Apple Workstation Card and the 2nd port
Bart
marked "Printer" on a Workstation card is actually a standard serial
port which can be used for a printer or other serial device.
Has anyone used this port? Is it 100% compatable with the SSC? And,
here is the big question (and as soon as I find the right adapter cable
maybe I can answer it myself):
Has anyone ever run ADT to this port?
-Bart
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Before you buy.
David Wilson
>According to my Apple Workstation Card Manual the bottom port
>marked "Printer" on a Workstation card is actually a standard serial
>port which can be used for a printer or other serial device.
Correct. It is the other port on the Zilog chip.
>Has anyone used this port? Is it 100% compatable with the SSC? And,
>here is the big question (and as soon as I find the right adapter cable
>maybe I can answer it myself):
No, I haven't used it. It would be no more compatible to the 6551 based
Super Serial Card than the //gs serial port is. That means if you use the
firmware it is reasonably compatible but if you talk directly to the
hardware then it is completely different. It would not even be the same
as the //gs as the 65c02 on the workstation card controls it instead
of the motherboard CPU.
>Has anyone ever run ADT to this port?
If ADT does not need to talk to the serial chip directly and can use the
firmware interface then it should be possible.
--
David Wilson School of IT & CS, Uni of Wollongong, Australia
David Empson
> According to my Apple Workstation Card Manual the bottom port
> marked "Printer" on a Workstation card is actually a standard serial
> port which can be used for a printer or other serial device.
> Has anyone used this port?
I haven't used it, but I can comment on how it works.
The Chooser.II application lets you select a direct connect printer via
the second port, instead of a network printer. After doing this, the
I/O firmware in the Workstation Card (BASIC and Pascal 1.1 I/O
interface) will communicate with the second port, rather than directing
data to the chosen network printer.
> Is it 100% compatable with the SSC?
No. The Workstation card uses a different serial chip (Z8530 SCC
instead of a 6551), and the Apple II has no direct control of it anyway
- it is controlled by the 65C02 microprocessor on the workstation card,
with which the Apple II exchanges data.
The only points at which it is compatible with other serial ports is
that the firmware interface is based on the same standards, and the
connector is the same as the IIgs. I don't know whether the firmware
supports a variation of the SSC firmware command set (also used by the
IIc and IIgs firmware) but I expect it does.