Re: Input/output on the Apple ][

[pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <1pGdnfY54_COlX_fRVn-ow@comcast.com>,
Michael J. Mahon <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote:
> Paul Schlyter wrote:
>> 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?
> 
> Forgive me for speaking in the context of the Apple II and
> other "retrocomputers" of its time...clearly I should have
> added "of its time" to my statement.
> 
> Of course, since nothing that we exclaim about here is worth
> any exclamation except in the retro context--perhaps I can be
> excused for leaving it implicit.
 
You should at least have used past tense, like e.g.:
 
# The Apple II probably presented more options for doing I/O than
# any other computer.
 
or (even better):
 
# The Apple II probably presented more options for doing I/O than
# any other computer of its time.
 
However, you did use present tense:
 
# The Apple II probably presents more options for doing I/O than
# any other computer.
 
and that does give the impression that you claim the Apple II is
superior in this respect even compared to the computers of today.
 
 
But I'm not even sure that:
 
# The Apple II probably presented more options for doing I/O than
# any other computer of its time.
 
is correct.  We also had the S-100 bus computers (Altair, Imsai,
North Star Horizon, and several others) which indeed had a lot of I/O
options too, including the possibility to design and build your own
hardware I/O boards.  And they could handle interrupts and do DMA.
You could also bank switch the entire 64 kB memory space - one
multitasking multiuser OS (MP/M) assinged one 64 kB memory bank to
each user.  The S-100 bus computers were considerably more expensive
than the Apple II's though.
 
 
> If the OP specifies what kind of I/O needs doing, then we can
> either tell him how it can be done, or that it cannot.
 
Definitely!
 
> 
> -michael
> 
> 8-voice music synthesizer using NadaNet 2.0 networking!
> Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
 



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