Re: AnyCard project

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Smohn Jith wrote:

>It sounds fantastic, but the feature creep issue isn't just hardware 
>related.  We're going to have this card that does everything with a million 
>gadgets on it, but there is not software to support it.  Lancegs 8bit 
>anyone?  Just getting USB and having drivers, etc to run that is a huge step 
>forward for the Apple II.  CF and IDE solutions already exist.  The ability 
>to replace our aging RGB monitors is great too, but I'd rather not sacrifice 
>USB for months for a monitor solution.  Parallel cards are getting hard to 
>come by and a serial to parallel adaptor is a bit of cash.  Being able to 
>use new laser/inkjet printers would be fantastic.  I think it's amazing that 
>people are willing to commit time and resources to a project, and I would be 
>willing to buy one of these cards to expand the abilities of my Apple II.

While there will inevitably come a day when Apple II machines and
peripherals are hard to come by, we are far from that day.  All the
common peripheral cards are quite easy to find and affordable, on
eBay if nowhere closer to you.

NTSC-scan rate RGB monitors are also quite easy to find, particularly
as "TV sets" become monitors with tuners attached.  A "standard"
IIgs display will always be the same resolution it has always been,
and so will never look better on a VGA display than it does when
emulated in a window.

The primary advantage for combining functions on a card is to
free up other slots for more options--but that is easier said than
done if compatibility is to be maintained.  Seven or eight expansion
slots used to be a large number!  ;-)

The issue, as "Smohn" points out, is software.  Each USB device
will require a compatible driver.  That driver will have to do two things:
control the device as its implementation requires, and map the device's
capabilities to an Apple application-compatible interface.  Neither task
is trivial, but the first is the hardest, since the interface specifications
for almost any USB device you can think of will be peculiar to that
device and essentially publicly undocumented.

I know that it seems that a tiny device with one or two ICs should
be "simple", but they are, in fact, quite complex, and they often
have data rates and management requirements that go far beyond
what an Apple II can be expected to do (a scanner comes to mind
immediately).

I love Apple II's, but we should be inspired by what is actually
feasible in the current market environment, not by what is not
likely to be done.  It is far easier to imagine than to accomplish.

-michael

New Applesoft BASIC interface for NadaNet networking!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/