Apple ][ boards (mostly

[Ethan Dicks]

On 8/12/05, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> That sounds like the bit-banger card. I have a couple, I have the manual
> somewhere. I've also heard that one early Apple manual (which I don't
> have) contains code to bit-bang 110 baud serial data through one of the
> outputs on the games connector, and that that was the original way to get
> printouts from an Apple (convert to current loop, add an ASR33).

I've done that (bit-banger serial over the game port) with non-Apple
software at 1200 baud direct to a C-64 user-port bit-banger serial
port... was about 1984 or 1985... me and a mate wrote some custom
stuff to gulp and blow disk sectors from the Apple II version of
Sorcerer to a C-64 disk that had formerly contained Enchanter.  We
used Enchanter to map the different sector mappings, then siphoned off
the game file from one machine to the other, proving beyond a shadow
of a doubt that Infocom's multi-platform efforts were fully
successful.  The game-port-to-user-port hack wasn't bad, either.  No
level shifters, just TTL serial over a 30 cm twisted triple-wire (RxD,
TxD, GND).

> I thought the firmware ROMs (there are 2 on the bitbanger, P7 and P8)
> were 20 pin chips.

They should be 6309s, but I could be mistaken.

-ethan