Over the past years, on every April Fool's Day, it has been my pleasure to show you one of my foolish Apple-1 projects.
The projects are "foolish" not because they don't work (they do work fine !) but in the sense that they were designed for a vintage computer microcosm which is so small (in terms of number of people involved in it) that such projects are expected to not find much interest, meaning: adopters who want to build one example for themselves. So why design and develop a project almost nobody else is interested in ?
Here is a quote from the late Steve Jobs:
"Stay hungry, stay foolish"
- Steve Jobs
Of course he did not mean that we should starve ourselves, or behave like fools - this would be illogical. What he likely meant was to never be statisfied, be always hungry for new ideas and improvements, and allow yourself to pursue "foolish" projects - because these won't have much competition. Most people are conservative - especially when it comes to investing time and money into projects - and so they prefer to follow well trodden paths. Which only can lead to boring "mee too" projects, not to disruptive breakthroughs. Under Steve Jobs, Apple created lots of disruptive (aka "foolish") products which turned out out to be stellar successes and made Apple Corporation one of the most valuable companies in the world. Just as one example for "foolish" in this sense: a google search tells us: "the colorful, translucent iMac G3 (released in 1998) is widely credited with saving Apple from near-bankruptcy". And when it was in the concept phase, there were plenty of naysayers who claimed: "nobody would buy that, it doesn't look how a personal computer should look !".
WHY THIS PROJECT ?
Yet another color graphics card for the Apple-1 ? Why ? Did the first one (called "GEN1" in the following) not work ? Or were there other problems ?
Before I will go into these technical details, allow me first to tell you why I think having a color graphics card for the Apple-1 may be important, at least for a few hard core aficionados. In his autobiography "iWoz", on page 187, he tells us:
" The Apple II, ..., was a phenomenal improvement over what I'd done before. I knew I wanted to have a computer that did color, for instance. I had built the Apple-1 from the beginning with chips working at the frequencies you would need to generate color on an American television, and I had planned to add color. But though I'd designed the Apple-1 so I could add color to it, I decided it would be better to design a fresh computer instead. "
So here you have it from the horses' mouth: the Apple-1 was not meant to stay B&W forever. Woz had planned its clocking scheme and the video signal divider chains such that it could produce color at a later time, after some minor hardware upgrades.
But we all know it never came to that. The Apple-1 had too many quirks and was soon phased out. Then came the infamous "buyback decision" to purge the Apple-1 from the field and to destroy them - which wasn't a "buyback" at all: as the story is told, instead of getting their money back, the deal was that for each Apple-1 sent back (to be destroyed, mind you !) the owner got a voucher for a brand-new Apple II at a discounted price.
And the surviving Apple-1 were essentially orphaned by Apple.
With the hindsight of 50 years, this rises the most powerful (and most feared) question in the Universe:
" WHAT IF ... ? "
So, what if Apple had not orphaned the Apple-1 and had continued to provide upgrades for it, such as new slot cards, one of which could have been a color graphics upgrade ? After fixing the reliability issues, of course, which had doomed the Apple-1 for a long time. But I've shown that by adding just six resistors, the Apple-1 DRAM works much, much more reliable. And I've also shown that a slight mod to the ACI input stage, its readback reliability from cassette tape could also be greatly improved. But none of this happened back then and instead of fixing the Apple-1, they decided to kill it off. Which from a business standpoint made sense, but still leaves a sour aftertaste. The brand new Apple II was the much better and much more capable machine, as Woz had learned his lessons from the Apple-1. The rest is history, as they say.
If you study the Apple-1 video circuits you will find that they are almost the same as in the Apple II, even using the same IC types (horizontal and vertical counters 74161, video shift register 74166, character generator Signetics 2513).
It would be possible to tap into these signals, use them to address a small (8 kBytes) graphics bitmap RAM, add a color burst signal, and get full color bitmap graphics. But doing this on an Apple-1 would need lots of ugly flight wires.
50 YEARS FAST FORWARD
Now, with the hindsight of 50 years, we can ask the "WHAT IF ..." again and add a color graphics capability to the Apple-1, just as Woz had intended to do half a Century ago. Of course, this color graphics system must use Woz' technology to be faithful. Which means such a color graphics card must be Apple II compatible. Just taking some old color graphics LSI chip from Commodore or TI would not meet these criteria. Others have done that and the reception was poor.
THE GEN1 COLOR GRAPHICS CARD
April 1st, 2023, I showed my GEN1 color graphics card, see this link:
https://www.applefritter.com/content/glimpse-uncle-bernies-apple-1-color-graphics-card
... which worked fine (at least for me) but it did have some drawbacks: when I started that project, I had adopted the self imposed doctrine that the color graphics card should plug into the Apple-1 expansion connector (not the sole slot, which is needed for the ACI) and must not require any trace cuts or flight wires added to the Apple-1 motherboard.
Alas, in the development phase of the wire wrapped prototype it turned out that some of the quirks in the Apple-1 foiled that plan. Some flight wires (but no trace cuts) were still needed.
So I had to drop the doctrine but now had a solution without using Woz' 'long cycle' trick for which he got U.S.-Pat. 4,136,359 "Microcomputer for use with video display". Adding a 'long cycle' would have required trace cuts and many flight wires to the unused NANDs in the 7400 at location C15 of the Apple-1 motherboard. As a side note, this patent for the Apple II was filed 11th April 1977 - just one year after the "Apple Computer Company" was founded and about 5 months after Woz began to wire wrap the Apple II prototype (AFAIK this started in November 1976). So the Apple II design and development phase happened at lightning speed - and this was only possible because of the lessons Woz had learned with the Apple-1.
For the Gen1 graphics card, I did use an alternate solution needing no 'long cycle' despite I knew - from my professional background having designed ICs for TVs - that this made the video signal unfit for modern, LCD based flat screen TVs - but I also knew it would work perfectly fine with CRT based, analog color decoder based TVs or monitors. Little did I know that it got so difficult (and costly) for other people to procure these old TVs/monitors in the 2020s.
The worst issue was that due to yet another lovely Apple-1 quirk: the 'write-through' concept I wanted to have for TEXT and LORES graphics pages turned out to be infeasable to do - these reside in the lower 4k DRAM bank of the Apple-1 motherboard, and one nasty Apple-1 quirk is that the address bus on the slot and the expansion bus gets scrambled whenever on-board DRAM is accessed, rendering the address useless for any expansion card. So the Apple-1 DRAM had to be disabled whenever the graphics card is plugged in.
All these technical compromises were ugly, and I was not satisfied.
GEN2 COLOR GRAPHICS CARD IMPROVEMENTS
In past 3 years I figured out a trick how the 'long cycle' could be implemented with no trace cuts on the Apple-1 motherboard and with only one short flight wire added. This allows generation of a better NTSC standard conforming video signal which also works with many LCD based TVs and monitors.
The 'write-through' was enabled by using an address latch and a VMA signal coming from the graphic cards which delays the scrambling action just long enough to capture the unscrambled address. I'm not 100% sure yet if the timing for this trick is not too tight to be viable for all Apple-1 (the tolerance of the 74123 oneshot time period plays a big role) but there also is a Plan B needing only one diode more on the graphics card and no further mods to the Apple-1 motherboard if the write through would not work.
Better period correctness of components used
I also found a way in optimizing and repartitioning the logic such that it could be implemented with MMI PAL16R6 which appeared in Y1978. The GEN1 card needed the programmable macrocells of the GAL16V8 which appeared in the mid 1980s. And I'm in the process to redesign the video ROM and associated logic to work with 2716 EPROMs. Which I think are more appropriate for a graphics card which might have appeared in Y1978, if Apple had decided to do that (2732 EPROMs were available in Y1978 but still very expensive compared to the older 2716 types, this is why even the Taiwanese Apple II cloners used 2716 EPROMs until the early 1980s).
Last but not least, I succeeded to throw out all the blanking signals and their associated logic. This fixes the quirk of the Apple IIe that it can't make a proper orange colored vertical line at the rightmost edge of the visible screen.
CURRENT STATE OF THE WORK
The prototype works but is not yet complete. The adoption of the 2716 without losing the lower case character set requires a re-write of my software which generates the video ROM contents. So at the moment I can only show HIRES graphics because this is the only graphics mode in the Apple II which does not require a video ROM to translate the video byte into appropriate dot patterns.
I also don't have any 74LS258 TTL in my stockpile and must order it, which has to wait until I have accumulated an order large enough to make economical sense. I have hundreds of 74LS257 in my basement, but I need its inverting cousin (the 74LS258) to avoid adding yet another IC package.
Here is a closeup of the GEN2 (right) and the GEN1 (left) graphics card:
and here is the backside of the GEN2 card:
... the bunch of red wires are the bypass of the unpopulated video ROM. These will be removed later, once I have the 74LS258 and the video EPROM.
Here are the function blocks of the card:
Here is my Apple-1 work bench:
You can see that I use a switchmode power supply (the metal box with holes on the right hand side) which produces exactly 8V to feed the 5V/3A regulator on the motherboard. Linear regulators (like the LM323K) turn excess voltage into heat (actually, the power = voltage drop over them times the current is turned into a temperature rise that depends on the thermal resistance in K/W of the regulator/heatsink assembly) and without any forced air cooling the Apple-1 is not able to handle the extra load of the graphics card when using transformers that have much more excess voltage than the switchmode power supply. Another lovely quirk of the Apple-1 which needs to be taken into account when plugging power hungry expansion cards in.
Here is a screen photo of the test picture seen on the consumer TV in the above photo when displayed on a professional video monitor:
... alas, the photo looks terrible, and the real visual on the screen is much, much better. Seems that my old Y1998 digicam has its limitations when it comes to taking snapshots of pictures on TV screens. With a classic mirror reflex camera using chemical film I knew how to take such pictures. But nobody does that anymore. Another dying technology.
OUTLOOK
So far for today. Y'all have to celebrate Apple's 50th birthday. In the next few weeks I'll continue the work and complete all the functions and tests and then post here in this thread again about the final results.
And then - if there is enough demand - I might design a PCB. The "form factor" of which is t.b.d., but I think a long vertical PCB running along the right edge of the Apple-1 motherboard would look nice. It should not exceed the height of the ACI card, though, because of the many custom made enclosures out there. But any builder who had the foresight to leave a little bit of empty space to the right of the Apple-1 expansion connector should be able to fit such a PCB in.
Comments invited !
- Uncle Bernie
I actually logged on to see if your 4/1 announcement would be here, and believe it or not was wondering if it would be a video related thing, looks cool. Sorry I don't know enough about Apple I to say much more!
Thanks for the detailed description and photos; it looks quite good from the outside. Of course, I’d love to see a ready-to-build kit with gerber files and firmware straight away – I’d definitely put one together. Otherwise, it’ll just become another half-finished project in the ‘someday…’ category. Please don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate your involvement and the effort you’re putting in, but in my view you should consider giving the whole thing a finished look. There’s a huge difference between projects you can only read about and projects you can actually build and use.
Very nice project, I'd like to see it completed, too.
My friend Nino and I did something similar back in 2021, using the TMS9918A (although it's from 1979):
https://www.applefritter.com/content/graphic-card-apple-1
Reference page:
https://p-l4b.github.io/graphic/
The project is open sourced under CC BY 4.0 license.
Boards, schematics, gerbers and code are free to download.
Enjoy!
Claudio - P-LAB
PS in the video the famous "puzzle game" has been obscured on purpose to avoid any copyright issue. ;-)
In post #3, 'macintosh_nik' wrote:
" Of course, I’d love to see a ready-to-build kit with gerber files and firmware straight away – I’d definitely put one together. Otherwise, it’ll just become another half-finished project in the ‘someday…’ category. "
Uncle Bernie comments:
The problem is, as always, the small size of the Apple-1 microcosm. I've explained this many times here on Applefritter: if there are only 2-3 people worldwide who are interested in building one of my projects, then it's simply not worth my time to design a PCB for it. And as I don't use CAD schematics (only hand-drawn scribbled ones optimized for Wire Wrap) I could not hope to give these to some volunteer who then would redraw them in a CAD tool to then go ahead with doing the PCB layout. And so far, no volunteer ever contacted me expressing willingness to spend his or her own time on these chores. Whoever would do these chores and makes a PCB layout could decide to "own" it and try making money with it instead of putting Gerbers on the web. And unless that person is too greedy, this could make sense for everyone involved - for builders of the project, these PCB could be much cheaper to get from that source than ordering a small number from the usual PCB manufacturers like JLCPCB. If you factor in all the costs with packing and shipping, ordering just 3 or 5 PCBs from JLCPCB makes no sense because they end up to be quite expensive due to the small lot size. And then you are stuck with 2-4 excess PCBs to need to sell off somehow, otherwise your one build will get very expensive even when using "cheap" Chinese PCB manufacturers. And I can't do that anyways as I live in the USA, with all the unacceptable tariffs on Chinese made PCBs. The ideal case would be to have "kit providers" who live in nations not having excessive tariffs, and being near other nations with prospective kit builders, to keep postage low. These "kit providers" could also own the programming equipment needed to make the PLDs and the EPROMs. This could help to keep costs low for the individual builder (never underestimate the tools / equipment needed other then the plain Bill-Of-Materials). One such kit source could be in Canada or Mexico to serve U.S. based builders, and one source could be in some country near the EU to serve the builders all over the European continent. It's important that the nation where the kit source lives has no ongoing trade war with the prospective buyers. Or worse, a shooting war, which always leads to sanctions and trade barriers. In the past years, this planet has turned into a madhouse. The recently started Iran war not making things any better. Gas and food prices going up, and all too many people worldwide are struggling with that. Would they rather buy gas and food (if they still can afford it) or buy one of these kits ? Should anyone order a lot of 25-50 PCBs hoping to be able to resell them under these conditions ?
Look, in my long life I got burned too much with investing my time and money into projects which were based on great innovations and looked very promising just to find out, after having invested many man-years and sums anywhere from $250000 to $500000, that the market demand was not there and no purchase orders could be had. Despite during the market research phase, the same potential customers gave the impression that they would love to buy the envisioned product. In the industry, this trap is called "dangling the carrot in front of the donkey". And the stupid donkey was - me ! (and sometimes, my partners in these failed business ventures, too). And don't get me wrong - not all of my business ventures did fail. And I think my success rate was better than the "9 out of 10 tech based business ventures fail" rule which has been around for a long time. Still, I can't afford to own a private jet so I'm still poor and a loser. Because owning and flying around in a private jet is the ultimate measure of success. Worldwide.
Maybe this is because I stopped developing products on my own dime and went into the semiconductor industry as a mere employee aka "wage slave", despite I could have lived well from the interest on my bonds without doing any work on a job. Where the greedy corporation would found my flights of fancy and allow me to try out novel circuits (always a risk). They got the patents for that and some of the products I designed even made them a healthy profit. But not all of the products were profitable - despite they worked fine as specified in the "objective spec". Meaning the product planners also were donkeys who fell for the dangling carrot. Only large corporations can afford such a waste of design ressources, time, and money. It's the nature of the game. Only few semiconductor products ever make a good profit. And the whole history of the semiconductor industry is full of sad stories of companies who never were profitable and soon were swallowed up / sold to larger competitors for dimes on the dollar. Despite these failing companies had great products. MOS Technology with the 6502 processor was one of them. Allen-Bradley (one of the major investors and stock holders) was fed up with the losses produced by MOS Technology and so it was sold off to Commodore in late 1976.
I lived through 50 years of progress in semiconductor technology which was an amazing run but I also saw the failed projects and companies. So I got very, very conservative with investing my own time, money and effort into anything electronic. The projects I publish here on Applefritter are just a hobby for me, to kill time while being retired, to do something useful, and keep my circuit design skills sharp. No intent to make any profit with any of that - and there is no hope to ever make a profit even if I wanted. The marketplace for Apple-1 projects is just too small. And I think that most aficionados in the Apple-1 microcosm see it in the same way. So they don't want to invest much of their own time and money either. They just want ready-to-build "open source" projects for which they don't want to contribute any effort by themselves. Other than downloading it for free and then - maybe - build it. I don't think that all of the 2-3 people who have expressed interest in my projects in the past would really build one, if the files were available.
What I have hoped for this time, being the 50th birthday of Apple, is that more people seek for the topic "Apple-1" and might find to this page and then get interested enough and in large enough numbers (two dozen or so worldwide would be great !) to motivate me to make a PCB layout for this project. I want this PCB for myself because the prototypes occupy the sole slot and are no good for anything other than the development and verification effort as such. But more adopters are needed to add the missing motivation (don't try to "bribe" me with money - for me it's worthless green toilet paper, I already have enough of owning larger quantities of that fraud than I want, but for me, there is nothing out there worth buying and not turning into a burden).
What I will do is to wait. And when not enough demand materializes for an Apple-1 color graphics card PCB, I will turn the prototype into something that might appeal to the Apple II crowd, of which there are maybe 1000 times more aficionados in the world than for the Apple-1. If you look at the photos in my post #1, you can see that I did plan for that eventuality, too.
- Uncle Bernie
The Apple-1 group on Facebook has over 1,000 members, and the parts group has nearly 600. What ‘micro-world’ of the Apple-1 are you talking about?
The problem lies in your approach to the matter. You keep slipping in the phrase ‘I’ll finish it if there’s interest’, but naturally there won’t be any interest until there’s a finished project. This situation is starting to resemble the age-old debate about which came first, the chicken or the egg.
In post #6, 'Macintosh_nik' wrote:
" ... but naturally there won’t be any interest until there’s a finished project. This situation is starting to resemble the age-old debate about which came first, the chicken or the egg. "
The first statement in your comment is not how it works in the real world. For any serious project there is first a market / demand survey to find out if anybody is interested in buying the envisioned project which at this point of time may only exist on paper. This is typical for each and every industry. Nobody will spend resources, time and money, on developing something nobody wants and for which there is no demand. When I post my projects here on Applefritter, this takes the role of the market / demand survey. And as I have very verbosely (may be too verbosely) explained in my post #5 above, even a positive outcome of such a survey does not guarantee any sales, not even one. Potential customers may just feign interest to learn what is out there being "floated" around, maybe to develop a similar product themselves, or file fake patents on the idea to block any patents by the rightful innovator (happened too me, too), and even if their motives are honest, and their interest is truthful, until the product is developed and ready for production, the market may have changed and the interest is not there anymore.
In case of this graphics card this is not about money, because I would only lose the time I would need to invest to design the layout, as the CAD tool I use (DIPTRACE) has long been bought and is paid for. A prototype run at OSHPARK would cost me maybe $100-$150 for three PCBs, and this is not an issue for me, just a bottle of Champagne less. But what I can't afford under any circumstances is to waste any of my precious RQLT (residual quality lifetime) on projects nobody wants. Even if it's only maybe a week or so which would go to waste.
And don't get me wrong - this particular project is very dear to me as I have developed it over 40 years. I started it in Y1986 when I made "first contact" with the Lattice GALs and back then the project was called "GALAPPLE", aiming at implementing a whole Apple II with Lattice GALs, 16V8 and 20V8. It was a very interesting test case for PLD development tools including my proprietary ones. But I never built a GALAPPLE. All I did is the design and simulation. For more, I did not have any motivation nor any time. My own proprietary simulation tools had become so good that it was pointless to build the hardware to prove that it works. The simulation was enough.
After I got sucked into the Apple-1 microcosm, which really is tiny - 1000 members in the Facebook forum, you say ? - I decided to do a few small mods to adapt it to the Apple-1 and I actually built the wire wrap prototypes to prove to potential adopters /builders it's real.
As to the "chicken-and-egg" problem, this is a well known trope, but does not apply here. People could see my prototypes, and comment or send me a PM ('personal message') to encourage / motivate me to make a PCB layout. I won't even take money nor would I want to produce and sell any of these PCBs. But I would absolutely hate if I spend all that effort designing a PCB and nobody wants to build it ? Guess how many people ordered my Gen2 improved ACI PCB from OSHPARK, where I put it up for grabs ?
(Another untold side of my story is how many piles of unused PCBs I have around, all for projects that did not find builders, among these some 50+ (or so) Gen2 improved ACI PCBs which I ordered before the tariffs struck. Every time I see these useless and wasted PCBs I get angry and feel stupid. But I don't want to throw them into the trashcan either).
So, what can we do ?
As I am not going to go to Facebook in any way, shape or form, maybe you go ahead and post a link to this thread there, using your own Facebook account. And tell them to post likes or dislikes (or any other idea how the PCB should look) there, in Facebook. And then, in maybe 2-3 weeks, you can report back to us here on Applefritter how much interest was generated by your post. (I never understood why people a shy to become Applefritter members, Tom Owad does not spy on you nor does he want your name, address, birth date, nor your phone number, Applefritter is much, much safer than Facebook which spies on you and sells all your data (your "personality profile") to third parties, which include organized crime, dubious spook/"Gestapo" type agencies, telemarketing scammers, etc. - this is why I never use Facebook, and for a good reason).
I'm curious how much resonance such a campaign on Facebook might bring. More than the 2-3 people my posts about my projects on Applefritter bring ? Let's see !
Do we have a deal, 'Macintosh_nik' ?
- Uncle Bernie
Perhaps the problem lies in your ‘professional approach’; whilst its principles can certainly be applied to hobby projects, on the whole it’s a completely different matter. In my view, hobby projects generally exist more on a creative level. In most cases, the average enthusiast starts a project primarily to create something for themselves; that is exactly how Woz created the Apple-1. Mike Willegal, Michael NG and Misha originally built their replicas because of a strong desire to own an Apple-1 and a lack of the financial means to purchase an original. Interest in the Apple-1 is not static; there are peaks and troughs. We all remember the last surge of interest in the early 2020s, when it seemed as though the whole world was preoccupied with nothing but building Apple-1s. There were reasons for this surge: Misha published his project as open-source, so anyone could now order a printed circuit board at a low cost; Armin produced excellent reproductions of the original manuals; and you offered the market fully ready-made construction kits, which greatly simplified the assembly process for novice builders. In other words, it is hobbyist projects that are sparking interest in the Apple-1, thereby helping to popularise this hobby. It is the popularisation of this hobby that should be the main objective, rather than the commercial prospects of individual products. That said, if a product is good and attracts a lot of interest, there is nothing wrong with trying to make a profit from it, or at least recoup the money invested.
I’ll certainly post about this graphics card on Facebook, but likes and comments shouldn’t be your main motivation; the main thing should still be promoting this hobby. If you like, I can help you sell your ACI GEN 2 cards; I’ll post an ad in the components group so that anyone interested in buying them can get in touch with you. I’m generally open to any kind of collaboration, provided it’s above board and doesn’t involve prolonged fasting :)
It’s a bit like a young writer approaching Sergei Yesenin with a notebook full of his poems and asking him to assess them and say whether he should even bother with poetry at all. Yesenin didn’t even bother to read them; he said that if you can choose not to write, then you shouldn’t even start — true poets write simply because they cannot help but write.
Hello Uncle Bernie,I made a simple post with a link to this thread.I hope that some of the 1,200 members of the group will come by here.Even though your work only interests a few people, for me it is a form of art that I admire for the simple beauty of the gesture.
Capture d’écran du 2026-04-04 13-16-34.png
In post #9, 'wirehead' wrote:
" Even though your work only interests a few people, for me it is a form of art that I admire for the simple beauty of the gesture. "
Uncle Bernie comments:
Thanks for putting this post into the facebook forum. I really cross my fingers that your post attracts more Apple-1 owners willing to build my color graphics card. If we get about a dozen or so, I will definitely design a PCB for it and make the Gerbers and all the files needed to program the GALs and the VROM available as a tarball.
I like your take that this is a "form of art". I always try to make my designs into works of art, they not only must function perfectly, but also look nice. This is why my PCB layouts require much more time and effort than "normal". And like any artist, I hate the idea that I create something beautiful and nobody cares about it and nobody wants to build it.
So let's see what comes out of your facebook post. Alas, I can't follow facebook myself as I don't want to get spied upon and sold out to crime organisations and/or nuisances (marketers).
I once considered to buy a "burner phone" for cash, with no links to my real person, just to use it to participate in the Apple-1 forum on facebook, but this turned out to be infeasable due to the activation process of such a phone - unlike the various spook agencies who do this all the time, I can't fabricate a fake persona whose data would pass muster. So, no facebook for me. Which is bad as I can't interact with this 1200+ Apple-1 aficionado community there - but maybe we found a way, at least for this project !
I'm really looking for inputs how this card should be specified in its final form, and I'm willing to listen. There are so many options ... such as taking the 14.31818 MHz clock off the Apple-1 motherboard, or providing a DIL-8 or DIL-14 metal can oscillator. Or if the ICs should face to the motherboard, or away from it. Or if the card should have a small fan on it which would blow air onto the LM323K regulator. Or if it should be a modular, dual PCB solution: a basic 48 kByte DRAM card which plugs into the expansion edge connector, and the video section being a 2nd PCB which plugs into the memory card.
And then, the software ... with Microsoft having "freed" their 6502 Microsoft BASIC, by adding the graphics commands to it, a "free", "open source", 100% compatible BASIC could be built.
And who (of the users) would port Apple II games to this graphics card ? (it's 100% Apple II compatible, mind you).
I also have an idea for a "game box" which is cheap and adds joystick ports and sound output to the Apple-1 on a very small budget.
The possibilities are endless !
The only thing that is missing - yet - is a large enough group of interested Apple-1 owners who would build the card and the game box, and port some games. This would be fun, no ?
Comments invited !
- Uncle Bernie
I'm retiring soon and I am willing to build things. A color Video board for a Apple I interests me. :-)
In post #7, 'linuxha' wrote:
" I'm retiring soon and I am willing to build things. A color Video board for a Apple I interests me. :-) "
Uncle Bernie comments:
This made me chuckle ... seems we can only do the fun things - which we always wanted to do - only after retirement. I'm also retired and this is the reason why I can design and build these things now.
Note that "a color video board for the Apple-1" won't be very interesting if it isn't Apple II compatible. My design is 100% Apple II compatible and so it is possible - at least theoretically - to port Apple II games to the Apple-1 so equipped. But this needs volunteers who actually a) build the card and b) port games to it.
Let's see what resonance the campaign on facebook initiated by 'wirehead' of post #9 brings in the next few weeks.
Until then I'll also have the development phase finished and may have some demo software ready.
- Uncle Bernie
I'll gratefully buy one, and help test, if/when they are made.
Thanks and much appreciated.
>> In post #8, 'UncleBernie' wrote:
>>> In post #7, 'linuxha' wrote:
>>> " I'm retiring soon and I am willing to build things. A color Video board for a Apple I interests me. :-) "
>> This made me chuckle ... seems we can only do the fun things - which we always wanted to do - only after retirement. I'm also retired and this is the reason why I can design and build these things now.
I went to school for electronics (they told me all I would do was repair TVs and Toasters, this was befor computers). Somehoe I ended up doing software (QA)
I'll post an off topic thread as to I am retiring, I don't want to steal this thread
On April 1st, 2026, I started this thread by showing y'all a first glimpse of my Gen2 Apple-1 color graphics card, still some components missing, which in the meanwhile were ordered, received, and installed, and it worked !
GEN2_in_Apple1.jpg
Here is a closeup of the TV picture seen in the above photo:
GEN2_charset.jpg
The "shade" effect seen in characters $40-$7F is due to the flashing effect of these characters, one of the features the original Apple II also had. It took me a lot of attempts hitting the button on the camera at the right time, until I got this effect !
Note that unlike the early Apple II, the GEN2 Apple-1 graphics card also has lowercase characters and the all important characters (such as the curly braces) from ASCII $7B to $7E (Apple text screen codes $FB to $FE). The DEL / RUBOUT character is rendered as a shade made from a checkerboard pixel pattern. This was first seen in the Apple IIe, I think.
It was not a mean feat to squeeze all these character sets (along with the LORES and HIRES graphics dot pattern translation tables) into a period correct 2716 EPROM, which only has 2 KBytes. Even the bright engineers at Apple who designed the IOU custom LSI chip were not able to do that squeeze. They needed a 2732 having 4 KBytes. But although the 2732 was available in Y1978, it still was very, very expensive, about 4 x the price of the 2716. This is why the 2732 was rarely used in Y1977/78. Its sales took off in the early 1980s, after it became cheaper, and then even the Taiwanese Apple II clone makers switched from the 2716 to the 2732. Ironically, the 2716 is harder to find today while the 2732 is abundant, and was in active production until the the end of the 1990s. Possibly due to its enormous popularity in industrial control equipment. Here is a photo of the finished 'lab rat':
GEN2_MMI_Top.jpg
You can see that all the reprogrammable Lattice GAL16V8 which were used in the development phase were replaced by fuse link MMI PAL16R6, and that the character generator and graphics translation ROM was implemented by a type 2716 EPROM (c) Intel 1977.
OUTLOOK
Thanks to the effort of 'wirehead' with posting a link to this project in the Apple-1 facebook group (see his post #9 in the present thread above), this project finally got enough "YES" and "likes" to justify making a PCB layout. I've already started to take measurements and make a cardboard mockup to plan the PCB form factor.
But much more work needs to be done to turn this into a DIY project which can be built by other Apple-1 clone owners. Just making one wire wrapped prototype of anything is easy - all the characterisation measurements, tests and mods needed to turn it into a "product" (even if it's not a "real" product, as YOU have to build it) may take more than the two months it took me from the launch of the GEN2 design to the finished prototype seen in this post.
The biggest challenge with this project is how to handle all the quirks in the Apple-1 itself, such as its often rotten / ringing signals and its evil scrambling of the addresses on the bus whenever the on-motherboard DRAM is accessed. I have developed and tested several solutions for each of these issues but before I can decide which alternative solution to adopt, I need to do extensive and time consuming testing on all my remaining dozen Apple-1 builds - each of them being slightly different. Now I'm glad that I was too lazy to sell them off. Otherwise I would not have the test platforms needed to qualify this GEN2 color graphics card design. Oh, and I will need beta testers, too, once the PCB layout is finished.
TENTATIVE COST ESTIMATE FOR BOM
I expect a BOM of around $30 if no IC sockets are used, plus the cost for the PCB, which thanks to Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods can turn out to be very expensive. I'm currently exploring ways to source PCBs from alternate Asian makers, such as from Taiwan, Malaysia, or Vietnam. But the problem with these sources is that they typically are not geared to make small prototype runs for hobbyists. Still, on the long run a solution must be found. Too many of my projects for the Apple-1 and Apple II got stuck due to the loss of JLCPCB - prior to the tariffs, they had great prices even for small fabrication runs. For instance, the PCB for my YAAK keyboard did cost $6 each, including shipping. If made by OSHPARK here in the USA, the naked YAAK PCB would cost ~$150, each, and you have to take three of them. This is why nobody (even me) wants to build a YAAK, as the naked PCB "Made in the USA" alone costs more than what the whole BOM of the complete keyboard kit should cost. Makes no sense to waste our hobby budgets on any of that. We must find a good and cheap PCB source before we can proceed.
So far for today ! (I'm in a hurry). I'll post more about the historical background and the "period correctness" of this design in the next days. Feel free to ask any questions on this project in the meanwhile.
- Uncle Bernie
I do not own an Apple 1 or replica, but this is very interesting stuff, always nice to see something old made new again with things it was never designed to do.
In post #16, 'Khaibitgfx' wrote:
" ... always nice to see something old made new again with things it was never designed to do. "
Uncle Bernie comments:
Actually, the Apple-1 was designed in such a way that it could be upgraded to NTSC color graphics, at least this is what Woz himself tells us in his autobiography "iWoz", and I think I could add color graphics to it by just adding a few gates to make the "color burst" signal and by replacing the character generator ROM with an EPROM which has color translation tables. The video counter / timing chain on the Apple-1 motherboard is perfectly fit to do NTSC color graphics. Really looks as if it was designed for this purpose.
There is a catch, however: the Apple-1 has a shift register screen buffer memory which does not allow "random access". And so no graphics "action" games could be made despite colors as such could be had. The simple add-on color graphics system would need to sacrifice some characters for colored block graphics the size of a character. And this is all which could be had.
I think that Woz did see these limitations himself, and so he never implemented such a limited graphics system for the Apple-1.
But I have a hunch (call it a hypothesis) that Woz might have experimented with adding the color burst signal to the Apple-1 and once he had it (this needs only a few gates, the TTLs for that could be put into the prototype area on the Apple-1 motherboard), he could see that all the characters on the screen got colorful, even with the Signetics 2513 character generator. These artifact colors (as they are called) may have given him the inspiration how the HIRES graphics mode used in the Apple II works. At minimum, this would have been a quick "proof of concept" for HIRES graphics which would not need more than a few hours of work for adding the gates to the Apple-1.
I think that the "weird" ways how the Apple II generates LORES and HIRES color graphics had to be tried out experimentally before the wire wrapping of the Apple II prototype started. They are just far too boldly abusing / bending the NTSC concept to be adopted without trying them out on a real TV. And the Apple-1 could have served as the test platform for these experiments.
Of course, Woz could have built the video counter and timing signal chain of the Apple II "lab rat" independently from the Apple-1, but so much of it was copied from the Apple-1 that it is almost the same functionality. So it would have been logical to hook a few makeshift color circuits to the Apple-1 to test the viability of these concepts quickly and without much expenditure. Once you have added the color burst signal to the Apple-1, you can unplug the 2513 character generator and feed bit patterns made by static wires (or mouse pianos) into the 74166 video shift register to emulate HIRES mode. Hook the clock of the 74166 to the master oscillator (14.318 Mhz, twice the DOT CLOCK) and you can fully explore all the LORES graphics colors. So in just one afternoon of lab work, all the "weird" concepts of Apple II color graphics could have been explored and verified on the Apple-1.
So far my conjecture about how the Apple II graphics modes might have come into being.
- Uncle Bernie
The 41464 DRAM chips, especially the 80nS ones, are "period incorrect".
In post #18, "transwarp2" wrote:
" The 41464 DRAM chips, especially the 80nS ones, are "period incorrect". "
Uncle Bernie comments:
Ah, my old nemesis 'transwarp2' has finally decided to poop into my threads again, as he/she/it has nothing constructive to contribute to the Apple-1 world anyways.
If you, 'transwarp2', are a complete fanatic who insists on 100% "period correctness" then dump your Apple-1 clone you may have built into the trashcan because the PCB can't be "period correct" as it does not use manually silk screened solder mask (and has other manufacturing process differences, too, which are not 100% "period correct") and go ahead and buy an original Apple-1 which then certainly is 100% "period correct". But I suspect you are too poor to buy one of those. You may not even have an Apple-1 clone at all.
My use of 64k x 4 DRAMs for this graphics card is deliberate to keep PCB area and costs down. This is a very pragmatic approach which does not hurt the "period correctness" of the circuit design itself. The design was done such that it could use 2nd Generation 4k x 1 DRAMs which were available already in Y1976. It is possible to take the 64k x 4 DRAMs out of their sockets and use DIL adapters to put on a mezzanine PCB having 100% "period correct" MK4027 DRAMs on it. To get the 8k bytes minimum needed for Apple II style HIRES graphics, 16 such MK4027 are needed. The PCB area for that minimum RAM would be larger than the whole current PCB layout itself and the costs for the graphics card build would double. For the 48k bytes the easily and cheaply sourced 41464 DRAM ICs bring to the Apple-1, 96 pieces (!) of the MK4027 would be needed. The PCB size would be larger than the Apple-1 motherboard itself.
My standpoint is that due to economic viability for the typical builder, reasonable concessions must be made as to the choice of IC components for such projects. Sure, I could implement an Apple-1 color graphics card the size of the Apple-1 motherboard itself, just to prove my point that my circuit design would work with these 4k x 1 DRAMs, but noone being sane of mind would want to build one of these, they just would be too expensive and awkward.
If you doubt the truthfulness of my claim that MK4027 4k x 1 DRAM would work in my design, just look at the Apple II manual of 1979, which still showed how the Apple II motherboard can be populated with generic type 4096 or 4027 DRAM ICs, all 4k x 1, and this would have yielded 12 kBytes of RAM in the whole machine. Woz designed the Apple II for that. Because he started that design in late Y1976 (most sources say it was in December 1976). The CPU cycle timing of the Apple II is exactly same as in the Apple-1. Even the scan line timing is the same (65 CPU cycles per scan line). There can be no doubt that Apple II style color graphics could be implemented using these generic type 4027 DRAM ICs. It's just a matter of how many such ICs people would want to solder in to get those graphics. The DRAM timing as such is exactly the same, whether the 4027 or the 41464 is being used. The latter are faster, sure, but this speed is not used in this design.
- Uncle Bernie
Hi Fans -
I was working in a PCB layout for this project for a while. It is almost done but space is running out. See here:
GEN2_graphics_PCB.JPG
The original intent was to make a PCB that is the same length as the Apple-1 motherboard is deep, and then, a small 40mm x 40mm fan would fit nicely at the right spot where it can blow cooling air into the heatsink of the LM323K regulator, and also blowing the air by the three TO-220 regulators located downstream.
Note that adding this fan is NOT necessary as long as the Apple-1 with the graphics card runs from a modified switchmode power supply which feeds the LM323K with 8V. But for those who use the prescribed transformers seen in the original Apple-1 manual (or equivalent transformers), the LM323K runs with ~10V and so it has to turn half the power consumption of the whole 5V rail into heat. This can be done without active cooling by a fan but it's not really healthy, as the LM323K gets very hot and it will sizzle and draw blisters on your fingers when touched.
So for those builds using transformers which run the regulators with excessive voltage headroom, adding that little fan is recommended, and it fits nicely on the PCB --- if you live outside the USA, you will be able to afford the extra PCB area without any financial stress. But since Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods, this is no option for residents of the USA (like me). In this case, the PCB must be ordered from a domestic manufacturer such as OSHPARK, and they charge $5 per square inch. You get three PCBs for this, but still, I consider adding the extra PCB area just to mount the fan is a waste of money. And I loathe wasting money, despite I am not exactly poor --- and last but not least, I want my projects to be as cheap to build as possible, so no prospective adopter would be turned off by excessive costs. This is the reason why I deliberately used 64k x 4 DRAMs. Not to "cheat", but to keep PCB area and costs reasonably low. At much higher PCB area and much higher costs (maybe $1000 more or so), this same graphics card design could be built using 96 pieces of 4k x 1 DRAMs. Which, due to these excessive costs, nobody would want to actually build. Still, it's a nice thought experiment to figure out how large that would get if 4k x 1 DRAMs were used.
TWO PCB VERSIONS
I decided to make two versions of the layout: a long one for those builders living outside of the USA who can order PCBs from JLCPCB without the tariff penalty, which has the fan, and a short one for those builders living in the USA, with no fan.
And for the latter version, I ran into trouble: as you can see in the above photo, in the lower left hand side corner, space is running out for the video mixer and the video output stage. I already had to "cheat" a bit, using very small SMD components hiding below the address decoder IC, to implement the color burst killer circuit for TEXT mode.
(I do not consider this "cheat" to be an offense against period correctness, because resistors and transistors did exist back then, in 1978, and earlier, with the same values, but they had much larger packages. Other than the package size, there is no difference. )
Note that it's not only the three components seen in the photo which don't fit, actually, there are fifteen (!) such components which don't fit and have not been instantiated yet - I do this layout without any CAD schematic, because a rigid CAD schematic would lead to suboptimum layout, and of course, NO "autorouter", and NO "AI" could ever make auch a dense layout on a period correct two layer PCB where you can't run two traces between pads because the PCB manufacturing technology back then would not allow that. But I use layout tricks most people don't know that these tricks exist - "bending" the circuit on the fly as I need it for the layout to be optimally dense. This is why CAD schematics are useless for me. They just would slow me down and cause less dense layouts.
OPEN QUESTIONS
OK, now here is the question for you: I am inclined to realize the whole video mixer and the video output stage in SMD, except for the few components for which no SMD versions exist. This part of the circuit will be built on a break-off PCB section which comes from the upper right corner of the PCB ... this cutout is necessary so you can still use the ACI card and plug in its audio cables. You see, I took care of everything. Actually, I made a cardboard mockup of the whole PCB with a glued in real 44 pin EDAC connector, just to get the mechanical clearances right.
I think if the SMDs are hidden from sight by mounting the PCB piece carrying them upside down, there will be no visible offense against "period correctness". Same philosophy I used to do the "Gen2 improved ACI" where all the extra circuitry was implemented by SMD components hidden from sight by placing them under the DIL socket. But I did make sure I only used components which did exist back in Y1976 function wise, but, alas, in a much larger package. 50 years ago they had no way to make these small SMD plastic packages. Now we have that packaging technology. And this was THE opportunity fo me to "hide" the extra functions needed for the Gen2 ACI. So for the casual observer, the improved ACI still looks the same as the original, botched circuit.
Comments invited !
(I will put the PCB layout on hold until I got your feedback).
- Uncle Bernie
Hey Bernie, I think this project is awesome! You're doing a great job again! I'd stick with the SMD components. A little compromise is okay. Better to have hardware that works well than a piece of visual history. Looking forward to more updates
Hi fans -
today, the PCB layout for the graphics card was finished, except for the final verifications ... as I did the layout without CAD schematics so I could "bend" the circuit on-the-fly, necessary to make this beast routable, but the downside of this method is that there is no schematic which could be used for LVS. So LVS must be done by hand, as it was done for IC designs some 50 years ago. This is called "progress", folks !
Here is the current state of the PCB:
A1_graphics_PCB.JPG
You can see this is the "short version" without the cooling fan to keep area and costs as low as possible - if I made a mistake in the routing, throwing $100 (or so) into the trash can hurts less than throwing $150 (or so) into the trash can.
I was able to avoid to use more SMD components by standing some small resistors and diodes upright. This is the same technique which was used in cheap, small transistor radios from 60 years ago. A trick which fell out of favor when machines replaced the human hands which had put the components into the PCBs before the machines could do this. For hobbyists it's still a viable method to stuff PCBs.
Note that other than the 44 pin connector, all the components are on the back side of the PCB. This is necessary to make the whole thing fit together with various enclosures I have as specimen. The cutout in the upper right corner is for the audio cable plugs of the ACI.
Cross your fingers that this PCB layout works ! It's very crowded and if any mistake has been made, it is unlikely it can be fixed.
- Uncle Bernie
P.S.: Arnaud of POM-1 fame has volunteered to put a 100% emulation of this card into his POM-1 Apple-1 emulator, see this thread:
https://www.applefritter.com/content/pom1-apple-1-emulator-cycle-accurate-c-rewrite-50th-anniversary-and-modern-development
... Which means that in the near future, you will be able to develop software for this card using POM-1, including all the features like the special flag I've added to allow software to track VBLANK and HBLANK events on the card. A much more powerful hardware feature than the VBI flag seen in the Apple IIe and IIc. I think (but have not demonstrated this yet) that using this flag, not only vertical screen splits at any scan line would be possible, but also horizontal screen splits, for instance, columns of text alternating with columns of LORES graphics. Which would be useful to make a "color peg" version of my "Codebreaker" game. We all know that HIRES graphics can render the same character set as TEXT, no problem, but it only has four colors available plus black (background) and white (useless for the game).
Great job, can't wait to get my hands on a PCB and build one.
In posr #23, 'Sarnian' wrote:
" Great job, can't wait to get my hands on a PCB and build one. "
Uncle Bernie has some news:
The manual LVS was completed this morning and only a few "bugs" were found: components which are on the PCB but somehow never made it into the scribbled "schematics" I made on-the-fly while doing the layout. These components were wired correctly, though. What I could not check is if there are any shorts ... DIPTRACE, like many other PCB layout programs, can't "see" shorts caused by stray vias or stray trace fragments in all cases. But it does "see" shorts caused by copper pours. Strange.
I've uploaded the Gerbers to OSHPARK to see if there are issues. Here is the rendering of the PCB by OSHPARK:
GEN2_graphics_OSH.JPG
Note that the "Top" side is where the connector is soldered in and this is the otherwise naked side visible from the Apple-1 motherboard's point of view. The silk screened legends are meant for debugging / measurements / IC types. All components other than the connector are on the "Bottom" side but it is so crowded that the silk screen can't be read anymore after the components have been soldered in.
You can spot where I had to "cheat" a little bit by using SMD components, but they all are hidden below an IC, and kept out of sight once the card is populated:
On the left hand side is the 74LS166 video shift register in SMD, hidden below the video ROM. This is inevitable as there is no way to put a full size DIL-16 IC in the vicinity of the VROM. The cutout which is required for the ACI audio cable plugs "stole" away the area which would have been needed for the full size 74LS166.
And in the the lower right corner there are a few very tiny SMDs which kill the color burst in pure TEXT mode. That circuit grew from one transistor and one resistor to two transistors and four resistors. So more space was needed.
The whole card is only 166 x 71 mm in size and it follows mid-range process technology design rules for trace width and spacing, which were typical for Y1976. This is a self-imposed limitation to keep the PCB itself "period correct", despite there of course are some "cheats" like the SMDs. But if you have a time machine, you can travel back to Y1976 and have these PCBs produced on a typical PCB manufacturing process of that era. Don't forget to bring with you a stash of these SMDs and a bunch of MMI PALs. These became commercially available in Y1978 but MMI had found out that they could not produce them in any useful quantity. Which also jeopardized Data General's "Eagle" project (the Eclipse MV/8000) which was started in Spring 1978 and depended on those MMI PALs to be available in quantity. Early MMI PALs came only in 20 pin packages and were the PAL16L8, PAL16R4, PAL16R6, PAL16R8 family. From my memory, so take this with a grain of salt, they (MMI) intended to sell them for $2...$3 each but they had to take $50 for the few functional samples they could make before the issues in the wafer fab were sorted out and yields became acceptable. $50 in Y1978 is equivalent to $230 dollars today (Ouch). In the same year, the 2732 EPROM was advertised in BYTE Magazine for $39.90 each ... $204 in today's dollars - even more "ouch" ! This is why i n Y1978, everybody still used the 2716, like this graphics card does. But it can be upgraded to 2732 so a manual switch can choose between two different character sets (you make them, I'll only provide the 2716 binary).
PRICE
OSHPARK quotes $91.35 for a set of three, so each one costs $30.44, which is only 44 cents over my cost target. Still, it is very expensive for most hobbyists. Because what can you do with the surplus two PCBs ? Sell them to other hobbyists ? --- I think this will not fly, because there are only a dozen or so member of Applefritter and the Apple-1 facebook forum (which has 1200 members) who have responded with "YES" ( = "I want to build one").
I will do some final cleanup work on the copper pours, re-run the DRC, and then order a set of three from OSHPARK.
Hopefully they don't take too long and cross your fingers that they will work !
I'll keep you posted about the progress (or lack thereof).
- Uncle Bernie
Here is another option for US customers: make them in China and sell them through MacEffects. They are the primary US distributor for my card and I am very happy with them. The fees are very reasonable and the payments to me are always on time. Mark is the owner. He sold several batches of my card already and is very honest and punctual. If you don't know him, you know Jonathan Adar, who can make the introductions.
Here is what we can do, if you are interested and Mark agrees of course: I can order the PCBs from JLCPCB, have them shiped to Bulgaria and then ship them to Mark. Since your PCB is almost the same area as the Dan ][ Controller, I did some estimations using Dan's gerbers and it looks like the sweet spot is for a batch of 30:
JLCPCB.png
Assuming that each PCB weighs 40 grams (based on the Dan ][ Controller once again) to ship a 1.4 kg package from Bulgaria to Mark in the US will cost an additional €29.34 + €8.90 for prepaid tariff and fees for a total of €38.24 = $44.19. This brings the grant total cost for 30 PCBs to $71.70 + $44.19 = $113.89.
If Mark agrees to this, you guys can figure out a price and how he is going to pay you. I don't need a fee for this, since Mark has sold a lot of my cards and charges me very reasonable fees. Instead he can pay my expense whenever he sells them, which is the same as the standard deal we have when he sells a batch of my cards.
In post #25, "CVT" wrote:
" Here is another option for US customers: make them in China and sell them through MacEffects. "
Uncle Bernie comments:
As much as I appreciate your inputs and hints how to deal with the unacceptable PCB situation for USA based hobbyists, CVT, this is not the way I want to deal with this. The shipping costs would double and exceed the costs of the PCBs themselves. Makes no sense to me.
Oh, and it's too late anyways as I have already ordered a prototype run of 3 at OSHPARK. Just to find out if they work ... circuit bending while doing layouts has its risks. I would hate the idea to order 30 pcs and then throw them into the trash. Even if the 30 pcs would cost the same as the 3 pcs from OSHPARK. It's about avoiding waste. I have great psychological barriers to throw things away and I'm still sitting on stacks of unused PCBs for various projects which I have accumulated over the decades. Every time I "rediscover" one of these stacks, I get angry because I see the wasted time and effort that was put into making them. But if I threw them away, then I would regret it, too, as I might need to build one of those projects later, if I can't find the one specimen that was built, or if it gets blown up in the lab.
Same happend with my BYTE Magazines which I threw out about 30 years ago and then, for my work on the Apple-1, I had to buy them back on Ebay, for very high prices. Nothing is a greater embarrassment than to have to buy again some object you have thrown away because you thought it's of no use anymore to keep it. Lesson learned !
But there is no doubt a good solution must be found when the project is finalized. Same for the PALs/GALs and the 2716/2732 EPROM which must be programmed. No every hobbyist has suitable programmers.
Furthermore, the PCB layout is not complete yet. I want to use the area that had to be taken out for the access to ACI connectors as a "break out" small bonus PCB which serves some useful function. That useful function has not been defined yet ... I might need it for improving signal quality on the Apple-1 motherboard. Or for the alternate "flashing" circuit I have explored. Or for my A2A1 keyboard adapter PCB ... the possibilities are endless. But whatever I choose to put into that available area, it must be useful for the typical builder of this graphics card.
Last but not least, I must also make the "larger" version with the fan and it's power supply electronics. This is still not finalized as it requires a lot of experiments to explore the options. There are so many small fans out there, some even have PWM speed control. I don't know yet if that would be useful. It has to be tried out with installations of the PCB in actual enclosures. And it's tricky as there are two different sizes of the Apple-1 motherboard around. The solution must fit both.
So, stay tuned ! I'll report here on the progress of the project. Ran into some problems recently, another parallel printer port was blown up while serving as the Apple-1 keyboard. I have yet no clue why this happens, how can a PIA input from the Apple-1 blow up a LPT output in a notebook ? I now have a whole pile of notebooks with damaged printer ports and none are left. And so I can't download my graphics card demo software anymore into the Apple-1, and the recent change of the soft switch addresses to avoid conflict with the ACI rendered the current version obsolete. Of course, over the next few weeks, the PCBs will arrive, I can build an example, and if it works, I can use the Apple-1 together with the ACI and the graphics card, and then continue the development of the software.
The bottom line here is, this project is far more complex and time consuming as it seems. Developing such a wire wrapped 'lab rat' into a sort of "product" which hobbyists could build with some resonable chance of success requires a lot of extra work. BOMs and building instructions must be written. And there should be some driver software available for all the plotting, drawing, and for 'sprites'. A lot of work to be done !
I hope it's worth it.
- Uncle Bernie
Oh, I didn't mean that you would do this during the prototyping stage. This is for once everything is finalized and ready for actual users. I understand your point that the cost of manufacturing the PCBs becomes less than half of the total cost, but it still brings the cost down to under $4 per PCB, while a reasonable retail price in a store like MacEffects would be at least $25 in my opinion.
Anyways, my offer stands in case you don't end up finding a better solution for US customers and change your mind.
UncleBernie, In case I haven't responded, please add me to the list of builders. Thanks!
In post #28, 'macnoyd' wrote:
" In case I haven't responded, please add me to the list of builders. "
Uncle Bernie comments:
Thanks for your interest, macnoyd, but there is no "list of builders". I could not contact most of those who have expressed interest in building this graphics card on "facebook" anyways. The thread there was initiated by 'wirehead', see post #9 above, on his own initiative. But it generated enough responses that I could justify the 3 weeks of work to actually design a PCB layout for it. It's not 3 man-weeks, though. I worked only 2-3 hours on it, after breakfast, every day since the decision to do it was made. So I'm not as inefficient and slow as the "3 weeks" seem to imply ;-)
Here is a rough outline of my plan:
Once I got the three prototype cards from OSHPARK, I will build one up and see if it works, which will take about a day, because I must revise all the PLD designs for the new pinouts used on the PCB. If it works, I'll use another card to snap photos of the building process and write a 'builder's manual'. After that step, I need a beta tester owning an Apple-1 clone and living in the lower 48 who will test if it can be built by people other than me. I'll provide this as a parts kit with the PCB at cost, and will help if something goes wrong or does not work. This is just to test the building manual.
After that I'll release the Gerbers and JEDEC files to the public. Not sure if I have the time to provide IC kits for those who have no PLD programmer. Or complete kits with all components including the PCB (which must be sourced from a place not affected by the tariffs and still be affordable for hobbyists).
For me it's tempting to make complete kits just to get rid of my excess parts stock left over from this project. The problem, as always, is that buying the components just for one build is economically stupid because the "sweet spot" for the pricing at distributors is with the higher numbers like 25, 100 pcs of te same component. They do sell almost everything at qty 1, too, but then the prices are much, much higher, due to the handling and packing costs (it costs the same to put 10 resistors in a bag as putting 100 or 250 or 500 of them in). So I always order components at quantitities where the "sweet spot" is ... and then it most cases, can't use them up for other projects.
Any hobbyist out there faces the same problem. This means that for any such hobby project, the costs for procurement of the components will be much higher than the plain BOM would suggest.
So it makes sense that hobbyists team up and one of them make a group order and then distributes the components to the team members. Which, of course, also may incur postage. USPS small parcels now cost $8 (or more) to ship within the USA, twice (!) of what it was in Y2019. USPS also wants to treat bubble mailers as small parcels. Theoretically, you could pack a kit as a "flat", i,e. a cardboard envelope, as long as it fits through the slot of their size test panel, but what if the components inside get squashed so badly that they become useless due to bent pins ? I once sent PROMs for the Apple-1 in small clear plastic jewel boxes in such an envelope and got them back in a plastic pouch, completely flatted and destroyed, with the sticker on the pouch, "We care". Sure. They should have paid me for the loss. Only then their "We care" slogan would would be no lie.
So, Houston, we have a problem. In the past 7 years or so, postage got so expensive that it makes no sense anymore to send cheap components to anyone, as the postage may exceed the value of the components. But PCBs still could be sent around as a "flat" just protected by one of these cheap mailers made from thin grey cardboard you can buy at Walmart. Alas, the trick is how to source these PCBs without falling prey to the tariff ripoff artists and their "handling fee" scam.
All these shenanigans foisted on us by anonymous bureaucrats and corrupt politicians bought and paid for by big corporations (who seek to destroy independent "makers" and small businesses, as they want us to buy their overpriced and low quality crap products infested with spyware and backdoors instead) can be dodged with enough time and effort and energy being spent on dodging them, but the big question is if its worth the time, effort and energy to do so. Not everybody can "Go Galt" and stop producing for all these parasites and leeches, and there is no "Galt's Gulch" where independent producers can freely exchange their products and services to likeminded, freedom loving individuals. I spend my evenings now with reading through the early BYTE Magazines, paying particular attention to the ads from small businesses and the component prices. These early years of the microcomputer revolution were great. The rule was "anything goes" and "there are no rules". These were the best years of my life !
- Uncle Bernie
UncleBernie, I get it, and I largely agree with your comments, but at some point, we all have to deal with cost, postage, tarrifs etc. or do without. Change is ineviable, especially in the tech field we're in.
Postage has gotten crazy expensive. Fuel too. You otta see what we pay to heat our homes in New England. I'm just glad the tax on it isn't like CA. We'd all freeze here, LOL ! ...
PCB manufacturing has taken a similar route. You'd be lucky if the board manufacturer you choose doesn't share the design with someone in China or Hong Kong. I've seen it first hand. But I digress ...
I and others who share interest in this project realize the cost will often be elevated at the build level for a veriety of reasons. Some will buy, some will not.
It depends what the cost is and what the value is to the person interested. I understand where you're coming from on a personal level, but I wouldn't worry too much about it beyond your own interest.
I see guys in car clubs who own cars that exceed $250K, yet they complain like they're going broke when the Club they're in raises the cost of club dues by $25. You get my point.
With regard to parts that are difficult to obtain like PALs, PROMS or other programmable devices, we'll all have to find alternatives at some point in time. It's already started a while ago.
I appreciate folks like yourself that keep vintage Apple 1 & 2 computers alive with innovations like this and hope you never get discouraged when the environment around us feels like they're bleeding us dry.
Thank you for your time and efforts. I'm sure many here appreciate that, including the more silent ones, like me.