Help with unknown California Computer Systems Serial Card

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GeekDad's picture
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Help with unknown California Computer Systems Serial Card

All, 

   I have a CCS Serial Card but it is not the 7710 and I am having a hard time finding any information on it.

   As far as I can tell there is no model number,  on the back all it says is (c)CCS1983, circuit side, made in USA.

    Any help would be appreciated, I would love to set one of //e's up as a serial terminal or use it with ADTPro for file transfer. 

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Well, it's clearly a serial

Well, it's clearly a serial card.  You can see jumpers for various RS-232 signals, a 6551 ACIA chip and a jumper block (the black thing that says DTE/DCE) which is used to convert the card from modem use to printer use.

I wonder if it is a Super Serial Card clone.

If it is, and you plug it into slot 2 (or slot 1) and type IN#1 (or IN#1 as the case may be) followed by a CTRL-A you should get a prompt.  The Apple Super Serial card will return "APPLE SSC:" 

 

Give it a try and see what you can find out.

 

The next trick will be to decipher the 26 pin connector and make a cable.

 

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Definitely not a 7710, that

Definitely not a 7710, that uses a 6850.  This should be a much better card to use since the 6551 is a better serial chip.

 

I've never seen that particular CCS card.  It is surprising it doesn't have the model number on it like all the other CCS cards I've ever seen.  The jumpers are labeled by group, but no real clue as to what the settings are.  Some guesses could be made, especially for the baud jumpers.  Disassembly of the ROM image and tracing from some of the jumpers might give some clues.  The DCE/DTE block probably works similarly to the one on the SSC.

 

Maybe someone out there has one and the manual.

 

GeekDad's picture
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It is a CCS 7711

Someone on another board said it was a CCS 7711 card, they pointed out the writing on the eprom.

It is still kind of a mystery why it doesn't have a model number on it.

I was able to find very little data on this card on the web, only a couple of refrences with no real data. 

So if anybody has any please let me know. 

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It is probably mostly

It is probably mostly software compatible with an SSC.  Now that the model number has been ascertained surely someone out there has a manual.  The piggy tail I'd guess is a straight through IDC26->DB25.  The jumpers are marked by group and probably the settngs can msotly be guessed or reverse engineered.  It would be interesting if you can upload a dump of the EPROM contents.

 

 

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According this page, it

According this page, it should be a Super Serial Card clone:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_serial_cards

 

therefore it should be useable and handled like the Super Serial Card from Apple.

 

The card is also mentioned herein:

 

https://ia600907.us.archive.org/26/items/APPLE_II_Kermit_User_Guide_v3.87/APPLE_II_Kermit_User_Guide_v3.87.pdf

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