Rarest Card
rhohler
card today? Of course, prototype cards are limited and rare but what
production card. I would bet on the Transwarp II card or something.
Michael J. Mahon
I have some 128K bubble memory cards that emulate a Disk ][ with
somewhat less capacity. They were made by Helix Labs, and were
intended to provide non-volatile storage for Apple II's used in
harsh industrial environments.
I don't have easy access to serial numbers, but I'm guessing that
not too many were made and even fewer survive.
Some of you may remember that magnetic bubble memory (in which small
circular magnetic domains ("bubbles") circulate on a thin garnet
substrate under the influence of external magnetic fields) were
expected to eventually replace magnetic disks in the late 1970s!
-michael
NadaNet and AppleCrate II: parallel computing for Apple II computers!
Home page: http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon
"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."
A2Aviator
Saybrook 68000, TransWarp II, TurboREZ, Third Millenium Engineering
Arcade Board, Number Nine Systems video card
*TurboREZ may be looked at as a prototype, however.. it was a small
run, and they were "available"
What I need to find is who else has one, and might have the piece of
paper that along side it.. where the clips go. ;-)
and of course, in the prototype class:
Some things, Disk II Card with IWM
Rarest Apple II .. motherboards
Golden Gate, A weird //c I have that has a 34 internal pin drive
connector, 8 pin mini DIN serial ports, and otherwise is just a
standard 6502 //c.
Rarest Apple II systems
The Mark Twain, completed.
A2Aviator
from Intel with a pile of documentation on working with Bubble memory.
I'd really like to find it again.
D Finnigan
>
> Some of you may remember that magnetic bubble memory (in which small
> circular magnetic domains ("bubbles") circulate on a thin garnet
> substrate under the influence of external magnetic fields) were
> expected to eventually replace magnetic disks in the late 1970s!
>
I remember hearing about bubble memory when I was younger, and I always
ended up wondering what happened to it. Seems like now we have flash memory
instead.
Michael J. Mahon
Yes, it's a pretty thick sheaf of datasheets, covering the bubble memory
chip itself, plus the five special support chips and the special fixture
that sockets the bubble memory chip and contains the several windings
to manage its magnetic environment.
e p chandler
> rhohler wrote:
> > The NuMustang discussion got me thinking. What is the rarest Apple II
> > card today? Of course, prototype cards are limited and rare but what
> > production card. I would bet on the Transwarp II card or something.
>
> I have some 128K bubble memory cards that emulate a Disk ][ with
> somewhat less capacity. They were made by Helix Labs, and were
> intended to provide non-volatile storage for Apple II's used in
> harsh industrial environments.
I once considered using one of these in a project which buffered data
from a multi-channel analyzer. The problem with the disk 2 is that it
disables interrupts ([perhaps it was DOS 3.3....) The commercial
solution to the problem used a clock card which itself generated
interrupts. My idea was to write the data to bubble memory instead of
to disk.
As far as rare cards go, I did see a demo at a club meeting of an
modem card that had a number of special abilities (no I don't live in
silicon valley). It was never produced because it had a tone generator
built in which would have turned the Apple into a blue box (yes I know
the guys at MIT did it first!).
---- e
sfahey
Re: Rarest Card
By: rhohler to comp.sys.apple2 on Mon Oct 19 2009 11:37 am
> The NuMustang discussion got me thinking. What is the rarest Apple II
> card today? Of course, prototype cards are limited and rare but what
> production card. I would bet on the Transwarp II card or something.
Well, you said "Apple" so... I'd say maybe the Apple II Ethernet card is the
rarest of the cards that are in circulation.
Of the aftermarket cards, wow -- I can think of bunches that are both
desireable and contain unobtainium but I agree the Transwarp II is one of them.
Sean Fahey
www.a2central.com
bbs.a2central.com
Silicon Sam
I had a client in Arlington, TX that used an Apple II+ and a bubble
memory card to run a program that kept track of who's playing on which
pool table. That's all that computer did. The only client I had with
that type of card.
I had several other clients running an Apple ][+ (or clone) that ran
just 1 program. Six Flags over Texas, Showbiz Pizza, etc...
A2Aviator
Apple external keypad mounted near the pick up window. Just punch in
the number and the screen did it's thing until the order was picked
up, and the number was punched in again.
I wanted to get a copy of the ROM or disk that did that back then ..
the Showbiz Pizza place got converted and closed in a hurry around
here.. but I have some stuff from it.
http://17500mph.com/photos?g2_itemId=300
The large white signs are "graffiti" laden from the crash of the
arcade days, they have auction stuff on them.
When I ever get around to using them I can clean it off, or leave it..
it's a part of the time.
I didn't mention the Apple II Ethernet card for some reason, too. I
also have an Apple II AppleTalk card, thats not the Workstation Card,
but earlier. (and it's not the School Bus card either, which is
another semi rare one these days)
Tony Cianfaglione
Is there one location that would have photos of as many Apple II cards
as possible, like a museum site? It would help in ID'ing cards in the
future.
D Finnigan
There's the apple2.org site, but the photos are terrible compared to what
one is usually used to today.
A2Aviator
> There's the apple2.org site, but the photos are terrible compared to what
> one is usually used to today.
>
> <http://apple2.org/images/index.html>
Byte Me.
schmidtd
A couple of places come to mind, beyond the aforementioned
http://apple2.org/images/index.html:
http://whatisthe2gs.apple2.org.za (Expand Hardware, pick a category)
http://www.apple2info.net/hardware.htm
James Littlejohn
How about the ZipDrive IIGS? Harddrive made by Zip Technology. Only 5
known to exist, and I would love to see some formatting software for
it.
Michael J. Mahon
> On Oct 19, 3:03 pm, "Michael J. Mahon" <mjma...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>>rhohler wrote:
>>
>>>The NuMustang discussion got me thinking. What is the rarest Apple II
>>>card today? Of course, prototype cards are limited and rare but what
>>>production card. I would bet on the Transwarp II card or something.
>>
>>I have some 128K bubble memory cards that emulate a Disk ][ with
>>somewhat less capacity. They were made by Helix Labs, and were
>>intended to provide non-volatile storage for Apple II's used in
>>harsh industrial environments.
>
>
> I once considered using one of these in a project which buffered data
> from a multi-channel analyzer. The problem with the disk 2 is that it
> disables interrupts ([perhaps it was DOS 3.3....) The commercial
> solution to the problem used a clock card which itself generated
> interrupts. My idea was to write the data to bubble memory instead of
> to disk.
It is a fundamental requirement of the Disk ][ controller that no
interruptions occur during reading or writing. Both are timing-
critical operations--the 6502 is running as a real-time disk controller.
I'm not sure whether the bubble memory cards have any real-time
requirements or not... It depends on whether or not the supporting
chips control the bubble shifting asynchronously.
> As far as rare cards go, I did see a demo at a club meeting of an
> modem card that had a number of special abilities (no I don't live in
> silicon valley). It was never produced because it had a tone generator
> built in which would have turned the Apple into a blue box (yes I know
> the guys at MIT did it first!).
Wasn't that card made to Captain Crunch's specifications? ;-)
Ralph
Michael Black
> rhohler wrote:
>> The NuMustang discussion got me thinking. What is the rarest Apple II
>> card today? Of course, prototype cards are limited and rare but what
>> production card. I would bet on the Transwarp II card or something.
>
> I have some 128K bubble memory cards that emulate a Disk ][ with
> somewhat less capacity. They were made by Helix Labs, and were
> intended to provide non-volatile storage for Apple II's used in
> harsh industrial environments.
>
> I don't have easy access to serial numbers, but I'm guessing that
> not too many were made and even fewer survive.
>
> Some of you may remember that magnetic bubble memory (in which small
> circular magnetic domains ("bubbles") circulate on a thin garnet
> substrate under the influence of external magnetic fields) were
> expected to eventually replace magnetic disks in the late 1970s!
>
They were still seen that way in the early to mid-eighties. Basically
"it's just around the corner, soon bubble memory will be cheap and you'll
be glad".
I'm not sure if there were problems making it cheap, or other things came
along that were just so much better that bubble memory was dropped in
favor of silicon memory.
At the time, the density was quite high, but now what was available a
quarter century ago is pretty minor.
I do find it amusing that cheap high density memory really just snuck up
on us, for a long time it never seemed to keep up with demand, until in
the past decade or so you could get memory so cheap that you could throw
it away on things like MP3s.
Michael
Michael Black
I thought he designed it. I think someone at Apple asked for a modem
card, he got the task, and he just slipped in the blue box.
Michael
Michael J. Mahon
Anything delivered at an exponentially increasing pace is pretty
much guaranteed to outstrip any imagined need within a few years.
For most commercial purposes, processor capacities have already done
so, and mass storage is getting there. Now if only the "arithmetic"-
minded throttlers of bandwidth would get out of the way, we'd soon have
more bandwidth than we know what to do with, too.
I think the problem is that they still think exponential increases in
bandwidth mean they are entitled to exponential increases in profits.
larwe
> Some of you may remember that magnetic bubble memory (in which small
> circular magnetic domains ("bubbles") circulate on a thin garnet
> substrate under the influence of external magnetic fields) were
> expected to eventually replace magnetic disks in the late 1970s!
I still have a Nicolet storage scope that uses bubble memory cards. I
also seem to recall building a bubble memory storage device for my
VIC-20, with my father's help. I don't remember where he scavenged the
memory device; it was probably a circuit from a magazine, and a
surplus bubble chip.
sfahey
Re: Re: Rarest Card
By: dog_cow to comp.sys.apple2 on Mon Oct 19 2009 11:32 pm
> There's the apple2.org site, but the photos are terrible compared to what
> one is usually used to today.
Eh, back when those pictures were taken, they were the shizzle of digital
photography.
Sean Fahey
www.a2central.com
bbs.a2central.com
D Finnigan
>>
>> Wasn't that card made to Captain Crunch's specifications? ;-)
>>
> I thought he designed it. I think someone at Apple asked for a modem
> card, he got the task, and he just slipped in the blue box.
>
> Michael
Ah, right. I remember reading about that in a book about Apple. I believe it
was called The Little Kingdom. Anyway, it said that the card was never
actually sold.
D Finnigan
> > To: dog_cow
> Re: Re: Rarest Card
> By: dog_cow to comp.sys.apple2 on Mon Oct 19 2009 11:32 pm
>
> > There's the apple2.org site, but the photos are terrible compared to
> > what
> > one is usually used to today.
>
> Eh, back when those pictures were taken, they were the shizzle of digital
> photography.
>
That may be, however, I was just echoing a remark which I had read
previously (and with which I agree).
Warren Ernst
I would think the Mark Twain IIGS motherboard would qualify as a rare
"card" that got out into the wild. There's like, what, 2 or 4 known to
exist?
-Warr
hepal
It's a 'wordcom' card for Korean telnet bbs service.
http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/973/wordcommcardthermospher.jpg
http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/3626/wordcomm.jpg
sfahey
Re: Re: Rarest Card
By: hepal to comp.sys.apple2 on Wed Oct 21 2009 01:49 am
> http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/973/wordcommcardthermospher.jpg
> http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/3626/wordcomm.jpg
Not just rare, but obscure. Wow.
Sean Fahey
www.a2central.com
bbs.a2central.com
Toinet
there who have been testers for different manufacturers therefore they
have rare cards because they are considered as pre-prod items.
But what about production cards which have not sold largely or are
really specialized (some AD/DA cards), can we say they are rare?
In France, Paul Lafonta has several rare cards (e.g. 3D glasses) which
I would consider rare just like the TurboRez one (I'd like to buy it)
and there are some other examples on Jean-Pierre Lagrange's website
(http://www.hackzapple.com/INDEX0.HTM, click on Cartes d'extension.
Antoine
A2Aviator
niche targeted items are in their very nature, rare when looked at
from the larger market perspective.
But in their niche, they may be very common.
A niche that targets 5 potential customers, if you sell to 4 of them,
you own the market. If you sell to 1 you have some work to do.
Joe
> *TurboREZ may be looked at as a prototype, however.. it was a small
> run, and they were "available"
> What I need to find is who else has one, and might have the piece of
> paper that along side it.. where the clips go. ;-)
As you probably remember, Bill St Pierre gave me all the TurboRez stuff he
had. It's been in my garage for 10 years, or more. Most of it seems to be
boxes and boxes of disks. The only hardware I seem to remember getting was
a couple of blank cards. To the best of my memory, I don't have an actual
TurboRez card.
I'll trade you all my TurboRez materials for an airplane ride over the SF
Bay Area.
Joe Kohn
Michael J. Mahon
> What is rare? How shall we define the word? There are some guys out
> there who have been testers for different manufacturers therefore they
> have rare cards because they are considered as pre-prod items.
>
> But what about production cards which have not sold largely or are
> really specialized (some AD/DA cards), can we say they are rare?
In fact, the OP specified production cards, which narrows the
field a bit.
> In France, Paul Lafonta has several rare cards (e.g. 3D glasses) which
> I would consider rare
One could easily drive 3D glasses (LCD switch type) from an
annunciator, so I'd hate to waste a slot on that. All that's
needed for display is page flipping and an annunciator toggle.
Michael J. Mahon
But today, with few to none niche markets left to the Apple II,
if any of those niche cards survive, they are officially rare,
if only because they have cheated death.
A2Aviator
> I'll trade you all my TurboRez materials for an airplane ride over the SF
> Bay Area.
>
> Joe Kohn
We can do that :) It's a friggen blast.. there's a nice procedure we
call a "Bay Tour" ..
...you can have a sneak peak .. though it's from 2003, here's an idea.
Toinet
Gentlemen,
Please consider sharing your knowledge/documentation/disks and tools
on the TurboRez which, at Brutal Deluxe, interested us a lot a
looooonng time ago.
Regards,
antoine
brad
to mind to me is the unreleased apple ethernet card prototype i saw on on
ebay....it worked on an apple iie i think...apple pi in the dc area used to
run a bunch (hush hush)
i myself have a bubble memory card (anyone have an install disk?)
i also have a vista 1200 carasell (sp?) drive held like 6 hd floppies much
like the scsi pioneer did cd's but floppies kinda funky..the card for it
would be hard to find
last one to come to mind is the hacking card that woz and capt crunch used
(i think there were 5 of them in an apple ii) that supposedly if they were
to turn on that apple ii on it would have dumped half the us phone system
(see some autobiograhys)...
that would prob be the set of cards to find!
brad
former sysop lost gonzo bbs
macdog
I have a couple TWII's. One a rom 1.0, one a rom 1.1.
Picked both up in the last couple years or so.
Probably looking to unload one of them in the near future.....
Seems a waste to only use one of them.
Jamie.
sfahey
Re: Re: Rarest Card
By: macdog to comp.sys.apple2 on Thu Oct 22 2009 07:35 am
> Probably looking to unload one of them in the near future.....
Don't make me drive to Florida.
Sean Fahey
www.a2central.com
bbs.a2central.com
sfahey
Re: Re: Rarest Card
By: brad to comp.sys.apple2 on Thu Oct 22 2009 05:02 am
> i also have a vista 1200 carasell (sp?) drive held like 6 hd floppies much
> like the scsi pioneer did cd's but floppies kinda funky..the card for it
> would be hard to find
I gave my drive, controller and a recently a few cartridges to Tony Diaz. I
think I gave him the manuals and software too.
Sean Fahey
www.a2central.com
bbs.a2central.com
Michael J. Mahon
> well...a long thread.did not read thru all of them but here goes..what comes
> to mind to me is the unreleased apple ethernet card prototype i saw on on
> ebay....it worked on an apple iie i think...apple pi in the dc area used to
> run a bunch (hush hush)
..but not _production_ cards.
> i myself have a bubble memory card (anyone have an install disk?)
They don't require an install disk. They look just like a Disk ][.
Just put it in a slot and PR#s. There is a special FID that deals
with the fact that it's only 128KB, but it's fully operational on its
own.
> i also have a vista 1200 carasell (sp?) drive held like 6 hd floppies much
> like the scsi pioneer did cd's but floppies kinda funky..the card for it
> would be hard to find
I have one of those, too, along with a couple of the modified 8"
floppies that it used (jacket punch). I think it is controlled by
a standard Vista card, with some special commands sent by software.
> last one to come to mind is the hacking card that woz and capt crunch used
> (i think there were 5 of them in an apple ii) that supposedly if they were
> to turn on that apple ii on it would have dumped half the us phone system
> (see some autobiograhys)...
Well, there wasn't anything special about the cards--any special
abilities they had were a result of the person programming them. ;-)
Michael J. Mahon
I sort of expected it to come out in the course of conversation,
but now I have to ask: What is the TurboRez?
Toinet
>
> - Afficher le texte des messages précédents -
Once upon a time, in a country far far away from France, there was a
company, let's call it RezTek, owned by William St Pierre, aka Bill St
Pierre, that designed a video board for the Apple IIgs (IIRC only for
the IIgs)
It was a dark age when none existed, not even the Second Sight from
Sequential Systems. The future was uncertain with a limit of
320*200*16 pixels on a IIgs monitor and then came Bill with his
TurboRez.
A fantastic weapon for games: hardware scrollings and blitters, many
video pages. A deep and colorful palette (up to 262 000 colors at a
time IIRC).
The card has been demoed in a far far far town in Kansas but a few
months after, the project has been cancelled because of the coming of
the Second Sight which offered compatibility with Apple II video
modes, an option not sustained by RezTek.
From my PPOV (first P is for programmer), that would have been the
fantastic tool to program fast animation games on the IIgs but the
market wanted compatibility.
RIP TurboRez but if one has it, please note my birthdate: 22nd of
March ;-)
el Antoine de la Vega (who lived happily ever after)
A2Aviator
shown at AppleFest, before the introduction of the ROM 3.
The biggest problem back then was right about the time a design was
settled on, the chips went off production. The thing fizzled.
It was rumored that since I possessed a board, and that since I
stopped in Denver on the way to Kansas City in the months before the
Second Sight was released, that it there for must have been myself and
those in Denver that single handedly killed the whole TurboREZ project
because we "reverse engineered it" and used it for the Second Sight.
This is what they would have had you believing if you were on the IRC
channel at the time, truth of the matter was, the TurboREZ had been in
work for ages as an experiment and then perhaps a real product could
be made from it and like now, like then, lots and lots of people will
speak up, and when it comes time to fork over the loot .. they run
and hide.
The whole entire thing was quite laughable too, the Second Sight and
TurboREZ were two completely utterly different designs, different
directions, etc. Not even the same thing in the slightest. The
TurboREZ could be looked akin to the 3Dfx and the x86 VESA video spec.
It brought effects and features to the table, so that the host
computer didn't have to do that.
The Second Sight really does none of that. It's design barely keeps up
with the host computer as it is.
Today, it's a lot easier to make a very short run of PCBs and granted
it's a lot easier to find IC's. It's also a lot easier to design with
programmable parts. AKA, the CB project.
The whole point of the Second Sight card back then ..
Was to sell more copies of DiscQuest, RAMFasts and CD ROMs. The reason
for the card was because the DiscQuest product relied on those
DiscPassage CDs that had the potential to have higher resolution and
greater depth graphics than the IIgs could ever display.
The problem was, just to outfit a IIgs with enough hardware to view
those Disc Passage titles, you had to spend more than a whole 386
computer was going for. If you bought the 386 you could get twice as
many computers in your lab and get away from the dying Apple II
platform all together, and stick it to the company that you felt was
giving you the shaft, by buying the up and coming fledgling Windows
instead. ;-) ... while you still used your Apple II investment. In
effect, you spent $1100 on a RAMFast, SecondSight, DiscQuest, CD ROM
drive and a hard drive. All for what? 15 CD ROM titles, most of which
sucked the big one.
Disc Passage was a great idea that didn't fly. It was easier to just
code your own front end, from a publishers standpoint, than pay to
license one. The Phillips CD-I player was another shining example of
that. Flopped. Hard.
Faster than C.E.D. video discs.
The Video Overlay Card was yet another product that was lessor
understood and as vastly different from the Second Sight and TurboREZ
as those two were to each other.
Video cards and the Apple II .. perhaps it is rather interesting in
that no other peripheral has produced so many rare, and eccentric, and
vapor products. The broader scope, including frame grabbing hardware
is fairly well populated in the Apple II arena. Way more so than many
people imagine. As well, been so hard to attain with regards to
keeping up with available monitors. Ironically, now, we have several
VGA options. VGA is about on it's way out. Only it won't be going away
anytime soon nor as fast as the IIgs monitors did when they dried up.
There's *a lot* more VGA out there.
Toinet
> The project was actually demo'ed long before that Kansas day, it was
> shown at AppleFest, before the introduction of the ROM 3.
>
Thanks for refreshing our memory. It lead me to reading what we wrote
in August 1993 issue 12 of La Pomme Illustrée, a French magazine
(http://www.brutal-deluxe.fr/documentation/pi.html -
http://www.brutal-deluxe.fr/documentation/pi/pomme_illustree_12.pdf)
on page 43 of the PDF or page 40 of the magazine.
The first project was abandoned at the end of 1989 and was brought
back to life in 1992.
> The biggest problem back then was right about the time a design was
> settled on, the chips went off production. The thing fizzled.
>
> It was rumored that since I possessed a board, and that since I
> stopped in Denver on the way to Kansas City in the months before the
> Second Sight was released, that it there for must have been myself and
> those in Denver that single handedly killed the whole TurboREZ project
> because we "reverse engineered it" and used it for the Second Sight.
>
Such thread is a good therapy for you, I have never heard of such a
story on that side of the Atlantic.
> This is what they would have had you believing if you were on the IRC
> channel at the time, truth of the matter was, the TurboREZ had been in
> work for ages as an experiment and then perhaps a real product could
> be made from it and like now, like then, lots and lots of people will
> speak up, and when it comes time to fork over the loot .. they run
> and hide.
>
> The whole entire thing was quite laughable too, the Second Sight and
> TurboREZ were two completely utterly different designs, different
> directions, etc. Not even the same thing in the slightest. The
> TurboREZ could be looked akin to the 3Dfx and the x86 VESA video spec.
> It brought effects and features to the table, so that the host
> computer didn't have to do that.
>
320*200*8 bit mode
640*200*8 bit mode
320/640*200*8 bit mode (320 and 640 mixed in the same mode)
An overscan feature: 384*230
Each palette entry to be selected among 262144 entries (6 bit per RGB)
The AutoPalette mode: the hardware 7600-color mode, similar to the
3200 col mode of the //gs but hardware managed. 38 colors per line
could be changed.
The video RAM was set to 192 KB allowing three 320*200 screens. That
would have been useful for page flipping animations, flicker-free just
like the 8-bit Apples.
The specialized circuits were:
- scrolling: horizontal (one pixel) or vertical (one line), compatible
with the overscan feature
- a fill mode: just like the //gs one but supposed to be enhanced
(Tony?)
- a Memory Fill and Refresh: fill in the VRAM with a single color at
the speed of 8 Mhz (light speed screen erasing)
- a Blitter : move VRAM rapidly
It was supposed to contain connectors for further developments, be
linkable with the Apple Overlay card, allow VRAM expansion.
...for a retail price of USD 300.
> The Second Sight really does none of that. It's design barely keeps up
> with the host computer as it is.
>
> Today, it's a lot easier to make a very short run of PCBs and granted
> it's a lot easier to find IC's. It's also a lot easier to design with
> programmable parts. AKA, the CB project.
>
> The whole point of the Second Sight card back then ..
>
> Was to sell more copies of DiscQuest, RAMFasts and CD ROMs. The reason (cut cut cut cut)
Thanks for the explanation.
The TurboRez was meant for animations, the Second Sight for still
images ;-)
>
> The Video Overlay Card was yet another product that was lessor
> understood and as vastly different from the Second Sight and TurboREZ
> as those two were to each other.
>
Even with the documentation, I still do not understand how one could
use the card, especially under GS/OS where direct page memory is taken
from bank 0 where the 'second' video bank is.
===========
And as we are in the rarest cards thread, what about the two
followings items:
- the New concepts DSP and the AII DSP card from Ken Poppleton (see
the article on PDF page 41 of the same magazine)
- the Avatar computer (see the article on PDF page 44 of the same
magazine)
I believe there are plenty of other suprises. We already know much of
the software rarities (he he, SimCity or Renegade) but hardware
rarities are still to be discovered.
Jamie, Sean and Tony,
When will you take photographs of all of your items and share them
with us? I mean with a 10-zillion pixel res. ;-)
Antoine
rich12345
> The NuMustang discussion got me thinking. What is the rarest Apple II
> card today? Of course, prototype cards are limited and rare but what
> production card. I would bet on the Transwarp II card or something.
The IQS Spectrum Analyser -- I know of only 2 people who have these
Covox voice master ( I know of about 5 of them)
H2000 speech recognition (I know of 3)
Plusdisk (cirtech) I have 2 and one has the 1megabyte expansion.
this is a SRAM card. I know of 2 others besides mine
OKS cache card. I know of three of these
Steven Hirsch
> The IQS Spectrum Analyser -- I know of only 2 people who have these
I'm probably one of them, and I have two :-). Finally chased down the
engineer who designed it and he is looking for the sources. I already have
the schematic.
> Plusdisk (cirtech) I have 2 and one has the 1megabyte expansion.
> this is a SRAM card. I know of 2 others besides mine
What about the Cirtech CP/M+ card? I've had one of these for a while.
> OKS cache card. I know of three of these
The original Kache-card, perhaps. I think there are a fair number of
Multi-Kache controllers out there, although the SCSI piggyback is fairly
obscure. I was doing some beta testing for Drew Vogan and ended up with an
8Mhz. MK + piggyback.
Steve
A2Aviator
circles even swore that if anyone had seen it, I had as I had a
visited Burger Becky often enough and was involved in several joint
projects, plus we came to KFest together during that era.
I have all the Cirtech hardware, as I got everything that A2-Central
had in stock, and their demo products when they closed out. I have
that stuff still all in it's own box.
The DSP stuff .. We're all pretty convinced that was about as real
as .. well.. VAMPS. ;-)
Joe
> Please consider sharing your knowledge/documentation/disks and tools
> on the TurboRez which, at Brutal Deluxe, interested us a lot a
> looooonng time ago.
I talked with Tony today, and plan to look at my garage to see exactly
what I have. All I know for sure is that I have lots of disks.
I can't remember if I already had all the TurboRez stuff when Olivier last
visited me. Maybe not. Ask him, as his memory may be better than mine.
But sure, if I get all this stuff to Tony, it would be with the intention
of sharing it with anyone who could use the materials. Which admittedly,
could be limited to only Tony. I have disks with Src code, which I imagine
is useless without an actual TurboRez card. As far as I know, he might
have the only TurboRez.
I don't think I have one, but I have a stack of at least 10 IIGS, and it's
possible that one is Bill St Pierre's. Time will tell...
That said, a dream of mine has always been to see the San Francisco Bay
Area from a small plane...
Joe
Joe
> The card has been demoed in a far far far town in Kansas but a few
> months after, the project has been cancelled because of the coming of
> the Second Sight which offered compatibility with Apple II video
> modes, an option not sustained by RezTek.
I don't seem to remember seeing it demo'ed at KansasFest, but Bill St
Pierre had a booth at one of the last (maybe the last?) of the huge
AppleFests that were held downstairs at the San Francisco Civic
Auditorium. To put a date on it, that might have been the year that Jean
Luis Gasque (sp??) stunned everyone with the first FTA demo we'd ever
seen - Nucleas?
As I remember it, Bill had a monitor on a stand, which had a curtain on it
so you couldn't see what the monitor was connected to. But, it was
displaying graphics unlike anything I'd ever seen before.
Eventually he lifted the curtain, and there was a standard IIGS. With a
TurboRez card in it. At the time, it was not complete, and I don't know
that it ever reallly was completed.
The next time I heard from Bill was when the phone call came..."you can
have all this stuff or it's going to the dump..." and he dropped off
whatever he had.
And, in the next few days, I'll try to find whatever it was he brought by
that day.
Again, it's not doing me any good here, and if I can get it into the hands
of someone that can use it, I will. So far as I know, Tony has the only
TurboRez in existance, although there's a chance I have one too (but I
doubt it).
Somehere here, I do have several blank cards, with a TurboRez name
silk-screened onto them. Again, they are blank: no chips, no wires, no
nothing.
Joe Kohn
Joe
>> The Video Overlay Card
I have one of those too, and I've never used it. Like a fool, I opened the
box to look inside, so it can't be sold as a "new in box" card, but hey,
it's amusing to be surrounded by all this obsolete rare computer hardware.
That probably very few outside of this newsgroup even care about
anymore...
Joe Kohn
Toinet
> Toinet <antoine.vig...@laposte.net> wrote:
> > The card has been demoed in a far far far town in Kansas but a few
> > months after, the project has been cancelled because of the coming of
> > the Second Sight which offered compatibility with Apple II video
> > modes, an option not sustained by RezTek.
>
> I don't seem to remember seeing it demo'ed at KansasFest, but Bill St
> Pierre had a booth at one of the last (maybe the last?) of the huge
> AppleFests that were held downstairs at the San Francisco Civic
> Auditorium. To put a date on it, that might have been the year that Jean
> Luis Gasque (sp??) stunned everyone with the first FTA demo we'd ever
> seen - Nucleas?
>
Tony corrected me also on the location: Applefest and not Kansasfest.
Nucleus by FTA was demoed by Jean-Louis Gassée or some other people of
Apple at several fairs.
> As I remember it, Bill had a monitor on a stand, which had a curtain on it
> so you couldn't see what the monitor was connected to. But, it was
> displaying graphics unlike anything I'd ever seen before.
>
> Eventually he lifted the curtain, and there was a standard IIGS. With a
> TurboRez card in it. At the time, it was not complete, and I don't know
> that it ever reallly was completed.
>
I can't remember in which magazine I have seen them or if it was on
his "flyers". Somebody remembers?
> The next time I heard from Bill was when the phone call came..."you can
> have all this stuff or it's going to the dump..." and he dropped off
> whatever he had.
>
> And, in the next few days, I'll try to find whatever it was he brought by
> that day.
>
Has William ever explained why he cancelled the card? As I wrote
earlier, I remember he said that was because of the Second Sight and
that the market could not handle two cards, is that correct?
> Again, it's not doing me any good here, and if I can get it into the hands
> of someone that can use it, I will. So far as I know, Tony has the only
> TurboRez in existance, although there's a chance I have one too (but I
> doubt it).
>
So... is TurboRez a rare card? Nevertheless, if there are two, I'd be
delighted to have one ;-)
Tony,
May I ask for a picture of it please?
> Somehere here, I do have several blank cards, with a TurboRez name
> silk-screened onto them. Again, they are blank: no chips, no wires, no
> nothing.
>
Joe, you remember my postal address ;-)
> Joe Kohn
Antoine
Joe
that was held for Apple II enthusiasts at Brooks Hall in San Francisco in
April, 1993. It was at that show where the TurboRez had it's only public
appearance.
It took a while to find this article, and perhaps there was a follow up,
but that's for tomorrow or another day...
>RezTek was displaying a most remarkable Apple IIGS hardware
>product that many had heard rumors of, but virtually no one
>had ever seen before. Under development for several years by
>Bill St Pierre, RezTek's legendary TurboRez GS is a IIGS
>video enhancer that adds three new super hi resolution video
>modes to a IIGS, giving it stunning new graphic capabilities.
>The TurboRez provides the IIGS with the ability to display
>graphics with 256 colors per scanline at any one time, out of
>a total palette range of 1/4 million colors. The demos that
>were running on the TurboRez were simply astonishing, and the
>prototypes of the software that will be provided with the
>TurboRez were astounding. Projected to cost $300, the
>TurboRez will breath new life into the IIGS, and open up new
>vistas for computer using artists and programmers.
>Unfortunately, the TurboRez has been under development for
>nearly 4 years, and is not quite ready yet. If and when it is
>available for sale, it's going to generate quite a lot of
>excitement. Come to think about it, it already generated a
>lot of excitement at Apple Expo West!
Joe Kohn
Joe
> Has William ever explained why he cancelled the card? As I wrote
> earlier, I remember he said that was because of the Second Sight and
> that the market could not handle two cards, is that correct?
Back in the early 1990s, I got a lot of phone calls from all sorts of
people, asking me to take their Apple II hardware off their hands, and in
some cases, it was companies like Vitesse, begging me to take all their
Apple II stuff, or their wives were going to leave them.
In Bill St Pierre's case, I think it was a matter of it taking 5 years to
develop this hardware, 5 years in which he could have been making money to
feed his family, but he wasn't as all his free time went into the
TurboRez. But again, my memory is not as good as it once was.
> Joe, you remember my postal address ;-)
No, I don't.
Joe Kohn
Joe
> The DSP stuff .. We're all pretty convinced that was about as real
> as .. well.. VAMPS. ;-)
LOL
Thanks for the laugh.
Joe
Michael J. Mahon
> Covox voice master ( I know of about 5 of them)
There were lots of these sold...cheap and not very
effective.
> H2000 speech recognition (I know of 3)
+1 for me. ;-)
Couldn't afford it back when they were sold...
A2Aviator
I think I found a second Saybrook card, while looking for it. found a
box that said "Corvus Concept OEM pkg" on it. Inside, a bunch of
Corvus stuff, a Saybrook and a Big Blue RAM card. A RAM card crammed
full of 4164s.
How about a MicroKey video interlace system. 1982 era:
http://17500mph.com/photos?g2_itemId=292&g2_page=3
What was I saying about video cards? ;-)
A2Aviator
So.. I know the thing is here somewhere.
brad
in them if i remember correctly they were 5 1/4"
be nice to trip over replacements there were ibm hd something or others
brad
former sysop lost-gonzo.com
"sfahey" <sfa...@a2central.com.remove-125y-this> wrote in message
news:4AE08246.1381...@a2central.com...
Toinet
antoine
sfahey
Re: Re: Rarest Card
By: Toinet to comp.sys.apple2 on Fri Oct 23 2009 02:12 am
> While searching for H2000 : http://appleiifs.tripod.com/Interfacecards.htm
Heh, I have one of those... and I didn't know what it was.
<shrug> Well, it's lost in the collection somewhere, unless I gave it to
someone like Tony years ago.
Sean Fahey
www.a2central.com
bbs.a2central.com
Joe
16's "Locate String" function, and found a later reference to the
TurboRez, this one being from November, 1994.
As before, I know there's at least another mention or two in the SSII
newsletter, and I'll hunt those up too...
Joe Kohn
============================================================
News from RezTek: The TurboRez project still alive !
============================================================
November 8, 1994
It would be an understatement to say it's been awhile since there's been
news from us about the status of the "fabled" TurboRez product. As some of
you may know, since the previewing of a prototype at the last two Apple
Expo's, we elected to do an entirely new design based on the use of custom
gate array technology. Even though underestimating project completion time
seems to be a tradition with computer hardware/software development, let's
just say that even we've been amazed at the degree of difficulty involved
here. This project has had an appetite for resources (like TIME) that has
to be experienced to be appreciated.
The current status is that, after more than a year of design and
simulation of the virtual chips, we've got actual hardware up and running.
This happened just in the last 5-6 weeks and the debugging process is
proceeding steadily. So far, the video is looking good and the circuits
seem stable.
Our apologies for not being online with some news sooner. With the
pre-announcement situations we've created in the past, it seemed prudent
to wait until there was new hardware actually in operation before making
any public statement. Normally though, given the incomplete state of the
project at this point, we probably would have waited awhile longer. The
announcement of the Second Sight card (by Sequential Systems) has altered
the marketplace however, hence some earlier information from us.
On this note, we'll briefly discuss the two products. Operation in a GS
with the stock RGB monitor reveals similarities such as 256-color pixels,
in both 320 and 640 resolution and 400-line interlaced modes. The TurboRez
card has a Display List CoProcessor and a high-speed blitter, while Second
Sight has a microprocessor that does blitter emulation. Now, what about
the particular strengths of the two cards?
Comparing The Two
The Second Sight card's strongest suite is when it's coupled to an
external SVGA monitor. Here it offers some pretty high resolution, up to
1076 by 768 pixels. Of course, to effectively take advantage of this,
you'll really need a 17 or 19 inch monitor to avoid eyestrain (Price a
monitor this size next time you're at a computer store). Second Sight does
not offer overscanning.
The TurboRez card will accept an adaptor that allows attaching a VGA
monitor and sending out a 640 by 480 image, so it appears we come in
second in the resolution department. TurboRez is capable of doing
overscan, however (vertical and horizontal, together or separately).
Pictures That Move
Where TurboRez does shine is in the area of multimedia animation. It's
nice to be able to show pictures on the GS that have enhanced color and
resolution, but what about bringing them to life? In other words, making
them move and flow. Well, the TurboRez card enhances animation on the GS
with a host of features. First, of course, the high-speed Blitter for
drawing shapes and objects to the display very quickly. Add to that its
Multi-Plane Overlay capability and Line Drawing (w/Scaling). Let's talk
about those last two.
Multi-Plane Overlay Technology
The Multi-Plane hardware on the TurboRez card is similar in concept to the
multi-plane techniques used by commercial film animators. Basically, it
means having the various elements of the picture, both moving and still,
on separate "layers". In TurboRez, this means that moving shapes can be
placed in separate image layers (or planes) and pass over or under each
other (or in front of or behind foreground/background objects) without
"interfering" with the other picture elements. In a single-plane video
card (like Second Sight), an animated scene consisting of stacked shapes
and objects is very slow and messy to update fast enough to present a
smoothly flowing image. To alter a shape in the "middle", means not only
erasing and redrawing that particular shape, but also anything that
appears above or below it onscreen. To change that one shape requires
massive amounts of erasing and redrawing even though the neighboring
shapes and objects are not due to change yet. All of this activity
translates to SLOW screen updating.
TurboRez, with hardware Multi-Plane technology, doesn't suffer from these
limitations. With separate image planes, the update process is confined to
just those shapes and objects that need it at the time. This means no
wasted time redrawing things that don't need it! The result: Efficient
and FAST animation on your GS (even without a Zip accelerator).
Texture Mapping via Line Drawing w/Scaling
The other major animation enhancer is the Line Drawing w/Scaling hardware.
Here we take a common operation like plotting a line of pixels and couple
it with Scaling logic. Scaling allows magnifying or shrinking a bitmapped
shape or object as it's being drawn. The scaling operation can be done by
the plotting software but that approach is never as fast doing it thru
hardware. By using Scaling along with Line Drawing, it's easy to not only
alter the drawn size of a source shape but to rotate it as well.
Similarly, a drawing technique known as Texture Mapping is enhanced using
the TurboRez hardware.
Texture Mapping lets us manipulate a source texture map, which is a
rectangular, bitmapped image of something, say a picture of woodgrain or
red brick siding or whatever. The effect is that it's being stretched
across the face of some 3D object that's in the onscreen image. The
woodgrain might be applied to the floor of the scene and the bricks to a
fireplace. Where before there might have been a collection of 3D objects
with solid-color shaded faces, we would now have objects with realistic
textures "pasted" onto them.
To get a good idea of how effective this technique is, find somebody with
a 486 PC (50 or 66 mhz) that has the popular program "Doom" and have them
run it for you. Now, we at RezTek aren't advocating that all games should
imitate the shoot-em up premise of Doom, but our purpose here is to
examine the implementation of a realtime, 3D texture mapped universe in
which the user can move about freely and interact with. The effect is
quite impressive and realistic. Now imagine something similar running on
your GS, running at fullscreen size and animating smoothly. How's that
going to happen? Only with a TurboRez GS card, using its hardware enhanced
Line Drawing w/Scaling.
While we're talking about features, we'll also mention that page-flipping
is no problem and there's also support for the GS's NTSC video port and
planned GenLocking support (for instance; the Apple VOC card).
What, Where, When
OK, by now the questions are when and how much. Well, we've still got
quite a bit of work to do to get this ready for production, so don't worry
about ordering a TurboRez card just yet. There will be more news posted at
the first of the new year (here, on Genie for sure, and possibly in one or
more publications). At that time we should have a better handle on release
time and pricing, etc.
Please understand that we're a dedicated but small company (i.e.
understaffed and overworked) and that we'll be needing to apply all of our
energy to completing the TurboRez product. Therefore, for the near future,
answering the phone will probably have to take a backseat to the
production effort. If we're slow in replying to EMail and stuff, just take
comfort in the thought that it was time diverted to a good cause. Also,
thanks in advance to folks volunteering for beta test duty but we're doing
just fine in that regard presently.
Thanks for your interest in this product. And stay tuned for more news
about TurboRez GS, the video card that'll bring powerful and dynamic
animation to your IIGS! (..and the company bringing it to you, RezTek, of
course.)
Toinet
> As promised, I went back through Shareware Solutions II, thanks to ProSel
> 16's "Locate String" function, and found a later reference to the
> TurboRez, this one being from November, 1994.
>
> As before, I know there's at least another mention or two in the SSII
> newsletter, and I'll hunt those up too...
>
> Joe Kohn
>
Ouch, Joe, that hurts! I forgot about these features, thank you for
refreshing our memories. That card would have been perfect for the //
gs, probably not in 1990/1991/1992/1993/1994/1995... but before.
Anyone thinks the same features can be achieved with the Carte
Blanche?
antoine
sfahey
Re: Re: Rarest Card
> Jamie, Sean and Tony,
> When will you take photographs of all of your items and share them
> with us? I mean with a 10-zillion pixel res. ;-)
My collection isn't worth getting too excited over. It's certainly not on par
with Tony's.
Sean Fahey
www.a2central.com
bbs.a2central.com
Joe
found only one more reference to the TurboRez. It was a one sentence
mention that at the 1997 KansasFest, Tony Diaz did a demo of his TurboRez.
Apparently, Bill St Pierre showed it at 2 trade shows, Tony demoed it at
Kfest, and then it was all over.
But, all these years later, it was a kick re-reading about what turned out
to be a fabled vaporware product.
BTW, I looked through all my IIGS computers today, and I don't have a
TurboRez Card. I guess Tony's is it, all that exists.
Joe Kohn
rhohler
wrote:
I have a SwyftCard in new condition in the box with manual, etc. How
rare is this card? Does anyone know how many where produced? It's
probably not too rare but I am curious.
Tony's collection it very impressive. Tony, ever thought about a
Paypal donate link on your site for donations toward a digital camera
and/or setup to take high res photos of cards? I realize everyone's
time is limited. But, thought I would ask.
A site with Apple II cards and how rare the Apple II community views
them would be cool. Especially, when you view ebay auctions and
people say Apple II 80-column cards are rare. It would give people a
site for additional information.
Rick
sfahey
Re: Re: Rarest Card
By: rhohler to comp.sys.apple2 on Fri Oct 23 2009 02:19 pm
> I have a SwyftCard in new condition in the box with manual, etc. How
> rare is this card? Does anyone know how many where produced? It's
> probably not too rare but I am curious.
Thousands of thousands. It wasn't that popular of a card. I'd say it's
definately an uncommon card.
I used to want one but not anymore.
Sean Fahey
www.a2central.com
bbs.a2central.com
Jeff Blakeney
Joe wrote:
> In July, 1993, I wrote a long article about the Apple Expo West trade show
> that was held for Apple II enthusiasts at Brooks Hall in San Francisco in
> April, 1993. It was at that show where the TurboRez had it's only public
> appearance.
The Apple II Review VHS video tape that was put out by Quality Computers
has a section at Apple Expo West and there is a short interview with
Bill with the TurboRez running in the background. I have that video and
I believe someone was checking to see if we could get permission to
digitize and distribute this and other material but I haven't heard
anything yet. I will hopefully be picking up a large hard drive on
Sunday so maybe I'll capture the video sometime next week.
Toinet
using softswitches to set the wished frequency.
antoine
D Finnigan
The FCC wouldn't allow it. Too much R/F interference. ;-)
sfahey
Re: Re: Rarest Card
By: Jeff Blakeney to Joe on Sat Oct 24 2009 02:16 am
> I believe someone was checking to see if we could get permission to
> digitize and distribute this and other material but I haven't heard
> anything yet. I will hopefully be picking up a large hard drive on
We have permission.
Sean Fahey
www.a2central.com
bbs.a2central.com
Jeff Blakeney
sfahey wrote:
> Re: Re: Rarest Card
> By: Jeff Blakeney to Joe on Sat Oct 24 2009 02:16 am
>
> > I believe someone was checking to see if we could get permission to
> > digitize and distribute this and other material but I haven't heard
> > anything yet. I will hopefully be picking up a large hard drive on
>
> We have permission.
Cool! I picked up a 1 TB drive yesterday so I'll should be able to
capture the entire video this week. Any preference for codec? I'm
thinking Divx at the moment. If I get really inspired, I could even do
it up as a DVD with chapters. Then we just need to figure out how to
distribute it as it will probably still be over 300 MB even as a Divx
file. I don't have web server space that large so we could possibly use
BitTorrent.
sfahey
Re: Re: Rarest Card
By: Jeff Blakeney to sfahey on Mon Oct 26 2009 02:36 pm
> file. I don't have web server space that large so we could possibly use
> BitTorrent.
I've offered to host it, and once it's in the wild, I'm sure it will be in many
places. Before you encode it, you might check with the OP and see if they are
stilling planning to do it and save the duplicated effort.
Sean Fahey
www.a2central.com
bbs.a2central.com
Garberstreet Electronics
"Jeff Blakeney" <jeff.b...@a2central.com.remove-4ul-this> wrote
in message news:4AE5E742.1386...@a2central.com...
Garberstreet.com has more than 200,000MB of space available.
Bill Garber of Garberstreet Electronics
http://www.garberstreet.com
schmidtd
wrote:
> "Jeff Blakeney" <jeff.blake...@a2central.com.remove-4ul-this> wrote
> in messagenews:4AE5E742.1386...@a2central.com...
>
> > To: sfahey
> > sfahey wrote:
> >> Re: Re: Rarest Card
> >> By: Jeff Blakeney to Joe on Sat Oct 24 2009 02:16 am
>
> >> > I believe someone was checking to see if we could get permission to
> >> > digitize and distribute this and other material but I haven't heard
> >> > anything yet. I will hopefully be picking up a large hard drive on
>
> >> We have permission.
>
> > Cool! I picked up a 1 TB drive yesterday so I'll should be able to
> > capture the entire video this week. Any preference for codec? I'm
> > thinking Divx at the moment. If I get really inspired, I could even do
> > it up as a DVD with chapters. Then we just need to figure out how to
> > distribute it as it will probably still be over 300 MB even as a Divx
> > file. I don't have web server space that large so we could possibly use
> > BitTorrent.
>
> Garberstreet.com has more than 200,000MB of space available.
And then there's the gmail acocunt...
Jeff Blakeney
sfahey wrote:
> Re: Re: Rarest Card
> By: Jeff Blakeney to sfahey on Mon Oct 26 2009 02:36 pm
>
> > file. I don't have web server space that large so we could possibly use
> > BitTorrent.
>
> I've offered to host it, and once it's in the wild, I'm sure it will be in many
> places. Before you encode it, you might check with the OP and see if they are
> stilling planning to do it and save the duplicated effort.
If I remember correctly, the original poster had a different video than
I do so I think we both need to work on this.
AppleCPM
One of the rarest cards is the Microsoft SoftCard II. Other CP/M
are also rare, like the ALS "The CP/M Card".
Willi