>Well, that's a start.  Have you ever wondered what happened to change
>apple's openness?  The Apple II+ came with a user manual that included a
>complete copy of the sources for the ROMS and an in-depth description of
>how to program _everything_.  I don't think mac manuals even have pin-outs
>for the ports.

I heard they came with schematics too :) Yeah, it's really too bad that
Apple makes it hard to find detailed hardware-level info about the Macs,
especially the newer ones.

>Reading some junk, did you know that for a while, Apple built the UniDisk
>3.5 for use with IIe's, and that it contained a 65C02 microprocessor in
>the drive itself....  Yikes.  Nothing like having a drive that runs on a
>better processor than your computer....

Yeah :) I think it was a 1MHz 65C02 though, the same as the processor in the
enhanced IIe. I guess it's a tiny bit better than the 1MHz 6502 in an
unenhanced IIe though :) Commodore 64/128 drives (the 1541 and 1741, I
think) also had either a 6502 or 65C02 in 'em :)

>What controller chip did Apple's II and II+ use (on the card or whatever)?

I don't think there is any single controller chip on the card, just a couple
of TTL logic chips and two 256 byte roms, one with code that does basic
stuff like boot a floppy, and the other contains a state table for a state
machine.

I still have a card, and it's in my IIgs (which I still actually use :).
So... taking it out, I see that it has: 74LS174 (hex D flip-flop), 74LS132
(Quad 2-input NAND gate), 74LS05 (hex inverter), 74LS323 (8-bit
shift/storage register), 74LS259 (8-bit addressable latch), 556 (two timer
things, I think), and two 2822s (ROMs, but I don't know exactly what kind.
2Kbit (256x8) I guess?). A few other things, like transistors, resistors,
and capacitors, but that's it :)

The CPU has to do pretty much all of the work when reading/writing a 5.25"
disk; the timing is pretty tight (as in you have to count cycles and stuff).
It's slightly better for 3.5" disks, there's a bit in a register that tells
you when you can read or write, but there's probably still no way to not tie
up the whole CPU while doing it.

Anyways, to get back to a more port-mac68k subject, if anyone wants some
info on the IWM, try http://cie-2.uoregon.edu/~nparker/  It's for the GS,
but maybe it'll still be useful :) I'd try some of that stuff out, except it
does seem that there's no direct IWM access on the AVs...