Hi, all.
Just for fun, as it relates to current times use, what is your opinion of the most useful and least useful Apple II card (II / II+ / IIe / IIGS - your choice)
For most useful, I say Apple Disk II Controller Card
For least useful, I would say a 300 baud modem.
Hello,
what's the reason for that opinion ?
in the former days the modem cards have supported the users to communicate with
eachother in the BBS systems
- exchange knowledge about their computers and Hardware
- help to repair their systems by themselves and save hundreds of bucks...
up to my opinion and thousends of former users would disagree with your choice....
Up to my mind I'd choose for least usefull card the old dongle cards
that enable use of a software that even don't exist nowadays...
speedyG
Most: CFFA 3000
Least: any kind of printer interface, except for SSC
Having several hundred cards of varying types, the list becomes almost infinitely variable,
but here's my take on what I perceive is most popular, or most desired for a basic Apple ][.
I'm sure to miss several, but these are what come to mind ...
Most desired for Apple II:
Slot 1: Saturn Systems 128K Ram expansion
Slot 2: Super Serial
Slot 3: Videx UltraTerm 80 column
Slot 4: Mouse Card
Slot 5: SD DISK][ Plus (Ian Kim) or CFFA-3000 or Hard Drive controller card
Slot 6: Apple Disk ][ Card
Slot 7: Music / MIDI / Sound cards (varies)
Honorable mentions:
Slot 1: Hyperion Clock/RAM (Ian Kim)
Slot 2: Uthernet, AppleCat 2 Modem card
Slot 3: Videx 80 Column, SmartTerm 80 column, Viewmax 80 last choice
Slot 4: EPROM Burning card (various)
Slot 5: QuikLoader or EPROM (varies) or BubMem card
Slot 6: Rana Systems Elite Disk Drive card. (4 drives on 1 card)
Slot 7: Mountain Computer Expansion Card, Color monitor card, video capture card, etc.
Least desirable cards:
Slot 1: Any 16K card that attaches to a memory chip socket
Slot 2: Nearly any Parallel Printer card
Slot 3: Cloned 80 column cards
Slot 4:
Slot 5:
Slot 6: Clone Disk ][ compatible cards
Slot 7:
In current, modern times, not in the 1980's, I am thinking a 300 baud / bps modem. 1,200 or faster would be better.
Lets renew this post...
MOST USEFUL APPLE II CARDS
1. Music/Midi Cards (Bring those old synths back to life!)
2. Eprom Burner (Easy to burn replacement ROMS)
3. Eventide Clockworks Spectrum Analyzer board (Yes I have one)
4. Speedup boards/zipchip
5. Wildcard or Alaska copy card
6. Hard Drive cards or CFFA board
7. SuperSprite board (Yes I have one)-for new development one-off project
8. Oscilloscope card (Yes I have one)
9. RAM Boards (128k or more)
10. A-D D-A Boards (Connect to real world)
11. Super Serial Card
LEAST USEFUL
1. Modems (?)
2. Synchronous Serial card
3. SuperSprite board (Yes I have one)-very little software for it
4. most serial cards other than Super Serial
3.
Most important for me
Disk II card
80 column card
superdrive card
Mouse card
RAM cards - either Saturn or ProDOS compatible
Hard drive card
least important right now
printer cards- literally have a hundred of them, had more but pulled the chips and trashed about 50