The Apple II MicronEye Apple II Camera Historical Review

Presented online exclusively from GS WorldView.

By Charles T. (Dr. Tom) Turley
GS WorldView Editor

September 8, 2000

A digital camera for the Apple II's from 1983?  Yes, it is known as the
MicronEye. Not the digital cameras we have available today, the MicronEye was
still an impressive hardware and software bundle from 1983 for use with both the
Apple II+ and Apple IIe. I'm sure many veteran Apple II users that read this
might even have had, used or still have the MicronEye in their Apple II hardware
collection. Offered for it's historical information value with premission this
Apple II historical addition to the Internet should prove useful for most any
Apple II hardware and software computer hobbist to visit and review. Perhaps
some of you might even have an interest in developing a prototype card and
updated software from the information provided.

Thanks to an avid Apple II hobbist named Jim, who created the html documents and
sent to me to find a good home for it all, the complete MicronEye manual, basic
and assembly program listings, source code, example digitized graphics (in GIF
and JPG) with full documentation are available with the A2.MicronEye program
disk archive. All nicely formatted in html documents with links to each option,
function and program listings, I expect many of you will appreciate its through
contents - if for no other reason than for the historical information it all
offers, ashowing just how adaptible, capable and useful the Apple II line of
computers were from their introduction and still are even today.

Click on the folder named A2.MicronEye - to access it all.

Check it all out with the detailed schematics, original digitized graphic
examples and the complete links to all there is on the MicronEye digital camera
system for the Apple II. A total of around 2.2 MB's it is very complete in every
respect.

Other Apple II users, Apple II historical web sites,  Apple II user groups and
Apple II hardware hobbist are also welcomed to provide this entire MicronEye
folder and its contents if they wish without restrictions.

I have also included both a ShrinkIt SHK archive and a Zip archive of the
A2.MicronEye folder contents - if you want to download either to review it all
off line.

Three disk archives of the MirconEye  programs - in DOS 3.3 format are included
for your download needs within the folder named DISK.ARCHIVES.   Two are in
ShrinkIt 5.25² DOS 3.3 format (SDK) - that unshrink to self-booting disks.  A
(DSK) Apple II emulator disk image file is also in the folder.

The two color graphic jpeg files of the MicronEye camera and the text file named
MicronEye.1982.INFO.txt within this folder - MicronEye - were obtained from the
current online web site of the company that made the MicronEye camera, interface
card, manual, instructions and software.

The reference URL for that site page is:

http://www.micron.com/corporate/1978_1982.htm

Pay a visit to the web site page and check out what Micron Technology, Inc.
has evolved too with their product line today.

All material is presented with the knowledge and consent of Micron Technology, Inc.
The Apple II programs in the archives are now classified as freeware (without
support - of course).


Cheers & Enjoy!
Tom

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Color High Resolution Graphics

Lifted from a post on comp.sys.apple2 Usenet newsgroup by jonrelay@napanet.net
the information included below is not inclusive with the MicronEye information.
But, might be of equal interest to some hacker trying to enhance the MicronEye
software programs and/or develop their own prototype card to include color HR
graphics support.


Every 2 bytes in memory:

        00 = Black      00 = Black    00 = Black      00 = Black
        10 = Blue/Mag.  10 = Blue/Mag.10 = Blue/Mag.  10 = Blue/Mag.
        01 = Or./Green  01 = Or./Green01 = Or./Green  01 = Or./Green
        11 = White      11 = White    11 = White      11 = White
            |               |             |               |
        +---+---+       +---+---+     +---+---+       +---+---+
        |       |       |       |     |       |       |       |

+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
|CG |C6 |C5 |C4 |C3 |C2 |C1 |C0 | |CG |C13|C12|C11|C10|C9 |C8 |C7 |
|128|64 |32 |16 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 1 | |128|64 |32 |16 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 1 |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+

  | |   |       |       |           |         |       |       |   |
  | +-+-+       +---+---+           |         +---+---+       +-+-+
 0 1  |             |              0 1            |             |
 = =  |       00 = Black           = =      00 = Black          |
 M O  |       10 = Blue/Magenta    M O      10 = Blue/Magenta   |
 a r  |       01 = Orange/Green    a r      01 = Orange/Green   |
 g a  |       11 = White           g a      11 = White          |
 e n  |                            e n                          |
 n g  |                            n g                          |
 t e  |                            t e                          |
 a /  |                            a /                          |
 / B  |                            / B                          |
 G l  |                            G l                          |
 r u  |                            r u                          |
 e e  |                            e e                          |
 e    |                            e                            |
 n    |                            n                            |
      +----------------------------+----------------------------+
                                   |
                                   |
                               00 = Black
                               01 = Blue/Magenta
                               10 = Orange/Green
                               11 = White

                          If color group bit from each byte
                          is different, then 01 or 10 will
                          result in brown, purple, cyan or
                          pink. I can't figure out when each
                          color appears; it's your burden to
                          figure it out.


Every 14 columns on screen:

    00 = Black      00 = Black            00 = Black      00 = Black
    01 = Blue/Mag.  01 = Blue/Mag.        01 = Blue/Mag.  01 = Blue/Mag.
    10 = Or./Green  10 = Or./Green        10 = Or./Green  10 = Or./Green
    11 = White      11 = White            11 = White      11 = White
        |               |                     |               |
    +---+---+       +---+---+             +---+---+       +---+---+
    |       |       |       |             |       |       |       |

+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
|CG |C0 |C1 |C2 |C3 |C4 |C5 |C6 | |CG |C7 |C8 |C9 |C10|C11|C12|C13|
|128| 1 | 2 | 4 | 8 |16 |32 |64 | |128| 1 | 2 | 4 | 8 |16 |32 |64 |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+

  |        |       |        |   |   | |   |       |       |
  |        +---+---+        +-+-+   | +-+-+       +---+---+ 
 0 1           |              |    0 1  |             |
 = =     00 = Black           |    = =  |       00 = Black
 M O     01 = Blue/Magenta    |    M O  |       01 = Blue/Magenta
 a r     10 = Orange/Green    |    a r  |       10 = Orange/Green
 g a     11 = White           |    g a  |       11 = White
 e n                          |    e n  |
 n g                          |    n g  |
 t e                          |    t e  |
 a /                          |    a /  |
 / B                          |    / B  |
 G l                          |    G l  |
 r u                          |    r u  |
 e e                          |    e e  |
 e                            |    e    |
 n                            |    n    |
                              +----+----+
                                   |
                                   |

                               00 = Black
                               01 = Blue/Magenta
                               10 = Orange/Green
                               11 = White

                          If color group bit from each byte
                          is different, then 01 or 10 will
                          result in brown, purple, cyan or
                          pink. I can't figure out when each
                          color appears; it's your burden to
                          figure it out.