Hello all,
I'm restarting my old Apple IIe+ and I have found that interface card in slot 2.
It's a dual serial card with RTC clock. For sure I have assembled that card by myself in the past.
I would be glad to have more information on that card.
It's likely a clone and I would like to be able to access the RTC and configure the serial port speed.
The AI tells me that this card was made by a Chines company Giantek, but I cannot find anything about the card or the company.
Thanks in advance for any information.
Yves
Looks identical to the AST Multi I/O card. You will find its Utilities disk image here: click!
AST Multi IO Card - Front.jpg
You are a crack!
Thank you so much for the identification and the link.
Greeetings.
Yves
Glad I could help!
Btw, could you please post the back side of your card. I think some people in this topic might be interested in it, including myself.
Thanks!
It is always amazing the variety of Apple II cards that there were back in the day. And even more so sometimes how many of them were cloned by Chinese/Tiawanese/Hong Kong companies. And also in a few other countries like Brazil and Eastern Europe that had political or legal reasons why they cloned things like the "iron curtain" or import bans.
One nice thing abouut the clone card compared to the "real" one is it looks like the chips are socketed as are the "pig tails".
I have assembled the card myself, starting from a bare board, which explains why the chips are socketed.
Yves
OK, that does make sense then. Are those bare boards still available or was it a "new old stock" vintage blank board?
I really don't know if the bare PCB 's are still available.
I have bought several Apple II interfaces bare pcboards, even mainboard, when I was working in SE Asia in the 80's.
I guess they are no longer available since a while.
Yves
Wow, I didn't even know that buying bare PCB expansion cards for the Apple II and soldering them yourself was a thing in the 80s. How easy was sourcing all the components? Now it’s click, click, click and you’re done, but back in the day I imagine you had to go through several different thick catalogs, fill forms and send them through the mail? Or could you simply order everything from one place by phone?
For the DIYer it would have been catalogs, for small company's we had parts catalogs and a salesman would come by from time to time. I think we could call the sales rep.