A2Pi

Charlie

.. . Mouse . ..
Joined
Jan 20, 2008
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Well, after many years of stern resistance I finally became the owner of an Apple-made device. My wife bought me an Apple IIe Platinum for Christmas. :wink:

It's a funny thing, I have always viewed Apple-made devices in the following way: "Over-priced, under-specced, but nicely made". Judging by my latest lump of high technology Apple have stuck with the same business model for about 30 years... if it ain't broke don't fix it!

I've got to say I rather like my new toy, so much so I went out and bought a IIgs complete with ZipGSX and 8mb cards to go with it. Just don't ask how much either of these machines cost! Speaking of cost I can't believe the utterly outrageous prices 3rd parties charge for bits 'n bobs for these machines - my IIe could do with some upgrades while my IIgs languishes for the sake of affordable mass storage options.

Hurrumph!
The IIgs can wait on the next batch run of CFFA3000's that will hopefully begin later in the year - great device, sensible price, just not enough made.
My IIe, however, can't wait - so I made this:
a2pfront.jpga2pback.jpg

I can't claim any credit for this board beyond it being a reverse-engineering of a currently out of production design. Take a Raspberry Pi, whack it together with a minimal serial interface, bung a special version of Linux on it, and whack the whole lot inside your Apple II. The result?
-Sold-state drive(s)
-HDMI output
-Accelerated IIgs mode
-Multi-processor capability
-Networking too, depending on your Pi / dongles
-ADTPro at speed

All for the cost of a few materials and a quiet afternoon with a soldering iron - that's better! I suspect owners of a Super Serial card could bodge a Pi on to one for much the same effect.

I must say the old Apple II is a lovely 'n easy system to tinker with. Just as well, I'd like a Mockingboard so I shall make myself one of those in due course.

:-D
 
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WHOOHOO!

Blow me if it didn't actually work.
:cool:

I'm sure many can sympathise on this form when it comes to hacking retro computer projects together:
Idea, can I do it? Maybe...
Much research, tinkering later...

Flip the power expecting (at best) that nothing will happen, but fearing that (more likely) there will be a catastrophic escape of magic smoke...
...Not today!!! It actually worked first time. :D:D:D

Proof
diskpi.jpg
Board installed
(Pi 2 this time)

appleiipi.jpgiigspi.jpg
IIe Platinum also does GS
(accelerated up the whazoo)

...And that's just the tip of this massive iceberg of win.

WHOO
and indeed HOO! ...again
 
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Nice project!

I missed out on the previous batch of the CFFA3000 because of my financial situation and because of the price had gne up.

I've been using an SD DiskII emulator in my IIGS. It also emulates the 32MB hard disk partitions, so it can be used as a hard drive. Only downside is That the GSOS takes about a minute to load. After that it's pretty swift.

There was the Technobytes Classic IDE which was very reasonably priced but it was sold out and no new batch is in the plans.
 
Awesome project my friend..

Got any links or more details on the Pi interfacing, wouldnt mind building one myself as i have a Pi zero lying around doing nothing.

:)
 
Hi chaps, nice to 'see' you, if you see what I mean... :)

Here's a couple of links plus the schematic for the interface board itself.

http://schmenk.is-a-geek.com/wordpress/?p=167
https://github.com/dschmenk/apple2pi

http://ivanx.com/rasppleii/

a2pischematic.jpg

I bought the protoboard from this (very nice) chap. I never really got the hang of doublesided home made PCBs so for a one off this was ideal.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=112295180048

It will work wonderfully for a Pi Zero, or any Pi short of a Pi 3. I think the latter probably draws a bit too much juice.

A suggestion: If you go the same route as me I'd suggest doing the header as per the original, shorter, Pi GPIO. My Pi 2 and board will only fit in slot 7 as the HDMI cable doesn't have sufficient room between the other slots... The extra GPIO pins aren't used and if I'd ignored them the Pi 2 HDMI would have had just enough clearance to fit in any slot.
Also the holes in said protoboard are a little tight. I couldn't find a female pinheader for the GPIO that would fit. I used some cut down sockets, but direct soldering of a Pi Zero, or indeed a ribbon cable would be another solution. (This board basically uses fast serial via the GPIO so I doubt line length will be an issue with a 1mhz machine)

I'll post some more piccies shortly.
 
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More piccies:

The back of my Apple IIe sports a few new ports. 4x USB and HDMI. Basically pannel mount extensions fron the Pi 2. The wifi dongle is mounted outside to get past Apple's RF shielding... as a result I didn't as yet bother with an ethernet port. Both composite and HDMI are routed to the same monitor depending on how I'm using the A2Pi.
Mostly I use it kind of like a Beeb Tube add on, with the Apple itself functioning for I/O, but the Pi will just as happily act as a server of resources to the Apple.

a2rear.jpg
New rear ports


Here's the splash screen my setup uses, in this case booting in to IIgs mode. Yes, all the Pi's resouces including virtual drives and networking are available along with the Apple's physical resources including drives or anything else that's plugged in. There's Apple II support via LinApple but I've not fiddled with that much.

a2boot.jpga2gsmode.jpg
Custom boot screen and IIgs mode


Or I can boot direct to Linux, in this case X is running with a IIgs window and the Apple II itself outputting to a command prompt. Cool, eh? Oh, and everything still has access to all resources. I'll probably bung a few more emulators on there in time so my Apple II can be whatever system I want it to be.
The complication for me is I've never been able to come to terms with Linux, there's just something about it that just doesn't compute for me. For instance I just about worked out how to replace the pointless diarrhoea of boot text with a nice splash screen but now have to login blind. Happily the Apple BEEPs when the Pi is ready so I know when to type, currently:

login: apple2 <RETURN> boots to IIgs mode
login: Pi <RETURN>, apple2 <RETURN> boots to the Linux command line

I'd much prefer:
login: <RETURN> boots to IIgs mode (or login: a <RETURN>, if a plain <RETURN> can't be done)
login: P <RETURN> boots to the Linux command line

But I can't work out how to make the necessary changes, or indeed if doing so will end up breaking somehing else. Past bitter experience tells me that any kind of blind fiddling with Linux will result in an unbootable system and no hope of retrieval. If anyone feels like explaining how to do this (simply) I'd be very grateful. Oh, and if anyone can tell me how to change the network share name from rasperrypi to something like apple2 I'd appreciate that too.

a2lin.jpg
Linux desktop


Some might regard the following as sacrilegious. I don't have an Apple mouse card for my IIe, which would work fine with this setup by the way, so I converted an ADB trapezoid mouse to USB... And converted it to two buttons while I was at it for convenience with nonApple OSs. The fillet of plastic between the buttons currently stands out a bit as I haven't gotten round to Retrobriting it yet. Don't worry, the donor was a retro device too. A spare A1200 trapdoor. Oh, said USB mouse works fine with the Apple II, too. The beauty of this conversion, for which I can claim no credit, is that commumication between the Apple II and Pi goes both ways. I think I may have mentioned that more than once.


2buttontrapeziod.jpg
Two button trapizoid

opticalusb.jpg
USB and optical


There's just so much win here I can't begin to express how pleased I am with this setup, or indeed my gratitude to the cleaver chaps who came up with this. Also let's not forget that I'm brand new to Apple hardware so the applications likely go further than my brief acquaintance has revealed. I heartly recommend anyone with an Apple II give it a go.
 
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Love what you've done with this. Nice to see a bit of non-Amiga hacking!
 
nice. thanks for sharing. I'd seen the apple2pi, but the vendor never made any more. I think I'll be asking bas to wire one up for me too!
 
nice. thanks for sharing. I'd seen the apple2pi, but the vendor never made any more. I think I'll be asking bas to wire one up for me too!

Thank you!
I bet Bas could indeed do the job, probably much better than my attempt. Having said that if you can solder the schematic and so card are pretty strightforward. Source your parts, pinouts for the Pi's GPIO, ICs, and Apple II card connector... Bang in the sockets, wire and passives as per the above schematic, ticking off as you go... once everything on the schematic is ticked off you're done. ICs in sockets and away you go. (Good practice to wire the power rails first, preferably with thicker wire than the other connections. Also try to keep connections as short as possible and not have data lines crossing power rails)

If you were to use the same proto board as me I'd do the following differently:
1) The GPIO header needs to be top, left to allow room for a standard Pi's connectors. The mistake I made was to go for the current 40pin header rather than the original 26pin version. This project doesn't use any of the newer pins and if I'd gone for the shorter header the Pi would overhang the end of the board a little more so allowing more room for the HDMI connector. As it stands, unless I use a Pi Zero or a ribbon connector, my board will only fit slot 7.
2) I put the ICs where I did so they wouldn't get in the way of the Pi and because all the Apple boards I've seen have their components on that side. Also to keep the bus wiring as short as I could. As it happens if I'd mounted the ICs the other way up on the REVERSE side of the board the wiring would have been much neater and shorter.
3) It wouldn't hurt to put a 100pF ceramic cap across the power rails near the ICs but I didn't and so far my board has worked very reliably.

...Next?
I find myself on the horns of a happy dilema. This Apple2Pi thing has worked out far better than I expected. I had gotten my hands on a ROM01 IIgs motherboard, and along with the 'spares' I had from my real IIgs (more later) I was going to do a Stealth IIgs conversion.

ROM01IIgs.jpg
Progress so far

It seems Apple marketed a IIgs conversion kit for the IIe and as long as you use a ROM01 board said conversion can still be done as a DIY project.
Both my IIgs boards are ROM01 types, so both have had their soldered backup batteries replaced with holders, and new cells bought. I also added the missing headers for the IIe PSU and keyboard (Mouser) to the conversion board. As I treated my IIgs to an 8Mb memory card the 4Mb one was planned for the conversion. I intended to reproduce a Stealth GS motherboard tray in ABS from measurements off my IIe and IIgs rather than butcher the original.

So what's the problem?
Well, I have a IIgs waiting in the wings and with the A2Pi having worked out far better than I hoped the 'need' to do a IIgs conversion has gone away... I've also grown quite fond of my IIe as it is.
Carry on regardless? A Stealth GS is worth quite a bit, especially if I pretend it's an original. (a joke)
Keep the parts as spares? Seems a bit selfish just to sit on them.
Proceed with said conversion with the intention of passing the 'kit' on?

Thoughts..?
 
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ZipGSX Brain Trransplant

ZipGSX Brain Trransplant

Hmm, while I'm on a roll here's something else I've been fiddling with:

crystals.jpg
Ooo, crystals

No, my flirtation with Apple hasn't made me come over all technohippie. I mentioned I have a proper IIgs waiting in the wings... Here's a little something to be going on with:


ZipGSX7Mhz.jpgZipGSXbrainswap.jpgZipGSX12Mhz.jpg
.... ZipGSX @ 7Mhz .... ..... Brain Swap ..... .... ZipGSX @ 12Mhz ....

7Mhz IIgs..? Nooo... Socket the crystal, swap the CPU for a 14Mhz one (Mouser again), and bump it to 12Mhz. More to come I'm sure, but these things aren't easy to come by so let's not go mad right away.

"Trransplant" was fully intended. *Cough*
 
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Wow you have the ii bug :)

blame Wozniak. I really think the ii's ( inc the gs and iic) have some magic about them. The whole trinity thing, Tandy, pet, apple, and the iie is such a delight.

My iie might have one slot left, as per pm bas has the commission. I have no clue, I can solder but no idea about how to layout. I'll use a pi zero.

(Off topic / but great for background, I recommend woz's book, iwoz, its charming and very informative, he's a clever chap)

Keep pics of your 'hacks coming'! and If anyone can hack up an 8mb card for a gs that I can afford, superstar status awaits! :)
 
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ta for that. but, oooh dammit do I want to use my GS? now thats set the cat amongst the pidgeons! especially as you've gone and told me about using a pi in my iie in gs mode!

<brain explodes>

edit: I'm weak, bought it.
 
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ta for that. but, oooh dammit do I want to use my GS? now thats set the cat amongst the pidgeons! especially as you've gone and told me about using a pi in my iie in gs mode!

<brain explodes>

edit: I'm weak, bought it.

*Giggle*
It's nice to have an 8Mb IIgs. Speaking of getting carried away:

mockingboard.jpg
Have you guessed..?


It remains to be seen if I ever end up with something functional.
 
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Yes, the plan is to make myself a Mockingboard. Of course piccie is only for show, wiring it up could be fun! If I get it to work that would be the second most complicated thing I've handwired, so there's hope.

That Brainboard looks interesting, thanks for the link. I wonder how much it was vs availlability of schematics / ROM image?

PS
Something else Apple related bubbling... it seems the bug has bitten me.
 
Progess of a sort with the Mockingboard:

mockingboardpins.jpg
Greyness...

No doubt others will have a better method, but FWIW here's what I do to help the old brain when soldering up somewhat more complex boards from a schematic:
1) Lay out the ICs in a reasonably sensible fashion, usually similar to the original.
2) Take a photo and in Paint Shop Pro (Phtoshop is too much for my brain) make a greyscale image with a 50% opacity layer over the top.
3) Grab the pinouts for each of the ICs, use background erase to make them transparent, and lay them over the ICs in the photo.
4) Lay a reminder of the edge connector pins over said connector... with this proto board I still need to do a little mental translation.
5) Now I can hopefully follow a printed copy of the schematic, ticking off as I go, without having to refer to too many seperate diagrams.

6) I tend to wire up in the following order:
Power rails
Data/Bus lines
Passives and remaining interconnections

As this board is going to be pretty tightly packed I think I'll try what I've seen Ben Heck do: Run the power rails with bare wire close to the IC pins, and use SMT passives for interconnections where possible...
...always assuming the bodger in me doesn't get boared!

If anyone is interested I've posted a pdf with the schematic and components list... for the sake of space and (stupidly high) cost I'm not going to include speech chips with my attempt. While I'm pretty much making this up as I go along I think I'll go my own way with the sound circuuitry itself ¬ wires from motherboard speaker to Mockingboard, and then cable from Mockingboard to rear pannel 3.5mm stereo jack... I'm no expert but it looks to me like the way the schematic is done the mono motherboard output is mixed with the Mockingboard's stereo out in such a way as to render everything mono... will have to do something about that!
 

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Getting there...

HalfWayFront.jpgHalfWayBack.jpg
I really HATE handwiring stuff

...I hope it actually works when I'm done.
 
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