Hey Folks,
As my background is mostly with Commodore gear, I'm used to buying from a range of resellers of interesting tech for the C= range. Virtual FDDs (A variety are now available), FPGA video chip upgrades, replacement components for parts that are no longer commonly available, new cartridges. That kind of thing.
I assume similar shops exist for Apple. I've found "Big Mess of Wires", but haven't seen much beyond that.
What else is there out there? Who's selling interesting bits and pieces?
(I'd love to get a new 80 column card, a new CPM Z80 card and a new RAM expansion for my ][+, and I'd rather avoid old stock)
Bonus points if they ship to Perth, Australia for less than the cost of the card itself :-)
John
David M. who posts on here some can help you with a few things. He has a Saturn compatible RAM card that will work in a ][+, a USB thumb drive storage card, a real time clock card, a programmable EEPROM card (kinda like cartridges, except programmable) and a couple other things. And a bonus for you, he is located in Australia. If you want a CP/M card, the only newly made one I know of is from Ian Kim who is in Korea. He sells on eBay. I don't know what shipping is to Australia, but I bought a PS2 keyboard adapter for a ][/][+ from him recently and shipping to the US was around $20, which isn't cheap, but considering it was coming from basically the opposite side of the earth from Texas, I guess not that bad. The other main places would be https://www.reactivemicro.com/ (they are in the US and also sell on eBay) and http://a2heaven.com/ (they are in Bulgaria). There are a few others that I am sure someone else will chime in on.
Oh, on 80 column cards I think you may be stuck going with a vintage one. I don't know of any for a ][+ made in the last 30 years or so. There is the VidHD card which gives HD video out from an Apple II, but I am not sure it will work in a ][+ or if it will give you 80 columns on one.
Thanks for those! Bookmarked for future use. I'll reach out to David M in a few months.
(I may have purchased another 8 Bit system today which will leave me poor for a few months)
I'd recommend you this shop https://www.a2heaven.com/webshop/index.php
I'd also recommend you a vintage Z80 card, they are usually cheaper than new ones and work nicely.
I do advise you to avoid david_m's buggy saturn 128K card (his other designs are probably similar) he is very self confident but generally incompetent on many digital logic and apple2 specifics and boldly releases buggy designs - see these topics https://www.applefritter.com/content/new-saturn-128k-compatible-cards and http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?73128-Apple-e-Clone-(Orange-)
Unfortunately gglabs also releases buggy hardware http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?73238-Apple-IIgs-8MB-RAM-problem
Casablanca,
I'm disappointed that you would attack another member in your very first post after our last discussion. In the VCFed links you provide, most of the criticism of david_m and gglabs' products is from the user george. It is inappropriate to use those threads as citations, without disclosing that you are george. Further, it is completely unethical for you to criticize david_m in this manner, without disclosing that you sell your own Saturn card that competes with david_m's.
This is your only warning. Casablanca, on this site:
I've had good experiences with https://www.reactivemicro.com and as far as I can tell they are very solid.
The products on a2heaven.com look interesting, and I will likely order a few from them as well.