Re: Input/output on the Apple ][

[pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <eu-dneft2PYQAnzfRVn-rw@comcast.com>,
Michael J. Mahon <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote:
 
> sam124@operamail.com wrote:
>
>> How can I do I/O on the Apple ][?
> 
> The Apple II probably presents more options for doing I/O than
> any other computer.
 
It's good that Apple II enthusiasts are still around.  But aren't you
a little overly enthusiastic here?  Can the Apple II be used for e.g.
capturing digital video over a Firewire connection?  Are there radio
and/or TV/video cards for the Apple II?  And what about Gigabit
Ethernet - is that available for the Apple II?  And of course we have
the ubiqutous USB-2 to which you can connect a lot of devices - does
that work on the Apple II?
 
These are some of the I/O options for a modern computer.  And you say
"The Apple II probably presents more options for doing I/O than any
other computer".  Which presumably means you say the Apple II can
do all of this -- and more....
 
And let's not forget about the disk I/O of massive amounts of data
available on a modern supercomputer.  Yes, we're talking about
hundreds or thousands of Terabytes here - can the Apple II do that
too?  And at the same speed?  If not, then there are I/O options some
computers have which the Apple II doesn't have.
 
Of course a lot can be acheived if you construct custom hardware.
Yet we have a bottleneck here: the Apple II's 6502 processor, running
at 1 MHz.  And its 16-bit address bus.  Yes, this was boosted a bit on
the IIgs which ran at a few MHz and had a 24(?)-bit address bus - by
modern standards this isn't a lot either and could quickly become
a bottleneck if you attempted e.g. digital video on the IIgs.
 
And can you do DMA on an Apple II?  You could do it on even the
earliest PC's .....
 
> More specificity is required.
> 
> What kind of I/O?
 
Let's pick something simple, and common:  Ethernet
 
> To what?
 
A network disk
 
> At what speed?
 
One Gigabit/s
 
> From what kind of program?
 
An Applesoft program
 
Please supply details on how to do this....   <g>
 
> -michael
> 
> 8-voice music synthesizer using NadaNet networking!
> Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
 
 
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