Re: substituting ROMs (Re: Illegal Clones)

[CUTjblakeney@sentex.net (Jeff Blakeney)]

On Thu, 17 Oct 2002 23:09:02 -0700, Matthew Montchalin
<mmontcha@OregonVOS.net> wrote:

>The Spartan was a very strange bird that is quite a collector's item
>nowadays; I think it fetches a much higher price now than it ever did
>when it first came out.  Unfortunately, it suffered from a high price
>when it was first marketed, and reviewers were ordered to torpedo it,
>regardless of how valuable it might be as a 'link' between two different
>(yet similar) platforms.

I have a Spartan and it is a stand alone Apple II+ compatible machine.
All you need to add to it to use it as an Apple II+ is a keyboard
(although adding a Disk ][ controller certainly helps too :-).

Unfortunately, I never got the manuals for it so I have no idea what
all it is capable of.  I know that using a C-64 as the keyboard for
it, you would get a "smart" keyboard that would allow you to use a two
key combo on the C-64 to generate entire strings on the Spartan (ie.
CATALOG followed by carriage return).  I never found out what all
three of the buttons on the right side did (one was a reset button),
how you could use the three internal C-64 cartridge connectors and the
one external one (perhaps you could have mutliple cartridges working
at once or at least switch easily between cartridges), what could go
in the empty U28 socket that seems to be also connected to the
cartridge spot, what all the DIN connectors on the back did, how to
hook up video and I/O connectors from the C-64 (I used to just run the
cables through the Spartan but I'm sure that you should be able to
hook it all up to the Spartan as I've heard that you can use a 1541
drive to read Apple II floppies using the Spartan) and I'm sure there
are other things I never found out about it.

The CPU card that the Spartan has appears to be the complete Apple II+
part of the Spartan.  The rest of the box just holds the power supply
and the  motherboard for Apple II slots and interconnecting the C-64.
The CPU card has the processor, ROM, RAM, keyboard connector and game
I/O connector on it.

-- 
 Jeff Blakeney - Dean of the Apple II University in the
                 Apple II Community on Syndicomm.com
 CUT the obvious from my address if you want to e-mail me