Applied Engineering
Encyclopedia
Applied Engineering, headquartered in Carrollton, TX, was a leading third-party hardware vendor for the Apple II
series of computers from the early 1980s until the mid-1990s.
-compatibles. In an attempt to capitalize on its well-known brand name among previous Apple II owners, Applied Engineering began to market products for the Macintosh and Commodore Amiga
lines. However, because of stiff competition in already active markets, and AE's late entries, Applied Engineering could not duplicate the success it had experienced with the Apple II, eventually going out of business.
In its day, Applied Engineering built a solid reputation among Apple II owners for their innovation, excellent build quality, and generous warranty support. AE was quick to fill in gaps in the market for Apple II add-on boards and expansion options, often developing products for the Apple II line that neither Apple Computer nor other third-party vendors offered.
The TransWarp family of Apple II accelerators
actually consisted of multiple products. The original TransWarp took over from the standard 1-MHz 6502 or 65C02 used in the Apple IIe with a 3.6 MHz version of the 65C02 (which could also be run at 1.8 MHz, selectable through hardware) and turned on and off completely through software. The TransWarp was later followed by a TransWarp II and TransWarp III, the latter of which was announced but never actually went into production. With Apple Computer's release of the Apple IIGS
, Applied Engineering followed with a TransWarp GS, which provided an accelerated version of the 65C816 processor on which the IIGS was based.
Multi-function cards were a mainstay of AE's product offerings, of which the Serial Pro serial interface card was a typical example. Besides offering a standard RS-232 serial port, the card included a ProDOS-compatible realtime clock, thus combining two cards into one and freeing up an extra slot. When used with a dot-matrix printer, the Serial Pro offered several screen-dump print options, such as printing either of the two Apple II high-resolution pages alone, both in a single dump, or the first high-res page rotated or inverted.
Apple II
The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...
series of computers from the early 1980s until the mid-1990s.
History
As Apple Computer, Inc., began to withdraw support for the Apple II series and focus on the Macintosh line, the market for Apple II hardware and software began to wane. Many Apple II users began to migrate to other platforms, such as the Macintosh and IBM PCIBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...
-compatibles. In an attempt to capitalize on its well-known brand name among previous Apple II owners, Applied Engineering began to market products for the Macintosh and Commodore Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
lines. However, because of stiff competition in already active markets, and AE's late entries, Applied Engineering could not duplicate the success it had experienced with the Apple II, eventually going out of business.
In its day, Applied Engineering built a solid reputation among Apple II owners for their innovation, excellent build quality, and generous warranty support. AE was quick to fill in gaps in the market for Apple II add-on boards and expansion options, often developing products for the Apple II line that neither Apple Computer nor other third-party vendors offered.
Product Offerings
Some of Applied Engineering's best-known products for the Apple II included:- RamWorks — memory expansion card for the Apple IIeApple IIeThe Apple IIe is the third model in the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer. The e in the name stands for enhanced, referring to the fact that several popular features were now built-in that were only available as upgrades and add-ons in earlier models...
- TransWarp — CPU accelerator card for the Apple IIeApple IIeThe Apple IIe is the third model in the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer. The e in the name stands for enhanced, referring to the fact that several popular features were now built-in that were only available as upgrades and add-ons in earlier models...
and Apple IIGSApple IIGSThe Apple , the fifth and most powerful model in the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer. The "GS" in the name stands for Graphics and Sound, referring to its enhanced graphics and sound capabilities, both of which greatly surpassed previous models of the line... - Vulcan — internal hard drive
- PC Transporter — NEC V30 (Intel 8086-compatible) card that allowed Apple IIs to run MS-DOSMS-DOSMS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
programs
The TransWarp family of Apple II accelerators
Apple II accelerators
Apple II accelerators are computer hardware devices which enable an Apple II computer to operate faster than their intended clock rate.Starting in 1977, most Apple II computers operated at a speed of 1 megahertz . That precedent was finally broken 10 years later in 1987 with the introduction of...
actually consisted of multiple products. The original TransWarp took over from the standard 1-MHz 6502 or 65C02 used in the Apple IIe with a 3.6 MHz version of the 65C02 (which could also be run at 1.8 MHz, selectable through hardware) and turned on and off completely through software. The TransWarp was later followed by a TransWarp II and TransWarp III, the latter of which was announced but never actually went into production. With Apple Computer's release of the Apple IIGS
Apple IIGS
The Apple , the fifth and most powerful model in the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer. The "GS" in the name stands for Graphics and Sound, referring to its enhanced graphics and sound capabilities, both of which greatly surpassed previous models of the line...
, Applied Engineering followed with a TransWarp GS, which provided an accelerated version of the 65C816 processor on which the IIGS was based.
Multi-function cards were a mainstay of AE's product offerings, of which the Serial Pro serial interface card was a typical example. Besides offering a standard RS-232 serial port, the card included a ProDOS-compatible realtime clock, thus combining two cards into one and freeing up an extra slot. When used with a dot-matrix printer, the Serial Pro offered several screen-dump print options, such as printing either of the two Apple II high-resolution pages alone, both in a single dump, or the first high-res page rotated or inverted.
For all Apple IIs except IIc/IIc Plus
- Serial Pro — Apple II serial (RS-232) cardApple II serial cardsApple II serial cards primarily used the serial RS-232 protocol. They most often were used for communicating with printers, Modems, and less often for computer to computer data transfer. They could be programmed to interface with any number of external devices which were RS-232 compatible...
- Parallel Pro — Apple II parallel (IEEE 1284) card
- Buffer Pro — Buffer add-on for Parallel Pro
- Vulcan — Internal hard disk and controller
- Vulcan Gold — Internal hard disk
- PC Transporter — NEC V30 (Intel 8086-compatible) PCPersonal computerA personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
coprocessor card - PhasorPhasor (sound synthesizer)Phasor is a stereo music, sound and speech synthesizer created by Applied Engineering for the Apple II family of computers. Consisting of a sound card and a set of related software, the Phasor system was designed to be compatible with most software written for other contemporary Apple II cards,...
— Apple II sound cardApple II sound cardsThe Apple II had limited sound capabilities until the Apple //gs shipped in 1986. Many third-party manufacturers made sound cards to enablericher sound output.- Mockingboard :... - TimeMaster H. O. and TimeMaster II H. O. — Apple II real-time clock cardApple II system clocksApple II system clocks, also known as real-time clocks, were commodities in the early days of computing. A clock/calendar did not become standard in the Apple II line of computers until 1987 with the introduction of the Apple IIGS...
- A/D + D/A Card — Analog/digital signal acquisition and industrial control card
- I/O 32 Card — 32-bit TTL/CMOS digital I/O card
- DataLink 1200/2400 — internal telephone modems
- FastMath — Math co-processor card
Apple II/II Plus Specific
- AE 16K Card — Reduced-chip substitute for Apple's 16-kB Language Card
- ViewMaster 80 — Videx- and Videoterm-compatible 80-column card with lowercase and light pen support
Apple IIe Specific
- MemoryMaster — Early reduced-chip substitute for Apple's Extended 80-Column Card (80 columns + 64 kB RAM)
- RamWorks (a. k. a. RamWorks I, RamWorks Basic) — 80-column + memory expansion card with 256—1024 kB RAM
- RamWorks II — 80-column + memory expansion card with 1+ MB RAM
- RamWorks III — 80-column + memory expansion card with 1-3 MB RAM
- RamKeeper — Battery backup option for RamWorks series (to use RAM as non-volatile RAM diskRAM diskA RAM disk or RAM drive is a block of RAM that a computer's software is treating as if the memory were a disk drive...
) - ColorLink — Daughterboard RGB option for RamWorks series providing IBM-compatible RGB output
- TransWarp, TransWarp II — Apple II acceleratorApple II acceleratorsApple II accelerators are computer hardware devices which enable an Apple II computer to operate faster than their intended clock rate.Starting in 1977, most Apple II computers operated at a speed of 1 megahertz . That precedent was finally broken 10 years later in 1987 with the introduction of...
card
Apple IIc/IIc Plus Specific
- Z-RAM, Z-RAM Ultra, Z-RAM Ultra II, Z-RAM Ultra III — Memory expansion card
- RAM Express, RAM Express II — Memory expansion card
- Z-80c — CP/M card
Apple IIGS Specific
- TransWarp GS — Apple IIGS accelerator card
- GS-RAM, GS-RAM Ultra, GS-RAM Plus — Apple IIGS memory expansion cards. The cards hold 1.5MB, 4MB, and 6MB respectively.
- RamKeeper — Battery backed RAM drive for the Apple IIGS
- Sonic Blaster — Apple IIGS sound card
- Audio Animator — Apple IIGS sound card with external audio mixer and MIDI I/O
- Conserver — Integrated disk drive organizer, surge protector, and cooling fan
Miscellaneous
- AE 1.6-MB Drive — 1.6-MB, 3.5-inch floppy drive for IIe, IIc/IIc Plus, and IIGS (Apple's 3.5-inch drives for the Apple II stopped at 800 kB)
- AE 1.44-MB Drive — 1.44-MB, 3.5-inch floppy drive for Commodore-Amiga 500, 2000 beat Commodore's own high density drive to market. Not compatible with the 1.76 mb Amiga Chinon high density floppy.
External links
- ReactiveMicro.com AE hardware supplier for TransWarp GS 32KB Cache Board, other TransWarp GS upgrades and GS RAM Plus GAL for ROM0/1 and ROM3 compatibility.
- 16Sector.com Apple II Hardware supplier & Support site for AE Hardware / Software and other Apple II hardware.
- Dr Ken's Webstore Apple II+, IIe, IIc, IIc Plus & IIGS systems & accessories.
- Applied Engineering Repository Scans of company ads and catalogs, information about the company's history, and more.