Mystic Overclock - A Spicy O'clock Adventure

[JDW]

You know, I don't own a single Apple II device, but I am getting this burning desire for an Apple IIe card for my Color Classic. I really would love to do a video on that. I am not, of course, willing to spend $700 on one, which seems to be the going price.

With all the SE and SE/30 Reloaded projects out there, as well as replicas of the Daystar PowerCache and Carerra040, it makes me wonder if the IIe card might not be a worthy contender for a replica, assuming it is even possible.

One of the big reasons the CC is so popular is because you get so much in such a small case. Adding IIe functionality to it would just be amazing, especially when running the main board at blazing speeds thanks to Kay Koba's Spicy O'Clock!

 

[Drake]

IIE PDS card has too much proprietary logic to replicate as-is. Maybe someday the herculean task of running another machine like Pi or Mister through PDS? At that point the feeling of authenticity gets diluted.

 

[JDW]

If someone recreated the equivalent of the IIe card in the form of a rPi that connects to a CC or Mystic MB via PDS, the end result would be the same, and I would not have any issue with that at all.

 

[Kay K.M.Mods]

@nottomhanks
48.8mhz and running fine, I guess the IIE card isn't dependent on the logic boards timings as the IIE card contains it's own clock, it really is another computer in itself. Glad running this through the PDS is good to go, many users who build a Mystic may already have or want IIE card for both having the slowest (IIE) and fastest (Spicy Mystic) machine AIO
View attachment 3157

Great result Drake!
Unfortunately I don't have IIe cards so I can't try them I have a lot of Apple IIs, so I didn't really want them, but I should get them. If I have a chance

 

[Drake]

@Kay K.M.Mods Here is a video of the Apple IIE PDS operation.

 

[nottomhanks]

@Kay K.M.Mods Thats amazing!! What’s the highest speed for the serial ports and floppy drive to work correctly? 42Mhz?

 

[Kai Robinson]

IIE PDS card has too much proprietary logic to replicate as-is. Maybe someday the herculean task of running another machine like Pi or Mister through PDS? At that point the feeling of authenticity gets diluted.

Actually...

The logic on the Apple IIe card, is the Mega II chip and the IWM. That's literally it. The rest is 74LS series logic, a 65C02 CPU, a PROM and some DRAM. The Mega II is the Apple II on a chip. The schematics are available for a IIe, so...nothing really impossible - would just take someone knowledgeable to lay out the IIe/Mega II into an FPGA.

 

[Drake]

Actually...

The logic on the Apple IIe card, is the Mega II chip and the IWM. That's literally it. The rest is 74LS series logic, a 65C02 CPU, a PROM and some DRAM. The Mega II is the Apple II on a chip. The schematics are available for a IIe, so...nothing really impossible - would just take someone knowledgeable to lay out the IIe/Mega II into an FPGA.

I double dog dare you to do it! Or... are you too ChIcKeN?!

 

[JDW]

I double dog dare you to do it! Or... are you too ChIcKeN?!

No doubt Kai is a Back to the Future fan too, but I suspect he has a lot on his plate right now, which is why I didn't want to double-dog dare him myself. Goodness knows that I am so busy I could scream!

Even so, it might be good to check the interest among people the vintage Mac and Apple II community (both here and on FaceBook) to see if a reverse engineering effort would be worthwhile. Indeed, it could be that people would be willing to contribute some money toward a reverse-engineering project. I don't have much money, but I would contribute to such an effort.

I'm really dying to try an Apple IIe card on my Color Classic, and it would make a wonderful video too. A video would likely increase interest in such an item. It's just that there is no way in Hades I'm going to pay EBAY or Yahoo Auction prices of $700 or more for that card. So the key would be to reverse engineer a IIe card that would cost much less than the going EBAY prices for the original cards. People would probably pay upwards to $200 for one, although I doubt much more. Then again, you really never know what people are willing to pay until you have it and start selling it.

 

[Stephen]

No doubt Kai is a Back to the Future fan too, but I suspect he has a lot on his plate right now, which is why I didn't want to double-dog dare him myself. Goodness knows that I am so busy I could scream!

Even so, it might be good to check the interest among people the vintage Mac and Apple II community (both here and on FaceBook) to see if a reverse engineering effort would be worthwhile. Indeed, it could be that people would be willing to contribute some money toward a reverse-engineering project. I don't have much money, but I would contribute to such an effort.

I'm really dying to try an Apple IIe card on my Color Classic, and it would make a wonderful video too. A video would likely increase interest in such an item. It's just that there is no way in Hades I'm going to pay EBAY or Yahoo Auction prices of $700 or more for that card. So the key would be to reverse engineer a IIe card that would cost much less than the going EBAY prices for the original cards. People would probably pay upwards to $200 for one, although I doubt much more. Then again, you really never know what people are willing to pay until you have it and start selling it.

This may be of interest.

 

[Drake]

This may be of interest.

That was a great watch

 

[Kay K.M.Mods]

That was a great watch

Drake, thank you for the fantastic video, it's awesome!

The IIe card is a legacy that has passed...It wasn't popular at the time of release, A new one was sold for 30,000JPY at Akihabara, but no one bought it... But this is 2022! Every Mac geeks want it!

 

[JDW]

To continue the adventure, here's my newly released video (Part I) on Spicy O'Clock:

I had to abruptly cut it short due to an ongoing family medical emergency, which I explain in the ending segment and text description. But it's enough information to help people get started with the amazing little device.

Fast VRAM is one of the keys to high overclocking, and I put links to where that can be found in the text description.

My humble thanks to @Drake , @Mr. Fahrenheit , @Stephen and of course @Kay K.M.Mods for having made the amazing things which allowed me to make this video in the first place. Without them, none of this would be reality.

Happy #MARCHintosh