APPLE II HARDWARE FORUM REVIEW WRITING CONTEST ENTRY FORM

NAME: Saint John M. Morrison


ADDRESS: POB 42864


CITY, STATE, ZIP: Philadelphia, PA 19104-2864


SCREEN NAME: St John2


PRODUCT REVIEWED: SMT No-Slot Clock


THE SMT NO-SLOT CLOCK
     This review is (c) 1989 by St. John M. Morrison

I was tired of entering the time manually every time I worked
on my //c. Even my old ][+ had a clock board. I had two
options-- buy a Checkmate Z-Ram II or III board, or buy an SMT
No-Slot Clock. Since this review isn't about the RAM cards, I
think you can guess which one I opted for. Neither the
packaging nor the documentation is anything to get excited
about. Quite the opposite, in fact, when it comes to the
documentation. It certainly does its job in telling you how to
install the chip-- all it entails is popping a ROM out,
plugging it into the NSC, and replacing it-- but when it comes
time to use the programs supplied, you're more or less on your
own. The part of the manual dealing with the internal workings
of the clock, which would include reading and setting it in
your own programs, looks like it's been translated from
another language. The only real information it imparts is that
there are two BIN programs that can help you on the disk-- but
if you want to use them, you'll have to disassemble them
yourself. No text versions are included. (Besides that, it's
downright misleading in one place: the "hundredths of a
second" feature just doesn't work. It consistently returns 0
in this location.) Although the machine-language programs are
well-written, the BASIC programs are not. The code is
spaghetti-style and there are a number of lines that will
never get executed. It does its job, though, and will only be
used twice a year at most (at the beginning and end of
daylight savings time, natch!); if you wanted to examine it as
a guide to writing your own program, though, you'd be better
off going from the ground up. One of the features the program
allows is the patching of ProDOS to use the NSC automatically.
This is a dangerous method, and should not be used. It takes
the file "PRODOS" from the indicated disk, and writes its own
program over it-- without checking whether the location has
changed. It includes a rudimentary check, presumably for
ProDOS 1.1 versus 1.2, but this is a change that should be
made on a running ProDOS. Finally, there's incompatability
with one of the most exciting products in the Apple world:
processor accellerators, like the TransWarp card or the Zip
Chip. I was on the verge of returning my NSC when I noted
similar problems in letters to A2-Central. For whatever
reason-- cycle time, cacheing, or something even odder-- the
faster 6502 will not recognize the NSC's identity bytes. (I
suspect this is the case with the //c+ as well.) Evidently,
there are ways around it, but none that are fully satisfying.
And even though I noted that I was having trouble using the
product on my registration card, so far I haven't received a
new disk or even a postcard stating that there is one
available. It should be noted that //e and ][+ owners who
install the NSC on a peripheral card don't have the problem as
long as they keep that slot set to "slow". For the //c owner
that needs a clock, or for a //e or ][+ owner that can't
afford taking up yet another precious slot, the SMT No-Slot
Clock is a possible option. Because of its flaws, though, it
should be carefully examined alongsied other clock products.

     FOR MORE INFORMATION:
          Systems Manufacturing Technology
          1145 Linda Vista Drive
          San Marcos, CA 92069