Re: Help identify Apple IIe interface card

[Roger Johnstone <rojaws@orcon.net.nz>]

In <ddh1kc$not$1@theodyn.ncf.ca> Michael Black wrote:
> 
> "James Elkins" (jelkins8@cox.net) writes:
>> I have posted a couple of pictures at 
>> http://jelkins.webhop.org/forumpics/view.html click the appleiie 
>> folder.  I don't believe it is an 80-col card, it was in slot 2 if 
>> that helps. 
> The "Epson personality" bit suggests a printer interface.
> 
> Looking at the picture, there's a 6801 which is a CPU (I can't 
> remember at the moment if there's onboard I/O, it has a couple of 
> extra instructions over the 6800), and obviously some RAM at the left 
> side.  That 26pin header at the top is bound to be for connecting to 
> the printer.  
>
> So at the very least it's got to be a parallel port with firmware
> specific to a Epson printer.  Perhaps the memory is used to do a bit
> of spooling.  There's no reason they'd put a CPU on the board unless
> they needed some smarts.

A search of Google's newsgroup archives reveals the BPO in Wizard BPO to 
stand for Buffered Parallel Output. So yes, it sounds like a parallel 
printer interface card with 32KB of RAM for a buffer and a 
microcontroller to handle sending the buffered data out to the printer.

-- 
Roger Johnstone, Invercargill, New Zealand
http://vintageware.orcon.net.nz/
________________________________________________________________________
  No Silicon Heaven? Preposterous! Where would all the calculators go?

              Kryten, from the Red Dwarf episode "The Last Day"