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| Contact the WOZ? Apple affiliated members? Woz.org folks? re: SWIM release. |
Posted by: Trash80toHP_Mini on 2026-05-08 12:43:20
I've long suggested contacting woz to see if he'd release (or recreate) SWIM for the community:
We're of an age and thinking it might be a significant addition to his legacy. He's far deep into education and tech talent development thru woz.org. So thinking would be that giving folks young and old in the retro community the chance to put SWIM to good use as an educational/developmental tool might appeal to him?
Anyway, contacting him directly would be wonderful if someone can make this suggestion. I really think he'll like the notion.
PM me and I'll give you my email if he might want to contact me directly.
THX
jt |
Posted by: NJRoadfan on 2026-05-08 13:52:08
Woz didn't have involvement in the SWIM chip as it came after he left the company. The original SWIM was two separate floppy controllers in one package. One being the IWM and the other being a clone of the NEC 765 MFM PC style controller. The later revisions further integrated and simplified the design.
See: https://archive.org/details/SWIMDesignDocs/SWIM2 ERS/mode/2up |
Posted by: Trash80toHP_Mini on 2026-05-08 14:46:48
Running parallel threads here and at TinkerDifferent, so please excuse crosstalk via copy/past in my responses.
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Hence that suggestion that he might find recreation/cloning his namesake as a fun project to leave something so beautiful as part of his legacy.
Might he even request said developers to take on that task for him?
Can't imagine Apple refusing his request for IP release, if documentation is indeed still in the archives there?
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Thanks much for that linkage. Developer IDs and other good info developing in the Parallel TinkerDifferent topic. |
Posted by: mikes-macs on 2026-05-08 14:48:48
The “W” in SWIM = Wozniak
Sander-Wozniak Integrated Machine
easy mistake |
Posted by: Phipli on 2026-05-08 14:51:21
Running parallel threads here and at TinkerDifferent, so please excuse crosstalk via copy/past in my responses.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Hence that suggestion that he might find recreation/cloning his namesake as a fun project to leave something so beautiful as part of his legacy.
Might he even request said developers to take on that task for him?
Can't imagine Apple refusing his request for IP release, if documentation is indeed still in the archives there?
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Thanks much for that linkage. Developer IDs and other good info developing in the Parallel TinkerDifferent topic. What would you expect to get that we don't already have? |
Posted by: Trash80toHP_Mini on 2026-05-08 14:54:49
Enough further info to actually clone the dang thing? |
Posted by: Phipli on 2026-05-08 14:58:00
Enough further info to clone the dang thing? We have the engineering spec for the SWIM2 already in this thread. |
Posted by: Trash80toHP_Mini on 2026-05-08 15:01:36
IDK, is that enough to actually get the job of cloning the chip in FPGA or the like done? |
Posted by: Phipli on 2026-05-08 15:14:49
IDK, is that enough to actually get the job of cloning the chip in FPGA or the like done? If you asked and got the best documentation you possibly could from Apple, that would be it. It defines it's functions.
I don't think a ready to bake FPGA version is going to exist. Some things aren't free of effort.
The original designs will be for ASIC products and are unlikely to be directly transferable to a modern FPGA. |
Posted by: mikes-macs on 2026-05-08 16:04:26
IDK, is that enough to actually get the job of cloning the chip in FPGA or the like done? Are you talking in your sleep again? |
Posted by: Trash80toHP_Mini on 2026-05-08 16:29:39
Almost. fully awake for this one!🙃 ISTR posts much lamenting the lack of a functional SWIM replacement. The FPGA thing was the first example that came to mind.
It's a chance for woz to pass something down to the retro community, might just give it a whirl? |
Posted by: Chopsticks on 2026-05-08 18:43:19
i wonder if it would be easier finding someone who can delid a swim chip and take hires scans of the wafer and reverse engineer from there. that seems to be the common approach these days to figuring out vintage chip designs. someone like CuriousMarc might be able to point you in the right direction of who to talk to |
Posted by: Trash80toHP_Mini on 2026-05-08 22:14:34
Yep, been wondering why nothing has been done, even on that front?
Asking the guy who headed up the SWIM development team for help seems the thing top do, but everyone says no?
I don't even know what questions to ask, but networking has almost always worked out well for me. |
Posted by: Chopsticks on 2026-05-08 22:35:58
i dont think theres anything wrong asking the members of the SWIM dev team but id be surprised after all this time if they'd have much useful to add.
as for apple releasing the IP well who knows what they would say. we did get the source code for most of quick draw and was it macPaint or something released so who knows.
i still think having someone who can analyze and reverse engineer the silicon die is likely what would need to be done. |
Posted by: robin-fo on 2026-05-08 23:34:48
I think any decent electrical engineer could today reverse-engineer the IWM/ISM as long as they have enough time and interest. No need to trouble Woz with that 😉 |
Posted by: Chopsticks on 2026-05-09 17:32:55
im pretty sure the IWM has been or has mostly been reverse engineered. there's definitely super hires pictures of the die floating around.
finding someone with enough time and interest is the real issue. the vintage mac community is really quite small in comparison to others like the Amiga or commodore communities |
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