Simon D. Williams" <bb065@chebucto.ns.ca>]

> So at a minimum, what I'd *like* is a replacement motherboard for my
> IIe that includes accelerator functionality, RamWorks style expansion
> memory, and ability to drive more modern displays. It doesn't have to
> clock at stupidly fast speeds. It should include more than 1mb of
> auxiliary RAM (oh how I've longed for one of those 2mb expander
> boards).
> 
> It should also include all 7 expansion slots, composite output that
> does EXACTLY what the standard output does, game connector, cassette
> I/O. The RGB output should be capable of driving either old-school NTSC
> frequency monitors, or switched to VGA level frequencies. Since it's so
> simple to do on the FPGA, it should provide a DVI-I output connector so
> either analog VGA or a digital panel can easily be connected, now and
> in a few years time when analog output becomes obsolete. The
> implementation should conform to the AppleColor standard for RGB,
> meaning I have access to colour text mode, plus double hires mono,
> colour, and mixed. Since some older software manages to stuff this up,
> an override switch to force mono or force colour would be sensible
> (would let me reuse the now defunct character set switch)

How about this: Make the FPGA board (or whatever) as compact as possible
so that hobbyists can shove it inside a dead iPod or whatever mad scheme
they can dream up. Then make an expeansion board that has all the standard
slots and ports that the FPGA board fits into. The expansion board could
be a drop-in replacement for a real A2 mother board. With this kind of
arrangement you could even have a tablet style Apple II that could go
anywhere, but has the advantage of being "dockable" with a fully
compatible modern A2 clone.

Just a thought...

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