Re: Can you ID this card?

[Mitchell Spector <mitch2gs@hotmail.com>]

cornelio <ramito_not.this@san.rr.com> wrote:

>I found a strange card - could you help identify it?
>It may even piggy-back on the larger card?
>
>Sorry if it is obvious, but I have never seen one.
>
>link
>
>http://home.san.rr.com/cornelio/applecard/

    The larger card I immediately recognized as an 80 columns card 
for the Apple II Plus; this one a no-name Taiwanese clone. It plugs 
into slot 3 and you attach a female RCA cable via the 2-pin molex
connector at the top left corner. Normally to activate it, you would
type "PR#3" and then manually swap your monitor's RCA cable
from the back of the computer to the cable dangling off the card.

    I've not seen a daughterboard like the one in your photograph,
but in looking at it and taking a guess, I would say it plugs into the
motherboard's game port and 4-pin video connector (used for RF 
modulators). Look's like there's a pass-thru for the 16-pin socket 
and video pins so they're so accessible, and a connector that
links it to the 80 columns card.

    As to what's the daughterboard's function is, well perhaps it 
uses signals from the game port to switch between 40/80 columns
(to eliminate the need to manually swap cables) and the mixes
in standard text and graphics through the video pins on the
motherboard? 

Mitchell Spector