!pr3
65816 News..........................................Bill Morgan

Did you see the Infoworld article a few weeks ago (November 5 issue) about the 65816?  That story mentioned a plug-in board for the Apple II containing a 65816 processor and extra RAM.  Well, I spoke today with Larry Hittel of Com Log, producers of that board, and it does sound very interesting.

Com Log intended their board, the Apple16, to be a developers' tool, rather than a consumer item, or an Apple hot-rod device.  They were therefore a little surprised and overwhelmed by the response to the Infoworld story:  When I talked to Larry they had exactly one board in stock, and it was waiting for purchase order paperwork from Apple Computer.  They are a month or two away from full production quantities.

The Apple16 board uses DMA (Direct Memory Access) to take control of the Apple, shutting down the 6502 and taking over the address bus.  They have found that the DMA does not function properly in Apples earlier than Revision 4, due to problems with the bus driver chips on the motherboard.

The 65816 chips are designed to operate at 8 MHz and are currently testing out at 2-4 MHz, but, in order to maintain compatibility with the Apple, the Com Log processor is clocked at 1 MHz.

To the '816, the 64K of Apple memory, both RAM and ROM, is bank 0.  Bank 1 echoes the Apple from 0-DFFF, but contains space for new EPROM at E000-FFFF.  Banks 2 and 3 are reserved for more new EPROM.  Banks 4-7 are the on-board RAM, consisting of one set of either 64K or 256K chips.  Banks 8-255 are available on an expansion connector, intended for a future separate memory board.  There is abort logic to provide an interrupt on access to non-existent memory.

Com Log is selling the boards now with no EPROMs.  They are working on an operating system and an Applesoft interpreter, but those are still some time away.  No price has been set for the firmware yet.  

The current price of the Apple16 board is $395 with no RAM, $450 with 64K, and $795 with 256K.  They are not expecting to have them available in production quantities until January or later, by which time the prices might change.  Contact Com Log Corporation at 11056 N. 23rd Dr., Suite 104, Phoenix, AZ  85029.  Phone (602) 248-0769.

That Infoworld story quoted an Apple spokesman as saying that the 65816 was to be used in an earlier project that had been shelved.  That project is being dusted off and revived, now that the 65816 chips are really coming through.  We've been hearing of it as the Apple //x.  According to an article in the November 19 issue of Infoworld about an interview with Woz, the //x is still not a fixed design and will not be ready for market until 1986.  There's always something new to look forward to!
