Apple II sprite boards

From: Eric Smith <eric_at_brouhaha.com>
Date: Fri Jul 14 15:51:28 2000

Mike wrote:
> Thanks for the info. It's a shame those boards never gained more than
> minimal acceptance. Too expensive, I suppose. The graphics (and sound
> for that matter) of the II series were among the worst in the
> industry...

They were the *best* in the industry for the price. (In 1977.)

If they hadn't kept selling so darn well on their own (despite several
attempts by Apple to kill them in the early 80s), Apple might have been
forced to design better video into later models. The //e double-hires
mode was too little too late.

I used to have a neat product from Video Associate Labs (in Texas) called
a VB3 Microkeyer. It was a pair of large boards, one of which plugged
into an Apple ][ slot, and the other of which sat over the power supply.
You had to remove about a dozen chips from the Apple ][ logic board, and
run DIP jumper cables between the vacated sockets and corresponding sockets
on the VB3 boards.

It was a combination genlock, proc amp, and keyer. Unlike many of the
later inexpensive genlocks, this one was engineered to produce high-quality
output that was fully suitable for broadcast use.

It also added a new hires mode in which the memory map was linear, rather
than the strange interleave of the normal Apple video modes.
Received on Fri Jul 14 2000 - 15:51:28 BST