Re: A2e techref

["mdj" <mdj.mdj@gmail.com>]

> Thanks, actually lots of interesting documents there, great. Thanks also to
> Nick too for pointing out how the refrence without technical differ (I was
> wondering). My IIe is enhanced so I would still be looking for the technical
> reference but this helps a lot.

Since an enhanced IIe is essentially a set of ROM upgrades plus 65C02
to make it more compatible with a IIc, a combination of the two manuals
will give you what you want to know.

The IIc Technical Reference is essentially the definitive guide the the
extended 8-bit Apple II family. The advantage of having this reference
over the older IIc reference is the addition of documentation for the
SmartPort API and protocol, plus the memory expansion facility
reference. Neither of these is documented in the IIe Technical
Reference, and these are difficult items to find coverage on (Although
Extended Smartport is covered in the IIgs reference material).

Essentially, unless you're interested in low-level programming of a
3.5" disk, SCSI card, or memory expansion card, everything you need to
know will be contained in the IIc reference manual on that site. If you
want to know about peripheral card design and slot signals, etc. the
IIe reference manual suffices there.

Just be aware while perusing the IIc reference manual that there are a
few hardware features in the IIc that just aren't present in the IIe,
regardless of the expansion card you use. For instance, the IIc can
generate interrupts on keypress, which is impossible on a IIe without
hardware mods (no expansion card I'm familiar with can do this on a
IIe). VBL interrupts on the other hand, can be generated on a IIe if a
mouse card is installed, and the documentation provided in the IIc
reference is relevant to the mouse card in the IIe as well.

The IIc reference for me was actually a fascinating read; there's lots
of little tricks in the machine that are worth knowing about for the
IIc experimenter. For instance, one of the pins on the disk port is
assigned to interrupt generation via one of the serial port ACIA's the
other ACIA services keyboard interrupts). Very handy for external
interfacing.

There are also some minor firmware differences between enhanced IIe and
IIc, however if one sticks to the "Apple Approved" ROM entry points,
and used the mouse firmware for interrupt handling of VBL, the machines
behave identically.

Cheers,

Matt