From: bill_h <bill_h@sunsouthwest.com>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Apple video circuitry cost....?
Date: Wed, 08 Dec 1999 17:47:36 -0800
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Eric Smith wrote:
> 
> I wrote:
> > Even excluding the microprocessor and memory, the chips in either an Apple 1
> > or an Apple ][ cost much more than $3.
> 
> Charles Eicher <ceicher@inav.net> writes:
> > No, I was referring to just the video display circuitry. Of course the other
> > support circuits cost a lot more than that.
> 
> The video display circuitry in an Apple 1 cost much more than $3.
> 
> I challenge you to even *identify* the minimal set of chips in an Apple ][
> that constitute the video display circuitry.  Even if you can do so, it will
> cost more than $3.  Even in the huge quantities that Apple was buying the
> chips in the heydey of the Apple ][+.
> 
> If it was under $3, they wouldn't have had any motivation to go to a pair
> of ASICs for the Apple //e, since the ASICs cost more than $3.

Okay, Apple II and II+ used:
 
  a 555 timer
  74LS74 (1 1/2)
  74LS151
  74LS194 (3)
  74LS257
  
Sure looks like about 3 bucks to me!

Maybe somebody can look up 1979 +/- prices from an ad?
Bear in mind Apple was buying hundreds of thousands of 74xxx
at a time in those days.

Bill
Tucson

######

From: Chris Espinosa <cde@apple.com>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Apple video circuitry cost....?
Date: Wed, 08 Dec 1999 18:36:31 -0800
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bill_h wrote:
<snip>
> Okay, Apple II and II+ used:
> 
>   a 555 timer
>   74LS74 (1 1/2)
>   74LS151
>   74LS194 (3)
>   74LS257
> 
> Sure looks like about 3 bucks to me!

That's just the color graphics generation.

It took 4 74LS161 counters to generate the video address signals for the
various video modes.  Text mode (40 x 24 of 5 x 7 characters) was
generated by a 2513 character generator shifted out through a 166. 
Lores graphics (40 x 40 x 16) took two of the 194 shift registers
mentioned above, and hires used the 257, but then it took the other 194
and a 151 to multiplex the streams (for example, for mixed text and
graphics modes), and a lot of SSI TTL to create the color burst signal,
decode the various video modes, and do Woz's other magic.

All in all, about 13 medium-scale TTL chips and about 25 miscellaneous
gates.  (Sound of riffling through drawers)  In May 1976, the year that
the Apple II was designed, those chips were available for the following
prices (quantity one):

NE555   $0.48
74LS74  $0.39
74LS151 $1.55
74LS161 $3.00
74LS166 $2.50
74LS194 $2.25
74LS257 $2.40
2513    $4.30

(All prices from Popular Electronics Vol. 5 No. 9, May 1976)

In quantity one that would be between $20 and $30 worth of chips.  Large
quantities and time would drive that down, of course, but when Woz
designed the Apple II video it didn't cost $3, more like $30.

I think the folklore about three bucks of parts versus $75 for
competitors is more likely to be Woz's 8-chip dual floppy disk
controller, by 1978 could have come in at about that price.  

Chris Espinosa