60 lines
2.4 KiB
Markdown
60 lines
2.4 KiB
Markdown
# apple2idiot card
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<img align='right' width='50%' src='https://raw.githubusercontent.com/equant/apple2idiot/main/misc/media/PXL_20210828_225322205.jpg'><br>
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A general purpose ESP32 Wifi and Bluetooth board for the Apple II family of
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computers (with expansion slots).
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This card is essentially an ESP32 module and a dual-port ram chip. The Apple
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computer and the ESP communicate via the dual-port ram. That means that the
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ESP32 doesn't acutally have access to read/write any of the Apple computer's
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data or address busses. I think that's ok. In fact, I think this card is so
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simple, and stupid, that lots of fun little things can be done with it, but
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it's not meant to "get your Apple on the internet".
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As a user of the card, you write the software that runs on the ESP32 module,
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and the software that runs on the Apple computer. In the `examples/` folder
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are examples of how to do simple little things. Software on the apple just
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peeks/pokes commands and data to the ram chip, and the ESP responds however
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it's programmed to resppond.
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## Some of the example programs that have been developed so far
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* Send a message to Slack.
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* Get current weather conditions for a city.
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* Select Wifi AP.
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* Dedicated rot13 string encoder.
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<img src='https://raw.githubusercontent.com/equant/apple2idiot/main/misc/media/PXL_20210903_012330167.jpg'><br>
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## Status
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### The Card
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This is actively being developed (as of July 2022). The rev 0.2 boards have arrived, and they work as designed. The gerber files are here in the repo.
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### The Apple II Software
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There are examples written in BASIC and in cc65 in the `examples/` directory.
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### The Card Software/Firmware
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The ESP32 can be programmed using whatever you want. For example, you can use
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the Arduino IDE/C++ or you can use Lua, or Espressif's environment. Example
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Arduino programs are in the repo under examples.
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## What could be done with an Apple2Idiot card?
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Here are some things I'm interested in making work...
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* Prodos clock driver (NTP -> ESP -> Prodos)
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* Home automation using MQTT
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* Peer-to-peer local area chat/games using ESPNOW or something similar
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* Wikipedia access
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<img src='https://raw.githubusercontent.com/equant/apple2idiot/main/misc/media/PXL_20210921_174006995.jpg'><br>
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## Want to help?
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There are lots of jobs both little and big and hard and easy for someone
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looking for a project to join. Take a look at the list above for ideas. Feel
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free to email me at nathanhendler@gmail.com.
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