Jeff, *I* know what you have there. I had at least three of these myself. But first, some background.
Back in 1984 or so, the "best" and most desirable modem for the Apple II was the "Novation Apple Cat II." As has been mentioned, the base model was a single, full length card that typically went in Slot 2. It supported 300 baud full duplex, 1200 baud HALF DUPLEX, and it had musical and voice abilities, but they were only "played" over the telephone line. I can remember some songs and voices that were very advanced, and sounded very good. In a world that mostly ran at 300 baud, 1200 baud at half duplex was something worth writing specialized software for, and "Cat Send" and "CatFur" made transferring files and disks reasonably easy and "blazingly" fast. I seem to recall the best music program being called "The Cat's Meow." Now there was also a secondary card available called the "1200 Baud Full Duplex Option Card" as I recall (don't hold me to that). It usually plugged into another slot, but it only drew power from it. There was a ribbon cable that connected the first card with the second card, and THAT was the electronic bridge between the two cards. I'm sure you can guess its function based on its name. There was also a way to place the card on its side on top of the Apple II power supply, and use a special set of cables to power the secondary card from a source other than a valuable slot. It made for a rat's nest of wiring. Oh, and I seem to remember the "extra" card costing $400 when the base modem cost $300. (Can you imagine a $700 modem today?) Now, to your item. The Apple Cat TYPICALLY connected to the phone line via a female RJ-11 socket that plugged into the Apple Cat via two (or four) thin wires. That was it. It was molded to slide into one of the wedge-shaped openings on the back of the original Apple ][ and the Apple ][+. The Apple //e had real cut-outs that the Apple Cat phone jack never fit into properly. The thing you have is probably about the size of a deck of cards. IT plugged into the Apple Cat board via a ribbon cable, and it was supposed to be stuck onto the back of your Apple II via double-stick foam tape. It provided TWO phone jacks (one was a smaller, "handset" jack), plus the other ports you describe. I played with this stuff quite extensively, and can report that the headset socket was useful to record some of the Apple Cat music to a tape recorder. The 4-prong socket was intended for some sort of X-10-like device control (like turning lamps on and off), but I never had the supporting hardware. The serial port on that thing was supposed to be an external serial port for printers and TTYs and such, but I *NEVER* got it to work after weeks of playing with it. I had the idea that you had to enable the port from the Apple Cat software somehow, and could then send commands through it, but that seemed totally pointless. Anyway, without the Apple Cat II card itself, what you have isn't really useful. And even with an Apple Cat II, it really didn't add any more useable functionality. It did *LOOK* cool, though. Warren Ernst former Beagle Bros Tech Support Contributing Editor, PC Magazine On Tuesday, September 30, 2003, 12:30:16 PM, you wrote: \/-------------snip-------------\/ > Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 17:21:15 -0700 > Subject: Something Cool I Just Got > From: "J.S. Garrison" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > I just got a Novation Communications Module for a IIgs. It's got a > phone-line RJ11 connector, a mic/handset socket, a micro banana plug > socket labelled On-Line Remote, a 4-prong socket labelled EIA-RS232C > AC Control and a 25 pin female connector. > Haven't Google it yet. Howard? And some of you other experts? > What do I gots here? > Jeff /\-------------snip-------------/\ Virtually, Warr -- Replies to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Check out my site, "The LlamaPen," at http://www.warrenernst.com/. News! Tips! Opinions! My Schedule! It's all there, Baby! Tell a friend! -- Apple2list is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... / Buy books, CDs, videos, and more from Amazon.com \ / <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/lowendmac> \ Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Apple2list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/apple2.html> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/apple2list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
