8 bit Apple II Expansion Mainly Neat Stuff --> Apple II and Apple III --> 8 bit Apple II Expansion
8 bit Apple II Expansion When the Apple II was on the drawing board, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs argued whether it should have expansion slots. Fortunately, Wozniak won the argument and the Apple II was not a closed system. The range of cards below gives an indication of how much more powerful a basic Apple II could become.
Digitek
16KB RAM: Business users of the II and II+ had little
choice but to buy a memory upgrade if they were to use some of the
more demanding software products. The Digitek RAM card is
unexceptional but looks to be very well made. Note the three status
LEDs (top edge of card near the Digitek logo) which would be
concealed by the lid of the Apple II when installed. Presumably, the
card appealed to hackers who were happy to work with their computer
open on the workbench.
Clone
80 column text: Another essential for the business user
was the 80 column text display card. The one illustrated is a very
cheap "clone" example. The original Apple II and II+ models did not
have the Aux slot and the RCA composite synch connector is located,
rather clumsily, on the back vertical edge of the card.
"Slinky"
RAM card: If you really needed lots of memory, the
"slinky" card was an additional option. Although you could have lots
of RAM on one of these, software had to be specially written to make
use of it. The card can also be used as a RAM disk for fast access,
so it can even be useful in a IIgs.
Super
Serial Card (SSC): The Apple II standard for serial
communications so every enthusiast should have one. Until recently,
clone SSC cards were available from Sequential Systems so you
shouldn't find it hard to locate one. The SSC works in two modes --
terminal emulation and printing -- and supports up to 19200 bps.
David Empson wrote a brief guide to setting up the SSC, a copy of
which can be found here.
Clone
"Softcard": The Softcard provides a Z80 processor on a
card in order to run popular CP/M software such as WordStar on the
Apple II. The Add to your Apple page lists
some third party Z80 expansion options promoted by Apple. The example
shown opposite is labelled SPAOE. Can anyone identify the
manufacturer or help with the DIP switch settings?
Epson
parallel card: A basic card for driving Epson parallel
printers. More sophisticated cards were available from companies like
Orange Micro in the USA and U-Microcomputers in the UK.
Clone
80 column text (Aux slot): On the IIe, an Aux slot is
provided for memory and video enhancement. This clone has no
additional memory -- Apple also made a similar card but a more useful
card is shown below.
Apple
80 column text with 64KB memory expansion: This card is
pretty much essential because most recent Apple IIe software requires
128KB RAM.
Saturn
Titan accelerators: The example on the left is for a IIe,
the one on the right is for a II or II Plus. The slot connectors look
slightly different but they're both for a standard expansion slot.
The blue DIP switch is used to configure the card so that it does not
interfere with timing sensitive cards in other slots. A guide to
setting the DIP switches can be found here.
There are other accelerators -- notably the ZipChip which fitted into the 65C02 socket in a IIe. This is allegedly the ultimate 6502 series accelerator although I've never seen one.
Clone
6809 accelerator: Further acceleration could be provided
by cards such as "The Mill" which have a 6809 processor. Software
would have to be especially written to perform computer intensive
calculations on the card and a 6809 specific operating system is
available for the Apple II. This example is a clone of The Mill.
U-Microcomputers
U-Print 16: This is a combined Serial and Parallel printer
card with a RAM buffer. It could support two printers connected to
the card simultaneously. The U-Print was marketed widely in the UK in
much the same way as the Orange Grappler in the US. Different EPROMs
are required for Apple and Epson parallel printers. I can provide
copies of documentation for the U-Print 16 cards if anyone is
stuck.
Cirtech
SCSI: Another card from the UK, this time from Cirtech in
Scotland. This is just a basic SCSI card which is supposed to work in
both the IIe and IIgs. I haven't thoroughly tested this card so I'd
be pleased to hear comments from other owners.
David Wilson reports that there was a later revision of this card that supported a 2.5" laptop SCSI drive internally.
Applied
Engineering Ramworks: The ultimate memory expansion card
(plugs into the IIe Aux slot). The basic card provides up to 1Mb of
RAM expansion with 80 column text support. Piggy back cards were
available to support different colour displays and to provide up to
3Mb of RAM. Alas the piggy back cards are very difficult to locate.
The basic card is supported by many applications, including
AppleWorks, and is well worth owning.
Numeric
keypad: Not a card but an essential if you used your Apple
IIe for lots of spreadsheet work. The keypad plugs into a D socket on
the back of the Apple IIe which is connected by a ribbon cable to a
bunch of pins on the IIe motherboard. The final "Platinum" versions
of the IIe had a numeric keypad built in.
Disk
II controllers: The upper
card is a clone and the lower one is an Apple example that has seen
better days. The photo demonstrates how little effort the clone
makers expended in concealing their piracy. Drives are connected by
20 pin ribbon connectors to the appropriate set of pins; by
convention the Disk II controller is located in slot 6 in a floppy
based system. This card is supported by all of the Apple II
family.
UniDisk
/DuoDisk 5.25 controller: Apple
made a couple of minor variations of this card. The 19 pin D
connector supports either the DuoDisk 5.25 (two 5.25" drives in a
single unit) or the UniDisk 5.25 (also known as the Apple 5.25
drive). Two UniDisk 5.25 drives can be daisy chained from a single
controller card.
* When buying a used DuoDisk, be sure to get the cable from the controller card to the drive unit as these are difficult and expensive to purchase. 19 pin D connectors are difficult to obtain so making your own cable is difficult. If you were really pushed you could make one by cutting down a 25 pin D connector.
This page last updated: 16 October 2005
Copyright information: If you wish to use any images on these pages, please contact the author, Phil Beesley on beesley@mandrake.demon.co.uk.