RAMCard™ A Peripheral for the Apple II® Produced by Microsoft Microsoft Consumer Products A division of Microsoft, Inc.
Copyright Notice This manual Copyrights Microsoft, 1980 All Rights Reserved Printed in U.S.A. If you have any questions about this copyright, please contact: Microsoft Consumer Products A division of Microsoft, Inc. 10700 Northup Way C-97200 Bellevue, WA 98004 RAMCard is a trademark of Microsoft. Apple is a registered trademark of Apple Computer Inc. Z-80 is a registered trademark of Zilug, Inc.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Registration Information RAMCard Warranty Service Information 4 4 5 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 7 Important Note for DOS 3.
Registration Information Please take a moment now to fill out the RAMCard registration card that is enclosed and return it to us. We must have your registration card on file in order to contact you regarding any changes or updates to this product. Failure to return the registration card does not void your warranty, hut will make it impossible for us to contact you.
Service Information If your RAMCard requires repair, please return it to the dealer from whom it was purchased. If it is not possible to return the RAMCard to your dealer, you may send it directly to Microsoft Consumer Products. If the repair is required during the warranty period, please enclose proof of purchase. During warranty, we will replace or repair your RAMCard without charge. See previous section for more details regarding warranty coverage.
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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION RAMCard is a printed circuit board that contains 16K bytes of additional random-access memory (RAM) for your Apple II or Apple II Plus computer. RAMCard is designed for an Apple II with 48K bytes of RAM already in place. If your Apple II has less than 48K RAM, you will need to purchase enough 16K memory modules to bring your Apple II up to 48K.
IMPORTANT NOTE FOR DOS 3.2 USERS AND FOR 13-SECTOR CP/M USERS Apple II computers come standard with one of two BASICs: Applesoft or Integer BASIC. Standard Apple II systems have Integer BASIC and Apple II Plus systems have Applesoft. If you are using an Apple Firmware Card installed in Slot 0 to make available the other version of BASIC, you must remove it when RAMCard is installed. This means that the BASIC on the Apple Firmware Card will no longer be available.
CHAPTER 2 INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS This chapter gives step-by-step instructions for installing RAMCard. We recommend that you read all the instructions first to acquaint yourself with the overall procedure. Then, perform each step with care exactly as described. Opening Your Apple II Since RAMCard is to be installed inside your Apple II, you must remove the cover of your Apple before you start. CAUTION \ It is dangerous to open any electrical or electronic device with the power turned on.
2 . Remove the cover from your Apple II. Pull up on the rear edge of the cover until the fasteners at the rear corners pop apart. Do this only firmly enough to separate the fasteners, then stop. Do not pull up any further. 3 . Slide the cover backward. Slide the cover away from the keyboard towards the rear of your Apple II. The interior of your Apple II should now be exposed. Removing A Chip Before you can install RAMCard, you must remove one of the RAM chips inside your Apple II.
You should see: A big silver- or gold-colored box (the power supply cover) along the left side. Eight long, narrow slots (edge-connector receptacles), green or black outside with gold-plated contacts inside, located perpendicular to and against the back wall of the Apple II enclosure. The slots are numbered from left to right, from 0 to 7. The numbers are located between the far end of the slots and the back wall.
Removing the Chip REMEMBER: Touch the power-supply cover to discharge static electricity on your body before grasping the chip. WARNING Remove the memory chip carefully. Be sure you do not damage the chip or the circuit board sockets in any way. Avoid touching the pins on the chip with your fingers because static electricity on your body may damage the chip. Grasp the chip by the ends and with the chip extractor only.
upward or lateral force than necessary to remove the chip gently so that the chip will not be damaged. Inserting RAMCard Inserting RAMCard is actually two separate procedures. First, you insert the plug at the end of the connector cable into the socket left empty when you removed the chip. Then, insert the card itself into Slot 0 Inserting The Plug 1.Examine RAMCard. Set the card in front of you, face up.
Notice the connector cable at the bottom left corner of this card. At the end of the cable is a plug. Notice that RAMCard also has an I/O connector strip along one edge. The cable plug will go into the vacant memory chip space inside your Apple II. The edge-connector will go into Slot 0. 2.Position the card and plug. Hold the card on edge over the Apple II so that the cable end is toward the keyboard, the side with the chips is facing to your right, and the edge-connector is positioned over Slot 0. 3.
If the plug does not slide into the holes easily, remove it, reposition the pins, then app]y gentle pressure until the plug is seated. A very slight wiggle may be used to help seat the plug. But, any lateral movement may damage a pin so avoid wiggling if you can. If you must wiggle the plug to seat it fully, be sure the pins are lined up properly first, then wiggle only very slightly and very slowly. Inserting RAMCard 1.Position RAMCard over Slot 0.
Set the connector strip on the bottom edge of RAMCard into Slot 0. Be sure that the connector on the card is centered in the slot. 3. Press RAMCard into place. Do not wiggle RAMCard from side to side! If necessary, you can wiggle the card lengthwise, from back to front to back, to help seat the card into Slot 0 completely. 4. Recheck seating of plug and card. B e sure that both the plug and the card are fully seated. 5. R e p l a c e c o v e r .
CHAPTER 3 USING RAMCard For some Apple II configurations, installing RAMCard will change the procedures you use to run your existing software. This chapter outlines which configurations of the Apple II are affected by installing RAMCard and what software procedures you need to change. This chapter also Lists some of the software that is compatible with RAMCard. How To Use Your Existing Software Installing RAMCard in your Apple II will affect the operation of your existing software if: 1.
RAMCard is installed. This means that the BASIC on the Apple Firmware Card will no longer be available. When you lose the BASIC on the Firmware Card, you also lose access to any programs you may have that are written in that BASIC. 2. If you are using CP/M (and SoftCard), then you must use the CPM56 utility to take advantage of RAMCard’s extra memory. The CPM56 utility is found only on the 16-sector CP/M master in the SoftCard package.
Some of the software packages that can be used with RAMCard are: CP/M, which also allows you to use: Microsoft’s COBOL-80 Microsoft’s FORTRAN-SO Microsoft’s BASIC Compiler Microsoft’s Assembly Language Development System Applesoft BASIC Integer BASIC VisiCalc Apple Pascal system Apple FORTRAN Apple PILOT Since RAMCard operates identically to the Apple Language Card, you need only refer to the instructions in the software product documentation for using that software with the Apple Language Card; the operati
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CHAPTER 4 ADDRESSING RAMCard The information in this chapter is highly technical and is intended as reference material only. This chapter describes the addressing of RAMCard. Memory maps showing the addresses used for RAMCard RAM and Apple on-board ROM and a description of the control addresses and their functions make up most of the information. At the end of the chapter, some additional technical details relating to RAMCard and Apple II hardware are described. RAMCard contains 16K of memory.
Because the address space $C000-$CFFF is used by the Apple, 22 Addressing information is divided into three sections in this chapter. The first section shows memory maps. The maps show the memory addresses for the functions called through control addresses. The second section describes these control addresses, which provide memory mode selection, RAM write-enable/-protect, and bank switching.
only 12K ($D000-$FFFF) of address space is available for 16K RAM. Using the control addresses to switch between the two 4K banks allows you to address 8K RAM with only 4K of address space. The remainder of the RAMCard RAM ($E000-$FFFF) is directly addressable. Control addresses are entered either in hexadecimal, for assembly language programs, or in decimal, for BASIC programs. Hexadecimal addresses begin with the dollar sign ($). All of the hexadecimal control addresses have the form $C08x.
10 Selects on-board ROM read and write-protects RAM. 11 Selects RAMCard RAM read. Two or more successive reads to the address write-enables RAM. When ROM is selected, the Apple II on-board ROM is selected for the address space $D000-$FFFF. Refer back to the memory maps in Section 3.1 for an illustration of these relationships. Notice that it is possible to write to the RAMCard RAM and read from on-board ROMs at the same time (01 above). Bit 2 (the third column from the right) is ignored.
$C083 — 16253 0011 Selects RAMCard RAM read, BANK 2, and write-enables RAMCard RAM if address ac cessed twice consecutively $C088 —16248 1000 Selects RAMCard RAM read, BANK 1, and RAMCard RAM write-protect $C089 —16247 1001 Selects Apple on-board ROM read, BANK 1, and write-enables RAMCard RAM if address accessed twice consecutively $CO8A -16246 1010 Selects Apple on-board ROM read, BANK 1, and RAMCard RAM write-protect $CO8B —16245 1011 Selects RAMCard RAM read, BANK 1, and write-enables RAMC
READ ENABLE — When RAMCard RAM is read-enabled, status bit 1 will be high. When Apple on-board ROM is enabled, status bit I will be low. This state applies immediately following power on. When RAMCard RAM is read-enabled, an INH signal generated by the ICs in sockets U12 and U13 disable the ROMs on the Apple motherboard. WRITE ENABLE — When RAMCard RAM is write-enabled, status bit 2 will be high. The state applies immediately following power on. When RAMCard RAM is write-protected, status bit 2 will be low.
RAMCard Hardware Details This section describes how RAMCard handles its functions and indicates its States. The connector cable provides the RAMCard memory chips access to the multiplexed addresses and to a timing signal which is not available through the 50 pin I/O edge-connector. Addresses for RAMCard memory chips are provided by the Apple motherboard address mux. Data in and out for the single displaced chip (which is U9 on RAMCard) are routed through the connector cable.
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