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More about the PRAWM Board.................Bob Sander-Cederlof

Advanced Peripheral Enterprises has introduced their PRAWM board, and is advertising elsewhere in this issue of AAL.

The PRAWM board contains from 2K to 8K of EEPROM.  Data or programs can be written into the memory on the card, just as though it were RAM.  Yet the memory is non-volatile, as in ROM, PROM, or EPROM.  If you turn of your Apple, remove the card, ship it around the world...when you plug it back in the bytes will still be there!

EEPROM stands for "Electrically Eraseable PROM"; circuitry on the card allows you to individually write any bytes you wish, without erasing the rest of the memory.  You do not need a separate EPROM programmer and ultraviolet EPROM eraser.  There are no batteries either.  The card is priced about the same as an EPROM card, but you save a lot of money on accessories.  You will also save a lot of time, since you don't have to erase for 30-60 minutes, program chips for 5-20 minutes, and plug and unplug countless times.  (You can program the entire 8K on a fully loaded PRAWM board in less than 25 seconds!)

The PRAWM card contains from 1 to 4 EEPROM chips, providing from 2K to 8K bytes.  Each chip maps into the address space from $C800-$CFFF, and is accessed by switching in one chip at a time.  On-board firmware makes it easy to move blocks of data between any chip and RAM.

By installing a jumper strap, you can even have the program stored in the first 2K chip automatically start up when you turn on your Apple, before or instead of booting a floppy.  Just think of the possibilities:  set up special commands, execute security procedures, power fail recovery, "boot" a mini-DOS of your own creation from PRAWM, eliminate the need for disk drives in turn-key monitoring applications...!  Other strap options allow you to write-protect the board and to disable the $CFFF de-select function.

If you do a lot of development work involving EPROMs now, I think this card would be a big help.  See Advanced Peripheral Enterprises' ad for price and ordering information.
