Games - Apple II serial cards

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	Games - Apple II serial cards

Apple II serial cards primarily used the serial RS-232 protocol. They most often were used for communicating with Printers, Modems, and less often for computer to computer data transfer. They could be programmed to interface with any number of external devices which were RS-232 compatible. Most serial cards had speed ranges starting from 110 Kbps up to 19,200 Kbps, however some could be modified to go much faster. The most popular and widely used of these cards was Apple Computer's Super Serial Card, a solid design that was often copied for maximum software compatibility of the end product.

Apple II Communications Card – Apple Computer

The Apple II Communications Card is the original serial card from Apple Computer. Released in 1978 for $225, it was designed to work with modems utilizing acoustic couplers. It offered speeds of 110 and 300 bps but with a simple hardware modification (described in the manual accompanying the card) one could change this to 300 and 1200 bps, or 1200 and 4800 bps.

Apple II Serial Interface Card – Apple Computer

The Apple II Serial Interface Card was released by Apple Computer shortly after the Communications Card, in August, 1978. Designed for printing, this card had ROM revisions, P8 and P8A. The P8A ROM supported handshaking while the earlier P8 rom didn't. Unfortunately the P8A ROM revision was not compatible with some printers that worked under the original P8 ROM.

Serial Pro – Applied Engineering

The Serial Pro serial interface card from Applied Engineering was Super Serial Card compatible, however it eliminated the need for the use of a jumper block if the user wanted to switch between Printer mode or Modem mode. The Serial Pro, being a multifunction card, included a ProDOS and DOS 3.3 compatible clock/calendar thus combining the capabilities of two cards into one, freeing up an extra slot for those with highly-populated machines. This card was unique in the sense that it did not use "Phantom Slots" to achieve this functionality. Previous multifunction cards required that a secondary function be "mapped" to a different slot in the computer's memory, rendering that slot unusable. If used with a dot-matrix printer, the Serial Pro offered several screen-print variations. It could print either HiRes page (or both in a single dump) normally, or print page one rotated or inverted. The Serial Pro utilized the MOS Technology 6551 ACIA chip and offered serial baud rates from 50 bps to 19,200 bps. The lifespan of the clock battery was touted as 20 years. The card retailed for $139 during the late 1980's.

For more on the Serial Pro's clock capabilities, see its entry in Apple II system clocks
.

Super Serial Card – Apple Computer

Apple Computer's Super Serial Card, sometime abbreviated as "SSC", is the most well known of communication cards made for the Apple II. Apple called it "Super" because it was able to function as both of Apple's previous cards, the Apple II Communications Card for modem use and the Apple II Serial Interface Card for printer use. A jumper block was used to configure the card for each of the two modes. Naturally Apple upgraded the speed capabilities of the card to a maximum of 19,200 bps and made the card compatible with both ROM revisions of the Apple II Serial Interface Card. The card can actually run at 115,000 bps as well, using undocumented register settings; but speeds between 19,200 and 115,000 are not possible using this technique. The Super Serial Card was released in 1981 and utilizes the MOS Technology 6551 serial communications chip.

Other Serial Cards

Use this article for: Apple II multi I/O cards

Apricorn Serial Interface – Apricorn

Super Serial Imager – Apricorn

7710 Serial Interface – Californina Computer Systems

7711 Super Serial Interface – Californina Computer Systems

SV-622 Serial Interface – Microtek

SeriALL – Practical Peripherals

Multicore – Quadram

Super-COMM – Sequential Systems – SSC compatible, built in term program in ROM, supported grappler screen dumps and graphics

AIO Interface – SSM or Transend

ASIO Interface – SSM or Transend

Alphabits – Street Electronics''
Super Serial Board – – Generic Super Serial Card clone

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