Hi all,
I have come accross a very odd Apple II expansion card, I cannot identify it using websites etc, so I am wondering if any of you guys out there can work out what it is.
Various parts of the board have printed "(C)GVG", "GVG" could be the card's manufacturer??
It connect via ribbon to a port on the back of the IIE which has a large port with very thick pins, and another port which looks like a TV arial plug.
The pins for the plug on the back of the computer are rather oldly not numbered, they are lettered (A-Z)!
The card itself has many small chips as well as a large one made by Motorola called "M9N8607".
It has a switch with two positions: MASTER and SLAVE.
Near this switch are smaller but thick pins that say (from left to right) "GND", "CLK", "FULL", "BSY", "WR", "BRQ". In the middle of the board it says "APIPL I/F"
The pins for the plug on the back of the computer are rather oldly not numbered, they are lettered (A-Z)!
I know that the card came from an Apple II being used in "London Weekend Television" or better known as "LWT" - whom many people who live around the London area will most certainly recognise.
Any ideas what this card is?
Thomas
Just a little googling... GVG could be Grass Valley Group, which is a broadcast video equipment company. that would fit with the LWT that you mentioned. Perhaps a picture of the board would help in its ID. I got nowhere looking up the part number- 8607 sounds like a datecode anyway.
thanks
mike
Hi, thanks for your reply mike.
I have made a picture of the card avaliable so if anyone thinks that they may be able to help, do take a look...
Click here
I hope that someone will be able to identify this card, I am very keen to know what it is and what it is used for.
Many thanks,
Thomas
Does the "large port with very thick pins" look like this?
SCART Port:
If so, it *could* be some sort of genlock card for generating television titles/graphics.
--Peace
Hi,
Thanks for your reply, I am afraid it it not a SCART port.
The pins are even thicker than a SCART and the port is narrower than SCART and the pins occupy three layers!
Maybe I will upload a picture, but I don't have my camera at the moment (I used a scanner for the picture of the card!)
Many thanks,
Thomas
Well, looking at your picture- that is indeed a card made by Grass Valley Group. The stylized GVG was their trademark. That makes it pretty darn likely that that is some sort broadcast video card. I'll not pretend that I know anything about broadcast video beyond the extreme rudiments, so that's all the profundity I can offer.
Grass Valley Group is owned by Thomson now, so their webpage is http://www.thomsongrassvalley.com. Maybe a sympathetic older tech could ID it if you called them. I've had some luck with that in the past with other searches.
The largest DIP IC you mentioned on the board is a MC68B21, if I can make out your scan. That should be an embedded Motorola microcontroller, based on the 68HC11. The code that you referenced is the date code, 7th week of '86. That gives you an general idea of the vintage.
mike
The MC68B21 is a PIA (Peripheral Interface Adapter), not a microcontroller. It's used for interfacing "slow" I/O devices to a processor bus. (Likely in this case it arbitrates between whatever this card does and the the Apple ][ slot.)
--Peace
I saw that when looking the part up, but misread the table. Going back to the place I was at, yup, it's a peripheral interface adapter. Sorry about that-
Got to read a little more carefully next time, or just keep my mouth shut.
Eh, no worries. I just vaguely recognized the part number, probably because my first computer had a pair of them which handled most of the I/O nitty-gritty. Pretty sad I'd remember that, really.
(For the record the Apple I has one as well, as did a lot of other 8 bit systems.)
--Peace