"Sheldon Simms" <sheldonsimms@yahoo.com> wrote in message
pan.2003.10.21.21.32.42.506869@yahoo.com">news:pan.2003.10.21.21.32.42.506869@yahoo.com...
We've talked about this before, and I feel like it is probably futile
to bring it up again, but I was looking around the Intel website last
night and got to thinking again...
If such a card were to be made, I think it would be important to
control feature creep. In other words, it should accelerate Apple II
programs, it should provide a standard graphics output, and (as a
side effect) it would provide 8Mb or more RAM to Apple II programs.
The card would perform no other function. No SATA, No USB, No NIC,
and so on. This restriction is made to prevent the card from trying
to be a PC-on-a-card, and to make it as simple as possible (given
the primary requirements).
The card would include a low-power modern CPU, graphics adapter,
and memory. A 65816 emulation program would run on the CPU and
emulate a 65816 at speeds of more than 20Mhz (i.e. - faster than
any real 65816). The emulation program would also emulate all
Apple II & IIgs video modes, in the same way an emulation program
would do it, and provide the video output to a VGA connector on
the back of the card.
Now the reason that I decided to post about this again is that
it seems to me that Intel has pretty much the perfect solution(*)
for this card: The Pentium M and 855GM northbridge.
These two chips combine everything necessary. The Pentium M is
a low power P6 processor, and the 855GM has a DDR memory
controller, and a graphics controller. As far as I can tell, these
two chips would be the only parts needed apart from the various
analog components and whatever logic is required to interface the
Pentium M with the Apple II bus.
I'm not very knowledgable on the hardware/software aspects of your idea but I
do
have some questions that make me wonder if this is the way to go:
1. Power: Although, the Pentium M/855GM chipset is considered "low-power" the
data sheet looks to me like it's power requirements far exceeds any Apple II
power supply let alone what you can get on a slot.
Am I wrong?
2. Cost: A quick look on the net showed me that Pentium M chips were selling
at $230 to $495 for speeds 1.3GHz to 1.7GHz. I assume a 900MHz chip would be
cheaper but I didn't see any for sale. Add to that the price of 855GM chipset,
memory chips, video connector and the cost of manufacturing the board and you
have a pretty expensive card.
What is your estimate of the cost of a card like this?
3. Emulation: It would not be trivial to develope an emulator that runs
natively on the card. I'm assuming you would have to create it on a PC. Would
the emulator be in ROM? Just testing it would require making the card first
(or at least a proto-type).
Again, am I wrong here? Is there already an emulator that would work?