Stellation Mill 6809 card clone / FPGA
MdntTrain
{conversation moved from "Not your father's Applicard"}
Alex, Steven, I'd be very interested, and a committed buyer, for a
re-
creation of "The Mill" -- the 6809 board for the Apple II. I don't
have one but here's a pic and little blurb on it:
http://www.vintagemacworld.com/8bit.html
What is the 6809 specific operating system claimed available for the
Apple II?!
~ JS
=====================
Steve Hirsh replies:
MdntTrain wrote:
> Alex, Steven, I'd be very interested, and a committed buyer, for a re-
> creation of "The Mill" -- the 6809 board for the Apple II. I don't
> have one but here's a pic and little blurb on it:
> http://www.vintagemacworld.com/8bit.html
That would be more correctly: s/Alex, Steven/Alex/ :-). He's the
man. I'm a
software guy with enough digital hardware knowledge to be dangerous
(now,
analog audio systems are another story, but who uses them anymore?).
> What is the 6809 specific operating system claimed available for the
> Apple II?!
I'm guess it's Microware OS-9. I've started working with that
environment on
my Tandy CoCo and it's a lot of fun.
Every once in a while a Stellation Mill will pop up on eBay, but they
always
go for ridiculous amounts. The nice thing about Alex's upcoming FPGA
project
board is that you can implement the 6809 (or, better yet, 6309) in
synthesizable logic and have enough room left over for two or three
more CPUs.
There are FPGA designs for the 6809 out there already for the
picking. The
real chips are getting difficult to find and the 6309 just about
impossible.
Not like the 6502 and Z80, I'm afraid.
Steve
=====================
David Wilson replies:
> What is the 6809 specific operating system claimed available for the
> Apple II?!
Yes - it was Microware OS-9 (I have that for my Mill card -
unfortunately it never worked on my IIe but did work on a II+ at
work...).
=====================
Steven H replies:
> Yes - it was Microware OS-9 (I have that for my Mill card -
> unfortunately it never worked on my IIe but did work on a II+ at
> work...).
Oh good. Can you make the OS distribution available for posterity in
case
someone (me) wants to try cobbling up a 6809 on an FPGA?
=====================
JS replies:
> The nice thing about Alex's upcoming FPGA project
> board is that you can implement the 6809 (or, better yet, 6309) in
> synthesizable logic and have enough room left over for two or three more CPUs.
You mean YOU could implement it. I wouldn't have the foggiest idea
of how to put a CPU core on an FPGA, much less the entire Mill card.
I'd like to learn, but man, what a stretch. My brain is back at 7400
series.
How about this idea. If Alex introduces his FPGA kit, what about a
group effort / learning project to recreate the Mill on his card?
All in the group would commit to purchasing Alex's card, then we'd
all
help each other learn about it and make kinda like an Open Source
project of getting a Mill, docs, and software all organized. A
project like this would help legacy brains like mine learn about the
newer technologies.. it'd be a great thing that'd go beyond just a
Mill card... especially if enough people would get on board.
Course, I think it'd be even cooler to do a 68008 and CPM 68k, but
the
Mill -- if we can find the Apple II software for it -- is definitely
esoteric enough.
JS
=====================
Steven H replies:
> You mean YOU could implement it. I wouldn't have the foggiest idea
> of how to put a CPU core on an FPGA, much less the entire Mill card.
> I'd like to learn, but man, what a stretch. My brain is back at 7400
> series.
Don't get me wrong! I'm not anywhere NEAR far enough on the learning
curve to
code a CPU in VHDL. But, I think sewing together modules written and
tested
by others isn't beyond my grasp. I've been spending a lot of time
reading
through every book I can get my hands on, rewinding all the way back
to the
fundamentals of Karnaugh maps and by-hand logic minimization. I
actually knew
this stuff reasonably well when I got my CS degree, but never worked
in the
hardware domain and it sort of dissipated.
> How about this idea. If Alex introduces his FPGA kit, what about a
> group effort / learning project to recreate the Mill on his card?
> All in the group would commit to purchasing Alex's card, then we'd all
> help each other learn about it and make kinda like an Open Source
> project of getting a Mill, docs, and software all organized. A
> project like this would help legacy brains like mine learn about the
> newer technologies.. it'd be a great thing that'd go beyond just a
> Mill card... especially if enough people would get on board.
I'm always up for a challenge, so why not? The first order of
business is to
find some architectural information on the 6809 Mill. The second is
to
reverse engineer the little piggy-back board that made it possible to
run OS-9
on the Apple. If the implementation is anything like the CoCo (a good
bet),
memory re-mapping is a requirement. Everything in OS-9 is fully
relocatable
and it dynamically maps logical <---> physical address space in 4k
chunks. My
CoCo has 512K installed and it's able to use all of that by swapping
these
chunks into the 64k address space as needed by the currently running
task.
Task switching is triggered by a hardware timer interrupt. Quite
sophisticated for a little machine.
The 6809 architecture is not really very similar to the 6502, and is
highly
optimized for relocatable, PC-relative addressing.
> Course, I think it'd be even cooler to do a 68008 and CPM 68k, but the
> Mill -- if we can find the Apple II software for it -- is definitely
> esoteric enough.
If your interests run in that direction, I believe there are designs
out there
for 68k cores also.
Steve
=====================
David W replies:
> I'm always up for a challenge, so why not? The first order of business is to
> find some architectural information on the 6809 Mill.
Not a problem - the circuit diagram is published in the documentation
that came with it.
> The second is to
> reverse engineer the little piggy-back board that made it possible to run OS-9
> on the Apple.
No problem there either - I built my own to enable switching between
OS-9 and non-OS-9 modes via software instead of needing to take the
lid off and flick the little switch. The card is just a simple 4 bit
in 4 bit out to remap the upper bits of the address bus. Without the
board, the Mill has two address mappings:
0xxx..Fxxx => 0xxx.Fxxx (straight through)
0xxx..7xxx,8xxx..Fxxx => 8xxx..Fxxx,0xxx..7xxx (invert A15)
The daughter board remaps the 16 4KB banks in a similar fashion to
the
Z80 card giving OS-9 a larger contiguous address space than either of
the original mappings.
> My
> CoCo has 512K installed and it's able to use all of that by swapping these
> chunks into the 64k address space as needed by the currently running task.
> Task switching is triggered by a hardware timer interrupt. Quite
> sophisticated for a little machine.
The Mill OS-9 is only Level 1 so does not support more than 64KB. The
timer interrupt is not available on a standard Apple II so I think it
fakes it somehow.
=====================
Michael Mahon replies:
Of course, like all 68* machines, it's big-endian, so data exchange
with
a 65* machine is a bit of a pain...
-michael
=====================
Steve in Australia replies:
6809's and 6309 were very popular with apple clones towards the end
of
the Apple era. Many clones had all three processors - 6502, Z80 and
6809 on a single main board.
http://www.applelogic.org:88/AL/ACCORD.JPG
The adoptor I designed will allow as many processors you need to be
brought into an Apple II via peripheral cards, which includes
Hitachi's 63C09's and its hidden powerful instruction set.
http://www.applelogic.org/AL/6809+65C816hires.JPG
steve
=====================
JS replies:
> 6809's and 6309 were very popular with apple clones towards the end of
> the Apple era.
They were? Why is that?
> http://www.applelogic.org:88/AL/ACCORD.JPG
** This link didn't work for me.
> The adoptor I designed will allow as many processors you need to be
> brought into an Apple II via peripheral cards, which includes
> Hitachi's 63C09's and its hidden powerful instruction set.
> http://www.applelogic.org/AL/6809+65C816hires.JPG
Steve, what the heck is this a picture of?? And tell us more about
this "adoptor"?
JS
=====================
A2Retro replies:
> ** This link didn't work for me.
Remove the port number 88 from the url
=====================
David W replies:
> Is the Mill similar to the PCPI card in that it's a full computer
> running with the Apple II as a terminal host? What would the Mill
> have been typically purchased for?
No, it is closer to a Microsoft Soft Card - no on-board RAM. The 6502
only gets to run during 6809 dead cycles.
The Mill was available in 3 software configurations.
1) 6809 Assembler - runs under DOS 3.3
2) OS-9
3) Apple Pascal Speed Up - offloads math computations to the 6809
(not
sure as I never had this one).
=====================
Alex Freed replies:
> Hehe.. well, likely the first is to wait for Alex to be on board with
> all this.. as without his projects, it's a no-go.
The upcoming Carte Blanche will be a perfect platform to implement
it. There are too many Apple related projects in my pipeline that I
doubt I'll want to make a special project for it.
I've *heared* that 6809 was a wonderful CPU but never used it in
any form.
There exists an FPGA implementation of a 6809 system easy to port
to any FPGA. Some years ago I did build it for an old Spartan 3
board from Digilent ($99) but didn't know what to do with it :)
If someone posts a pointer to the board schematics I'll tell you
how easy it will be to clone.
-Alex.
=====================
JS replies:
JS send schematics to Alex.
MdntTrain
More information including schematics kindly supplied by Eric Smith
here:
http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/apple/apple2/mill/
JS
MdntTrain
I have webspace. I'll be glad to host a webpage of documents and
software for this project.
steve....@altium.com.au
> this "adoptor"?
The picture shows three key parts to assembling your own Stellation
II
card (no soldering, just plug stuff up). The carrier board, known as
PBA01, or with memory/cache PB02 provides all the logic you would
ever
need for an Apple II card, plus the physical requirement needed to
plug it up to any Apple II or III.
http://www.applelogic.org/NBIIAIIADPT.html
The geen adaptor board on top of the PBA card is PB04. This board
takes any DIP 40 device (CPU or ASIC, 5v or 3.3v) and connects it to
the FPGA seamlessly (voltage translation, power pins etc) bringing
the
device (63C09) and the FPGA together.
http://www.applelogic.org/ASICAdaptor.html
From here, you take your schematic
http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/apple/apple2/mill/mill.pdf
and either schematic capture the design in the traditional way into
your FPGA tool suite, or convert its logic process to verilog or
VHDL.
Once captured, you download the design into your FPGA via JTAG. The
FPGA executes the logic process, connecting the Apple II Bus to the
63C09, and there you have your own Stellation II copy. With this
approach, its not emulation of the card, but more a compatible copy
of
the card.
Steve
steve....@altium.com.au
One very important thing folks, this is my own private project.
Although I work for altium, this is what I got up to over the chrissie
break (no ones makes apple II stuff anymore). Apart from being
associated with the nanoboard, it has nothing to do with Altium. Ill
have to register yet *another* google account (altium uses google as
their primary email).
steve
Steven Hirsch
The stuff on your site all looks terrific, but even if someone handed me a PCB
and a bin of parts it's beyond my ability to solder all those surface-mount
components.
Is anyone talking about fabrication?
James Littlejohn
> ... (no ones makes apple II stuff anymore)....
I whole heartily disagree with that statement. There are a lot of good
people still designing hardware projects for the Apple II.
As a Apple II geek, and with a little insight in the hardware
community, I know of more projects coming out for the Apple II's than
I am allowed to talk about.
Don't get me wrong, I really like this project and I want at least 2
of them, but let's give credit where credit is due.
alex.fr...@gmail.com
> On Jan 12, 7:13 pm, steve.how...@altium.com.au wrote:
>
> > ... (no ones makes apple II stuff anymore)....
>
> I whole heartily disagree with that statement.
Probably my good friend Steve meant "on industrial scale".
He is well aware of many new designs including CFFA and my PD8.
Now that he decided to step out of the shade I'd like to clarify
that Steve is the primary driving force behind all the "FPGA for
real Apple 2" development. The 2 boards pictured on my page
are his design. The upcoming Carte Blanch is our joint project
again with Steve doing all the hard work. I'm mainly just designing
the "soft logic" that goes inside the FPGAs.
The PseudoDisk and Applicard clone on the other hand are my
sole responsibility.
-Alex.
MdntTrain
>> JS sends schematics to Alex F.
> Alex F replies:
> Thanks. Indeed a very simple card and no design work needed
> apart from the board layout that can also be copied from the
> original...
Alex, Given that CPUs are available (yes, Steve H), does it make sense
to implement this in an FPGA? Seems really easy with just SSI
components... or maybe some PALs?
Or is implementing the entire 6809 + glue in an FPGA half the fun?
Thanks for looking at the schematic.
JS
MdntTrain
> The picture shows three key parts to assembling your own Stellation II
> card (no soldering, just plug stuff up). The carrier board, known as
> PBA01, or with memory/cache PB02 provides all the logic you would ever
> need for an Apple II card, plus the physical requirement needed to
> plug it up to any Apple II or III.
>
> takes any DIP 40 device (CPU or ASIC, 5v or 3.3v) and connects it to
> the FPGA seamlessly (voltage translation, power pins etc) bringing
> the device (63C09) and the FPGA together.
Ok, question Steve. If we were to use a real CPU, would we really
need
an FPGA for such a small amount of glue logic? Seems like it would be
extreme overkill. Why would we not want to implement the 6809 in the
FPGA
itself?
> From here, you take your schematic
> and either schematic capture the design in the traditional way into
> your FPGA tool suite, or convert its logic process to verilog or VHDL.
Do you actually scan the schematic in, or do you mean redraw (copy)
it?
> Once captured, you download the design into your FPGA via JTAG. The
> FPGA executes the logic process, connecting the Apple II Bus to the
> 63C09, and there you have your own Stellation II copy. With this
> approach, its not emulation of the card, but more a compatible copy
> of the card.
Which FPGA tools and JTAG cable do you recommend?
Thank you,
JS
steve....@altium.com.au
>
> Ok, question Steve. If we were to use a real CPU, would we really
> need
> an FPGA for such a small amount of glue logic? Seems like it would be
> extreme overkill. Why would we not want to implement the 6809 in the
> FPGA
> itself?
Absolutley, putting the whole board including its CPU into the FPGA is
just touching on how most designs, if not all, will be in the future.
Which is why the FPGA and the PB04 ASIC adaptor board are in two
halves.
One of the most notable issues when implementing this stuff, is how to
hunt down bugs, and for first the first time, I found myself in awe at
the fact that Alex's IIe came to a stop when I tried to use Apple's
3.5" floppy disk controller, due to a bug in the actual processor code
itself (we are currently building a known good 65C02 core to fix this
- the freebies from the net are buggy). So what Im trying to say is,
by using a real 63C09 in PB04, we can design the support logic first
and confirm it all works correctly. Then we bring in the soft 63C09 to
replace the real one, and make sure it works correctly. Once its all
ok, the PB04 board is removed leaving the final design all inside one
weeny FPGA, hopefully with all out hair intact.
Is the FPGA we are using overkill for such a small amount of logic we
have to support? Yes. But with the 50AN costing only $9, and the 250E
only $18, its definatley worth it. It makes for a cheap and easy 2
layer board, simple to design in the FPGA space, as well as to
download, makes a nice simple bill of materials (one chip), and gives
us lots of logic to experiment with in the future - ie, you could add
Alex's Z80 soft card in there well. But more importantly, it gives us
the required logic to put all the soft tools, that once sat on the
bench, into the FPGA whilst we build the design. Tools such as logic
probes, logic analyzers, decoders, ROM images, etc.
And the FPGA's just keep getting cheaper.
Steve
Steven Hirsch
> Is the FPGA we are using overkill for such a small amount of logic we
> have to support? Yes. But with the 50AN costing only $9, and the 250E
> only $18, its definatley worth it. It makes for a cheap and easy 2
> layer board, simple to design in the FPGA space, as well as to
> download, makes a nice simple bill of materials (one chip), and gives
> us lots of logic to experiment with in the future - ie, you could add
> Alex's Z80 soft card in there well. But more importantly, it gives us
> the required logic to put all the soft tools, that once sat on the
> bench, into the FPGA whilst we build the design. Tools such as logic
> probes, logic analyzers, decoders, ROM images, etc.
>
And, again, is anyone going to fabricate these and offer them for sale? Or,
am I the only one that's intimidated by the thought of soldering microscopic
chip resistors and caps and 100-lead SMD chips?
David Wilson
> Alex, Given that CPUs are available (yes, Steve H), does it make sense
> to implement this in an FPGA? Seems really easy with just SSI
> components... or maybe some PALs?
I would probably design a Mill replacement using only DIL parts - CPU,
ROM and CPLD (GAL) plus possibly a buffer or two. Should fit into a
card no longer than the edge connector and not require such fine
soldering skills as an FPGA design. If I were getting one
professionally manufactured/assembled then that would change things.
Lucky those Jameco parts are 6809E and not 6809 as the external clock
version is needed by the mill design.
steve....@altium.com.au
>
> And, again, is anyone going to fabricate these and offer them for sale? Or,
> am I the only one that's intimidated by the thought of soldering microscopic
> chip resistors and caps and 100-lead SMD chips?
Carte Blanche is being prepared for assembly as I type. There will be
enough of these. The board will go into review soon. Its just going to
take a little time.
If you dont wish to assemble one, you are very welcome to buy one pre-
built. But soldering 0402's is actually a lot easier than it looks.
With the footprints we use on the card, they are thermally balanced at
each end. A blob of solder is like a mini wave solder for these
devices. All I can say is, you really should give it ago. You'll be
suprised after a bit of practise they go together quite willingly.
Steve
Steven Hirsch
Steve,
I have some (hopefully constructive) criticism regarding your web site.
- The photos are gorgeous, but the file sizes are so large that the pages take
considerable time to load - and I'm on 5Mb/sec. symmetrical fiber. Might be a
good idea to opt for a bit lower resolution or color depth? Maybe the page
could show something that loads quickly with a link if you want to take the
hit for 1024x768 32-bit color?
- Perhaps I'm having a dense-day, but you are showing off a lot of cool boards
and I'm not clear how to categorize them in terms of (a) which are simply
designs at this point (i.e. not planned for commercial availability), (b)
which are planned to offered and (c) which are actually commercial things
(Altium, etc.) that are being employed by something else.
In particular, I understand that Carte Blanche will be available, but what
about that neat daughter board that holds the ZIF socket?
On the subject of fabrication, I might be willing to attempt a larger package
but the little chip resistors and caps scare the wits out of me. You are
certainly correct that practice makes perfect, but I don't do enough SMD work
to be in shape :-(. My few forays into repair have been suboptimal.
Steve
steve....@altium.com.au
> - The photos are gorgeous, but the file sizes are so large that the pages take
> considerable time to load - and I'm on 5Mb/sec. symmetrical fiber. Might be a
> good idea to opt for a bit lower resolution or color depth? Maybe the page
> could show something that loads quickly with a link if you want to take the
> hit for 1024x768 32-bit color?
I agree. The real killer is the fact that im serving it from home -
ie, my ADSL line to a DI-624 (wireless storage router). I thought it
would be ok, but its really copped a flogging since it went up. Im
looking at upgraading to ADSL2+, hoping to help this abit, but really
- it should be with an ISP - I know this. When I finish ill organise
it all. There is still a lot of info i want to put up. Apple III PROMS
etc.
>
> - Perhaps I'm having a dense-day, but you are showing off a lot of cool boards
> and I'm not clear how to categorize them in terms of (a) which are simply
> designs at this point (i.e. not planned for commercial availability), (b)
> which are planned to offered and (c) which are actually commercial things
> (Altium, etc.) that are being employed by something else.
Ah, ok. The NB2 is all altium. All the plugs on's are the extra's i
have knocked up (anything that looks "Apple" - ie PB10). Altiums stuff
is open source anyway, so its all available to download and build if
you wish, but its easier to buy from digikey. The idea has been to cut
a system that actually works, and more importantly scales up with FPGA
technology to eventually allow the III and IIGS to follow suit. Once
the core is known good, we can make these boards anywhere. The site
went up last week, so im still just getting this stuff out. Alex has
had a protoype for quite some time, and has found heaps of bugs. We
want to eliminate all of these before the source (being schematics,
gerbers, code, etc) is made available.
>
> In particular, I understand that Carte Blanche will be available, but what
> about that neat daughter board that holds the ZIF socket?
--> It too will be available (PB04 - for asics, cpu's etc). The whole
concept, which includes these boards will be open source. I need to
make sure these thing work well, including an example (for example)
before releasing them. Alex has been creating some really cool stuff
in this domain. He has a 65C02 hard processor connected up to his soft
Apple IIe using the PB04, which works a treat. (If only I had a broom
pole to nudge him to do a 65C816) - but first thing first. So PB04 is
really good to go, its not far off - final test will be with carte
blanche.
>
> On the subject of fabrication, I might be willing to attempt a larger package
> but the little chip resistors and caps scare the wits out of me. You are
> certainly correct that practice makes perfect, but I don't do enough SMD work
> to be in shape :-(. My few forays into repair have been suboptimal.
No worries, There will be boards you can buy. I have a few favors I
can wangle, and from what I gather Alex has some strong European
resources, so, Id like to think its a matter ot time. But it will be
reliable hardware and the examples that will make this stuff
understandable, and eventually fly, and thats taking the most time.
Thanks for the feed back on the site. Any news is good news.
steve.
>
> Steve
MdntTrain
Well, I have no idea how to do any of what you're saying, but I'm sold
and willing to try it out.
I probably will also try to make a regular board as well.
JS
MdntTrain
Would you or anyone else here be willing to walk me through board
creation and production, perhaps even for hire? My skill level is
that I could easily build this board using point to point solder
wiring, but I've never done anything using computers -- design,
layout, gerber files, and such. I believe I'd just need the basic
steps, and perhaps a check of my work at the end of each step.
If I end up making a run of these boards, if anyone wants them, or
making a website of the info, then of course co-credit will be given.
Anyone interested?
Thanks,
JS
sfahey
> MdntTrain wrote:
> > Alex, Steven, I'd be very interested, and a committed buyer, for a re-
> > creation of "The Mill" -- the 6809 board for the Apple II. I don't have
> > one but here's a pic and little blurb on it:
> > http://www.vintagemacworld.com/8bit.html
Here is a pic of the actual card from Tony's site.
http://www.apple2.org/images/Interface_Cards/Auxiliary_CPUs/ht/TheMill6809CoPro
cJPEG.html
The one in my possession is probably an older run than this card. It's resin
isn't green, it's grayish like you see on many of those old Bell cards from
the early A2 years.
Sean Fahey
www.a2central.com
bbs.a2central.com
sfahey
Re: Re: Stellation Mill 6809 card clone / FPGA
By: steve.howell to comp.sys.apple2 on Tue Jan 13 2009 06:16 am
> Carte Blanche is being prepared for assembly as I type. There will be
> enough of these. The board will go into review soon. Its just going to
> take a little time.
This is very exciting but I have a question: won't most of the daughtercards
intrude over the next higher slot's space?
Sean Fahey
www.a2central.com
bbs.a2central.com
sfahey
Re: Re: Stellation Mill 6809 card clone / FPGA
> Now that he decided to step out of the shade I'd like to clarify
> that Steve is the primary driving force behind all the "FPGA for
> real Apple 2" development. The 2 boards pictured on my page
> are his design. The upcoming Carte Blanch is our joint project
> again with Steve doing all the hard work. I'm mainly just designing
> the "soft logic" that goes inside the FPGAs.
Sure would like to see you guys and this gear at KansasFest.
Sean Fahey
www.a2central.com
bbs.a2central.com
MdntTrain
wrote:
> To: MdntTrain
>
> > MdntTrain wrote:
> > > Alex, Steven, I'd be very interested, and a committed buyer, for a re-
>
> > > creation of "The Mill" -- the 6809 board for the Apple II. I don't have
> > > one but here's a pic and little blurb on it:
>
> > >http://www.vintagemacworld.com/8bit.html
>
> cJPEG.html
>
> The one in my possession is probably an older run than this card. It's resin
> isn't green, it's grayish like you see on many of those old Bell cards from
> the early A2 years.
>
> Sean Faheywww.a2central.com
> bbs.a2central.com
It amazes me that someone (not you, Sean) who would go to all the
trouble of posting photos of cards on a nice website, wouldn't make
them larger than the size of a big postage stamp.
JS
rjus...@removeme.internode.on.net
http://www.hackzapple.com/ORG1/M2/COPROC/6809MILL.HTM
(you can click on the zoom button)
/Rob
On Mon, 12 Jan 2009 16:52:47 -0800 (PST), MdntTrain <j...@cimmeri.com>
wrote:
sfahey
Re: Re: Stellation Mill 6809 card clone / FPGA
> It amazes me that someone (not you, Sean) who would go to all the
> trouble of posting photos of cards on a nice website, wouldn't make
> them larger than the size of a big postage stamp.
Well, when that site was created years (and I mean yeeeaaaars ago), most people
were still on dial-up and big pictures on sites with lots of other pictures
tended to tick off the user (unless it was porn). And those pics were taken
with antiquated digital cameras.
So they are small, and relatively poor quality (by todays standards) because
the site content is dated technologically.
It was pretty awesome back in the day.
Sean Fahey
www.a2central.com
bbs.a2central.com
a2av...@gmail.com
That was all I could do.
QVGA capture wasn't even there. My choices were QuickTake 100, a Kodak
something 50, or a video camera on a tripod.
I chose the last.
Why? The QuickTake .. was anything but. The whole process was insanely
slow. The Quicktake couldn't see the cards up close very well.
The Kodak was about the same thing.
The video camera on a tripod, and then capture the frame. The pictures
were the clearest. Yes, a joke today, but you know, they looked pretty
darn good on a 640x480 monitor in the day considering they are
278xSomething I can't remember. The video camera was quick. Very
quick. Place card, press key, type name, place card.
The QuickTake or Kodak, I fear that I probably would have 1, Never
finished, 2, still be taking pictures today. It was a Quadra A/V Mac,
it wasn't the fastest, but it was pretty darn fast for it's day. It
was a Quadra 840 AV. It costs a pretty penny for it's day.
I also can't even remember how many times since then, most recently, I
have posted links to those pictures and even said along the lines of I
know they suck.
I do wish to replace it all some day. Maybe this Summer will be it.
With practically unlimited hosting space with no extra fees, and
mysql, I can create something with FileMaker and export the structure
to mysql, put it online. Or use Gallery3 when it comes out. I don't
want to put the pictures on Flickr, I want them in my own domain, and
I don't want to pay for a "pro" image hosting package. So.. until the
stars align, it is what it is and in 12 years, no ones ever ripped me
on it.
I guess there's a first for everything. I know it was the first online
site of hardware images like it is, and until recently has not been
topped quantity wise. I own everything there. I can do it again. There
are more pressing things.
I did put some better imagery on http://16sector.com/a2-gallery/ -
those were done with a scanner. Once I can perfect a "blue screen"
method on the scanner I may do them that way. Part of it is I desire a
100% neutral background, unlike the images I have on the old site.
Outlining in Photoshop takes about 15 minutes per card, those auto
outline packages all leave jaggies, so.. thats not gonna cut it.
Michael J. Mahon
> Once I can perfect a "blue screen"
> method on the scanner I may do them that way. Part of it is I desire a
> 100% neutral background, unlike the images I have on the old site.
> Outlining in Photoshop takes about 15 minutes per card, those auto
> outline packages all leave jaggies, so.. thats not gonna cut it.
I've heard that "Knockout" does a great job, including
"feathering" the edges of the mask in an adaptive way to
conform to fine details.
For relatively simple edges, the feathering can be done more
simply in Photoshop.
-michael
******** Note new website URL ********
NadaNet and AppleCrate II for Apple II parallel computing!
Home page: http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon/
"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."
RedskullDC
"MdntTrain" <j...@cimmeri.com> wrote in message
news:68543d1e-ac27-4f03...@n33g2000pri.googlegroups.com...
JS
---
Couple of *BIG* pics of my RevB Mill card here:
Back:
http://au.geocities.com/redskulldc/dcp_1262.jpg
Front:
http://au.geocities.com/redskulldc/dcp_1263.jpg
Cheers,
Red
David Wilson
> This web site has some better pictures:http://www.hackzapple.com/ORG1/M2/COPROC/6809MILL.HTM
Interesting - the daughter board on that is different to the one on
mine which is shorter (only extends as far as one chip to the left of
the ROM socket) and the switch is on the visible surface not hidden
underneath like that one.
MdntTrain
> This web site has some better pictures:http://www.hackzapple.com/ORG1/M2/COPROC/6809MILL.HTM
> (you can click on the zoom button)
>
> /Rob
Yes, great site, thank you for finding. It even has the software
disks there, but the links aren't working.
JS
MdntTrain
> Ya know.. when I put that site up .. central 1996 or so..
>
> That was all I could do.
I'm sorry. My comment was just an exclamatory outburst -- not an
attack meant to get you or anyone on the defensive. I should have
just said it out loud to myself, rather than posting it here. I
didn't realize how old the site was.
Thank you for your efforts.
JS
MdntTrain
>
> - Show quoted text -
Dang-it, Red.. it just amazes me that anyone who would go to the
trouble of posting these photos would make them so much larger than an
envelope!
kidding. Very helpful, thank you.
JS