Happy Sunday!
Looking for help finding documentation for the Know Drive from Abacus Enterprises in Detroit MI. I've come across a Know-Drive and the attachment seen in the images. I can not find any documentation or software for this - but would so much love to play with it!
I've found references to it, articles about it but not documentation - there has to be someone out there who has the software and/or documentation for this - any help would be greatly appreciated.
Seems like it allowed for "Wild-Card" type software copying, but also worked as a 128K RAMCARD, and had the ability to snap images of the Apple II memory (up to 3) such that you could flip between 3 different "systems"
Thank you so much for any help!
I don't have any pre-existing documentation, but if you'll forgive me I just created a new bit of documentation from your picture...
...when replacing ICs on a Know Drive, please pay special attention to socket orientation! Sockets are oriented in four distinct directions, making it easy to inadvertently install a replacement IC facing the wrong way.
Know Drive IC orientations.jpg
If anyone attempts to upgrade Know Drive from 64K chips to 256K chips, pay extra attention to the orientation markings in the silkscreen -- the two rows of RAM chips are oriented two different ways!
Wow, that is a pretty unusual layout. I imagine that must have made something easier for them to lay out the board because it sure is confusing for the user...
There are some other cards that have one socket oriented differently from its neighbors (eg: AP-64) but this one is especially hostile because the place where the user is supposed to put a RAM chip from the motherboard, socket U1, is different from every other socket on the card. It's even backward from the TTL immediately above it, its closest neighbor.
That's an especially-cruel design choice, considering that a reversed 16K DRAM would suffer a 24-volt reverse bias across its Vss/Vdd power pins if installed backward. (The fault-protection in an ASTEC power supply might avert a disaster if you're lucky.)
That's great - I'm not someone along the way will appreciate that!!
Really Applefritter community - no one has documenation on this?