Keatah Posted March 20, 2017 Share Posted March 20, 2017 (edited) Well, let's see.. Why doesn't the Apple II have as many cool peripherals like the Atari 400/800's and the Amiga 500 (or brethren)? The Amiga's got a new FPGA Vampire 2 accelerator, the 800 has the Incognito board. Just to cite 2 examples. And there's replacement Atari 8-bit mainboards with enhanced capability. Never see anything remotely like this for the Apple II. Why aren't cool things being developed for the II? Is it because of the simplicity of the design and that there's no room to interpose new hardware without significantly affecting software compatibility? Is the design too simplistic? Perhaps all the needs of all the hobbyists are being met already? Perhaps the hobbyists are getting to old to be worrying about such stuff? Maybe there's interest (like period correct collecting) in other aspects of the II, rather than beefing it up? Something cool the wife thought up - a multi-processor board. Something that can run software from: Am9511 Zilog Z-80 MOS 6502 Motorola 6809 Motorola 68008 ..essentially covering the variety of processor cards available back in the day. Oh sure there's Carte Blanche, but that's a specialty development board not geared or marketed toward the end-user. Wonder if this state of affairs will improve? Edited March 20, 2017 by Keatah 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Polymorph Posted March 20, 2017 Share Posted March 20, 2017 Why aren't cool things being developed for the II? Is it because of the simplicity of the design and that there's no room to interpose new hardware without significantly affecting software compatibility? Is the design too simplistic? Hmm... Between A2Heaven/Nishida Radio/Ian Kim/Ultimate Apple 2/Steve Chamberlain, there is lots of new hardware being developed. I mean check out the 19MHz accelerator for the Apple //c that A2Heaven is working on: https://www.facebook.com/a2heaven/ Combine that with: * VGA for Apple II (A2Heaven) * VGA for Apple //c (A2Heaven) * DVI for Apple IIgs (Nishida Radio) * mass storage via smart port (SD Disk II (Ian Kim), Floppy Emu (Steve Chamberlain), Unidisk Air (Nishida Radio)) * reverse engineering the Transwarp GS and Phasor (Ultimate Micro) * the possible future run of the CFFA (Rich Dreher) * new MIDI adapters (Ian Kim / A2Heaven) * RAM cards (A2Heaven/ByteBoosters/GGLabs) I'm at a loss where to throw my money first! I already own VGA adapters for both my //e & //c, plus a DVI adapter and an 8Mb RAM card for my ROM3 IIgs. To me it seems like the *most* active time for Apple II hardware development since the 1980's. Just my 2c. :-) Cheers, Mike 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thorr Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 Wow, I am excited about the Transwarp for the Apple IIc! I just posted in another thread I wished I had some kind of zip chip and there it is! I also have the Floppy Emu combined with a switch provided by the same place that hooks into the internal floppy port and the internal floppy drive and allows me to switch back and forth between the Floppy Emu and the internal drive at anytime. This works perfect with King's Quest I because it doesn't seem to support external drives for the save game. It also works as a Smart Port hard drive, but so far I haven't tried it. Once I start programming again, I may get to a point where I would like to have the extra space on one drive. For anyone with a IIc, the Floppy Emu is the greatest thing since sliced bread! It also works on my Mac LC III! I also have a SCSI2SD in my Mac LC III that replaced my 80MB SCSI drive with four 2GB drives on a micro SD card. This isn't an Apple II, but it has an Apple IIe card inside, and I am able to set up ProDos partitions on the SD card, so it still counts. :-) 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimakis Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 Absolutely not. The Apple II had a plethora of original expansions, and today we have some new ones and many clones of the originals. What exactly are you looking for in Apple peripherals? You've got the CFFA3000 for your storage needs. There are plenty of original and clone RAM cards typically 1MB all the way to 4MB(rare). You've got plenty of accelerators. z80 co processor pc-transporter x86 coprocessor Mockingboard Sound Card and Clones(with dual card support) Voice Synthesizers RGB Video Cards Uthernet Card w/ TCP/IP stack What more do you want? A coprocessor board that lets you drop in a Skylake Quad Core i7 CPU? What specifically do you want? ~george 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted March 21, 2017 Author Share Posted March 21, 2017 What more do you want? A coprocessor board that lets you drop in a Skylake Quad Core i7 CPU? What specifically do you want? ~george I have the drop-in Skylake "mod" via emulation, with a little stretch of the imagination. That actually alleviates the need for any accelerator card, virtual or real. At least for my immediate wants & needs of today. Back in the day I never thought I'd be able run Applesoft at these breakneck speeds. Neat for those swoopy and swirly vector-like plots and animations that were popular in the 70's. I want to see a standardized sprite and graphics enhancement board. All attempts so far have been one-program-wonders, running their own demos. Color 40/80 column text would also be a nice thing. I have a Z80 and CFFA3000 and mockingboard, so I'm covered there. Have a transporter and ZipGSX, but still prefer emulation for higher speeds. One thing I hope is that the Phasor gets reverse engineered, the asking prices are a little too high for a getting a second board. And I want to see the ALF clone come back. I missed it the 1st time around. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimakis Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 From: http://www.bluerwhite.org/2012/08/sprite-boards/ But, these add-on video boards were never popular. First, there was a “chicken and the egg” problem. The boards required modified software to use their capabilities, so few people wanted to buy the boards without software to make it worthwhile. But, few programmers wanted to write software for the boards because few people owned the boards. Second, the boards were expensive. And, some of the boards required a new monitor, which further added to the cost. You'll never get a standard at this point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Usotsuki Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 Well, MAME supports two of the sprite boards (EZCGI and Arcade Board), as well as modified EZCGIs with V9938 and V9958 chips. It's not too hard to target both. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimakis Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 Well, MAME supports two of the sprite boards (EZCGI and Arcade Board), as well as modified EZCGIs with V9938 and V9958 chips. It's not too hard to target both. I think the demand is just too low for getting sprites on Apple II. People are barely writing new games as it is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkO Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 From: http://www.bluerwhite.org/2012/08/sprite-boards/ You'll never get a standard at this point. There is a Sprite Board "standard", ( as referenced above ) and an Audio Board "standard", ( mocking board/phasor [ and the Echo+ is just about like a Mockingboard ] )... The point is to make new hardware that is compatible with the old hardware and available and reasonable cost... A lot of Classic Collectors today, have a larger Disposable Income, and would be willing to buy things that make their Classic Computer experience, better... Just look How Many CFFA3000s have been sold... MarkO 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimakis Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 There is a Sprite Board "standard", ( as referenced above ) and an Audio Board "standard", ( mocking board/phasor [ and the Echo+ is just about like a Mockingboard ] )... The point is to make new hardware that is compatible with the old hardware and available and reasonable cost... A lot of Classic Collectors today, have a larger Disposable Income, and would be willing to buy things that make their Classic Computer experience, better... Just look How Many CFFA3000s have been sold... MarkO I agree with that statement partially. The CFFA3000 is a replacement for Floppy Drives, Hard Drives, and all sorts of finicky old mechanical storage devices. Basically anything that would have worked with a Floppy or HDD will work with the CFFA3000. Essentially every piece of software that wasn't distributed via audio cassette. The Mockingboard is indeed a standard. It had a fair amount of support back in the day, and popular games such as Ultima were written to take advantage of it. Which sprite board exactly is considered the standard, and how many pieces of existing software were written to take advantage of it? Meaning, is there enough software that collectors would actually use on their IIs to warrant reproductions of these sprite boards? A sprite board only would improve the experience if the software existed to run on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkO Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 (edited) I think the demand is just too low for getting sprites on Apple II. People are barely writing new games as it is. Start at this Message and follow to the end... MarkO Edited March 22, 2017 by MarkO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkO Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 I agree with that statement partially. The CFFA3000 is a replacement for Floppy Drives, Hard Drives, and all sorts of finicky old mechanical storage devices. Basically anything that would have worked with a Floppy or HDD will work with the CFFA3000. Essentially every piece of software that wasn't distributed via audio cassette. The Mockingboard is indeed a standard. It had a fair amount of support back in the day, and popular games such as Ultima were written to take advantage of it. Which sprite board exactly is considered the standard, and how many pieces of existing software were written to take advantage of it? Meaning, is there enough software that collectors would actually use on their IIs to warrant reproductions of these sprite boards? A sprite board only would improve the experience if the software existed to run on it. The only Sprite Boards I saw for the Apple ][ used the TMS9919 chip.. That would be the Steve Ciarcia one in Byte Magazine, or the ones made by Synetix, which would be The Super Sprite.. Also the F18 for the TI can be mounted in an Apple ][ Card as well..... Also, Software Drives the Hardware, so if there is Support for Better Video, ( and Video at a Reasonable Price, and Available to Purchase ), people will upgrade... MarkO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimakis Posted March 23, 2017 Share Posted March 23, 2017 The only Sprite Boards I saw for the Apple ][ used the TMS9919 chip.. That would be the Steve Ciarcia one in Byte Magazine, or the ones made by Synetix, which would be The Super Sprite.. Also the F18 for the TI can be mounted in an Apple ][ Card as well..... Also, Software Drives the Hardware, so if there is Support for Better Video, ( and Video at a Reasonable Price, and Available to Purchase ), people will upgrade... MarkO Again, I agree with the concept. However I do have serious doubts about the ability for something like a sprite card today to be very successful. Unless the price is very low, you are probably looking at demand in the very low hundreds of cards. This is in contrast with the infinitely useful CFFA3000 which continues to surprise us with the amount of interest. Off topic, but since you guys seem to know about A2 expansions: Which cards will work in Slot 3 of an Apple IIe that has an 80-col card in the AUX slot without causing collisions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkO Posted March 23, 2017 Share Posted March 23, 2017 (edited) Again, I agree with the concept. However I do have serious doubts about the ability for something like a sprite card today to be very successful. Unless the price is very low, you are probably looking at demand in the very low hundreds of cards. This is in contrast with the infinitely useful CFFA3000 which continues to surprise us with the amount of interest. Software Drives Hardware... If someone can develop a Cool Game that Address the Existing Sprite Cards, and Modern Clones can be made, ( for a reasonable Price ) there will be some interest.. The F18 is an extension of the Video already in the TI99/4A, but Cross Platform Hardware means there is more demand for Units.. Off topic, but since you guys seem to know about A2 expansions: Which cards will work in Slot 3 of an Apple IIe that has an 80-col card in the AUX slot without causing collisions? Each Apple ][ Slot ( except for Slot #0 on the ][ and ][+ ) has 16 Bytes of Input/Output ( I/O ), 256 Bytes of space for a ROM, and there is a 2K Byte "shared" area at C800-CFFF that can be used when the Card is Active. I know I ran my Echo ][ Speech Card in Slot #3 with an 80 Column Card, BITD. I would guess the Echo + should work too... The Uthernet II will work too. IIRC, Cards WITHOUT an On Board ROM should work fine. So the MockingBoard doesn't have a ROM, but it's I/O is Mapped into the 256 Byte ROM Space. I do have a MockingBoard so I could try it... I think I will See what the 80 Column Card maps in to the Slot #3 ( $C300 ) ROM Space. Most Parallel Cards, Serial Cards, Mouse Card all have ROMs..... Disk Controllers have ROMs. A lot of Basic Cards Do Not have ROMs For testing, use the Monitor to look at the PROM ( ROM ) Space for a Slot.. Slot #4 is $C400, Slot #5 is $C500. An Empty Slot should report ALL $FFs. Then Power Off the Apple ][ and Stick a Card in Slot #4 or #5, power back up and use the Monitor to check the ROM Space again... If it has Changed from $FFs, there is something there, and it probably won't work in Slot #3 with an 80 Column Card.. MarkO Edit: AppleWin is not showing ALL $FFs, ( or ALL $00s ) in the Slot ROM Areas, but this might be an Oversight... I will need to Verify with Actual Hardware... Edited March 23, 2017 by MarkO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Usotsuki Posted March 24, 2017 Share Posted March 24, 2017 If I were to suggest making an F18A card, I'd make it compatible with the EZCGI. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkO Posted March 24, 2017 Share Posted March 24, 2017 (edited) If I were to suggest making an F18A card, I'd make it compatible with the EZCGI. Someone already made an Apple ][ Card for the F18A. What is the EZCGI??? MarkO Edit: Something like this... Edited March 24, 2017 by MarkO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SSG Posted March 24, 2017 Share Posted March 24, 2017 There is always cool stuff coming out that you wont hear about. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Usotsuki Posted March 24, 2017 Share Posted March 24, 2017 Someone already made an Apple ][ Card for the F18A. What is the EZCGI??? MarkO Edit: Something like this... It is that. https://archive.org/stream/Hi-Res_Graphics_TMS9918_BYTE_0882/Hi-Res_Graphics_TMS9918_BYTE_0882_djvu.txt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkO Posted March 24, 2017 Share Posted March 24, 2017 (edited) It is that. https://archive.org/stream/Hi-Res_Graphics_TMS9918_BYTE_0882/Hi-Res_Graphics_TMS9918_BYTE_0882_djvu.txt Personally I believe the Steven Ciarcia board and the Super Sprite Boards are "Prior Art", and there is a "Possibility of Software", already written to take advantage of them.. So any New Hardware should be Backward Compatible... The F18A was made for the TI99/4A, so it has a Different heritage, but that doesn't mean it's not valuable.. IIRC, the F18A is an FPGA, so it might be possible to get some Changes or Additions made to it.. MarkO Edited March 24, 2017 by MarkO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c0op3r Posted March 25, 2017 Share Posted March 25, 2017 One thing I hope is that the Phasor gets reverse engineered, the asking prices are a little too high for a getting a second board. And I want to see the ALF clone come back. I missed it the 1st time around. Ultimate Micro is working on a Phasor Clone right now, and they have done one before: http://reactivemicro.com/wiki/Phasor 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Usotsuki Posted March 25, 2017 Share Posted March 25, 2017 Personally I believe the Steven Ciarcia board and the Super Sprite Boards are "Prior Art", and there is a "Possibility of Software", already written to take advantage of them.. So any New Hardware should be Backward Compatible... The F18A was made for the TI99/4A, so it has a Different heritage, but that doesn't mean it's not valuable.. IIRC, the F18A is an FPGA, so it might be possible to get some Changes or Additions made to it.. MarkO What matters is the interface *between* the video chip and the system. The TMS9918 in the original EZCGI was also "made for the TI99/4A". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted March 25, 2017 Share Posted March 25, 2017 Well, let's see.. Why doesn't the Apple II have as many cool peripherals like the Atari 400/800's and the Amiga 500 (or brethren)? The Amiga's got a new FPGA Vampire 2 accelerator, the 800 has the Incognito board. Just to cite 2 examples. And there's replacement Atari 8-bit mainboards with enhanced capability. Never see anything remotely like this for the Apple II. Why aren't cool things being developed for the II? Is it because of the simplicity of the design and that there's no room to interpose new hardware without significantly affecting software compatibility? Is the design too simplistic? Perhaps all the needs of all the hobbyists are being met already? Perhaps the hobbyists are getting to old to be worrying about such stuff? Maybe there's interest (like period correct collecting) in other aspects of the II, rather than beefing it up? Something cool the wife thought up - a multi-processor board. Something that can run software from: Am9511 Zilog Z-80 MOS 6502 Motorola 6809 Motorola 68008 ..essentially covering the variety of processor cards available back in the day. Oh sure there's Carte Blanche, but that's a specialty development board not geared or marketed toward the end-user. Wonder if this state of affairs will improve? If you just want to play with it, I see nothing wrong with a board like that, but if you are expecting to run some new software from back in the day... not so much. Back in the day a board that could run code for other processors made some sense because you could cross develop for another CPU before a new piece of hardware was complete. But now... there's really no existing software to run that wouldn't run better on a different system, and if you want to just use it as a coprocessor, you'd be better off with an ARM chip. And if you are going to do that, you are better off emulating the Apple II on the ARM. It's cheaper and doesn't require any special hardware. Still, if you want to do that, an FPGA board could be used to replace all those. What I would like to see, is the integration of several existing expansions onto a single card. Combine a Mockingboard with the SAM board but with the SAM output mixed with the Mocingboard audio. Stuff like that. Everything could fit in a single FPGA except external DACs. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted March 25, 2017 Author Share Posted March 25, 2017 Yes. The Apple doesn't have nearly as many multi-function cards as I'd like. Sure there's serial/parallel/clock boards from back in the day. And 80col + memory. But that's so old! Anyhow a modern board to run z80 and 6809 mill/stellation would be interesting. --- and in other news, some interesting projects, not all hardware. What I would like to see is a nice DHGR converter with a gui. http://lukazi.blogspot.com.au/search?updated-min=2017-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2018-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted March 25, 2017 Share Posted March 25, 2017 I'd also like to see IIe RAM boards that ditch the original chips in favor of large SRAM chips and a CPLD for logic.They'd take a lot less power and produce a lot less heat. --- and in other news, some interesting projects, not all hardware. What I would like to see is a nice DHGR converter with a gui. http://lukazi.blogspot.com.au/search?updated-min=2017-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2018-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=1 I saw the post about that on facebook. It's an interesting looking project. The IIgs seems to be an issue though. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted March 26, 2017 Share Posted March 26, 2017 '... What I would like to see, is the integration of several existing expansions onto a single card. Combine a Mockingboard with the SAM board but with the SAM output mixed with the Mocingboard audio. Stuff like that. Everything could fit in a single FPGA except external DACs. And stereo sound for the IIgs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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