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Groups > comp.sys.apple2.programmer > #5734

Re: New hardware project

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Hi Terence,

>> 1.1 One option is a FTDI USB chip in a parallel FIFO operation mode,=20
>> e.g. the FT245R in 'USB to MCU FIFO Interface' mode. These chips have=20
>
>> 1.2 Another at first sight pretty strange option is a WIZnet W5100=20
>> combined with a SMSC LAN9512. The Ethernet PHYs of the two chips are=20
>
>The primary reason for creating this project was for something to do during=
> the winter and COVID-19 lockdown. I had considered ways of making the boar=
>d much faster (for sure the Apple II is the bottleneck) but also wanted to =
>keep it simple to create as a hobby. The current design is slow but is easy=
> to understand and anyone with moderate soldering skills can put it togethe=
>r themselves.

And the fact that your design already works while none of my designs
was realized in 5 years shows how right you are!

>> 2. One of the things I like about the A2 is how quickly/easily it=20
>> reboots. On the other hand the RPi boots pretty slowly. It isn't fun=20
>> to have the RPi reboot everytime the A2 is power-cycled. I imagine=20
>> that supercapacitors might be a very elegant way to keep the RPi alive=20
>> while powercycling the A2.
>
>The RPi does not seem to reboot when I restart the Apple II. It only pulls =
>the reset line low, not disconnect power.

Maybe a misunderstanding. With 'reboot' I was refering to powering the
A2 off, waiting for the RAM to loose content in order to have the A2
"power up byte" become void and then powering on again. I presume that
this procedure makes the RPi reboot, doesn't it?

BTW: That's one of the things I like about the IIgs - the keyboard
driven reboot feature.

>So really only the initial boot o=
>n power-up is slow. I get around this by using one of my previous projects.=
> It boots quickly on power-up (ProDOS boot + BASIC.SYSTEM in 1.5 seconds). =
>It's not ideal but helps take away some of the slow initial boot frustratio=
>n. Someday I might combine the two designs... Boot out of ROM and then pres=
>ent a second drive from the RPi.

I've been thinking about such an approach too (a lot). At least to me
it doesn't seem woth the effort. I'd rather use opto-couplers to
electrically separate the RPi from the A2 and have the RPi powered in
the usual way via USB. Then I'd turn on the RPi together with my
monitor before actually booting the A2.

>> >4. Web service calls from the Apple II
>> Yeah, I was thinking about an RPC interface to (a subset of) the cURL=20
>> functions.=20
>
>I need to think of some use cases for this.

I think I know of a true use case. I wanted to generate and display QR
codes on the A2. I was totally surprised how complex the algorithm to
do so is. I got it generally working but it would take like an hour to
generate one. So the A2 could call http://goqr.me/api/ and display the
result.

>It seems like something useful =
>in general but having the II have to fill out and parse JSON seems a bit mu=
>ch.

I wasn't thinking of JSON. Rather of some proprietary binary format.

>Once again, it's just a rough idea in my head. Perhaps something similar to=
> a VNC protocol, sending changed chunks of graphics instead of rendering th=
>e entire page. Maybe even leverage the open source VNC and customize it to =
>work with the card. That could potentially allow connections to other machi=
>nes, not just the RPi. The RPi would act as a bridge between a machine serv=
>ing VNC and the Apple II. This might be easier than hacking into graphics l=
>ocally.

Again, I've been thinking about this a lot - and looked into VNC in
quite some detail. I consider it technically feasible, the issue is
rather that about every exsisting "content" requires a much higher
screen resolution.

The best I came up with is to customize an open source J2ME (Java 2
Micro Edition) CLDC/MIDP emulator to use the A2 for input/output and
run it on the RPi. That allows to run the loads of exsisting MIDlets.

In the MIDlet world a 280x192 monochrome screen is at least somewhat
reasonable.

>I assume you are the same Oliver Schmidt I have to thank for your work on c=
>c65 that I use to write my 6502 assembler with.

Yes - and you're welcome :-)

Regards,
Oliver

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Thread

New hardware project Terence Boldt <terence@boldt.ca> - 2020-12-10 20:26 -0800
  Re: New hardware project D Finnigan <dog_cow@macgui.com> - 2020-12-11 17:40 +0000
    Re: New hardware project ol.sc@web.de (Oliver Schmidt) - 2020-12-11 23:03 +0000
  Re: New hardware project ol.sc@web.de (Oliver Schmidt) - 2020-12-11 23:04 +0000
    Re: New hardware project Terence Boldt <terence@boldt.ca> - 2020-12-11 15:49 -0800
      Re: New hardware project ol.sc@web.de (Oliver Schmidt) - 2020-12-12 11:46 +0000
        Re: New hardware project Christian Hausen <chausenbo@googlemail.com> - 2020-12-31 09:33 -0800
          Re: New hardware project Terence Boldt <terence@boldt.ca> - 2020-12-31 10:58 -0800
  Re: New hardware project "ralle@palaveev.org" <ralle@palaveev.org> - 2021-06-05 02:14 -0700

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