Apple IIe Card for Mac crashing during loop

[retr01]

@tms9900, yes.

Apple II+, IIc, IIe, and even IIGS emulators run on modern Macs. That's another way to create a card from those emulators.

The Apple IIe INIT, CDEV, and related software on the Macintosh side are part of the process that may need to be inspected and see what pokes and other signals are being sent to and received from the Apple IIe Card. That is how the Macintosh displays the Hi-Res and Double Hi-Res videos on the screen and manages the Apple IIe resources, memory, etc. At the same time, the Apple IIe Card provides the processing and hardware side of the Apple IIe, especially the Gemini ASIC, along with specific Apple II external disk drives and almost any Apple II joystick. Unlike the Apple IIGS, which reportedly rarely uses the Mega II ASIC, the Gemini ASIC may be relied on heavily on the Apple IIe Card by the Apple IIe software on the Mac.

However, I believe it would be good to have a die scan of the Gemini ASIC for three main reasons:

1. Preservation.
2. A resource to analyze as part of the reverse engineering of the Apple IIe Card using modern ICs.
3. To see what updates were there after the Mega II ASIC.

 

[retr01]

One can pull bits from IC die images with the right (and maybe expensive) equipment and training. Check this article out.

Pulling Bits From ROM Silicon Die Images: Unknown Architecture​