Apple iie card in an LCIII+

[Stephen Thomas Cole]

Hello folks.

I am running a pretty pimped up LCIII+ system that I'm mighty proud of
(actually posting this from the thing with MT-NewsWatcher) and have a iie
card installed. Now, I've done plenty of reading up on the use of the card
and with all that alongside Mr Finnigan's excellent Apple II guidebook
feel ready to dive in. Only issue is that I don't have a compatible floppy
drive. Which kinda limits things somewhat... I live in England, you see,
and Apple II equipment is thin on the ground to say the least.

I do believe, however, that it is possible to use disk images. I have two
10MB proDos partitions on my Mac and as I understand it, I should be able
to drop images onto them and run them through the emulator card. I did
find a pretty in depth article *somewhere* that talked about this at
length, but I didn't bookmark it and now can't find it. Does anyone here
have any knowledge/experience that they could share? Or throw a few links
at me? Would be much appreciated!

Cheers!

S

--
-------------------
Stephen Thomas Cole
-------------------

[Stephen Thomas Cole]

In article <notlikely-261...@192.168.0.134>,

I should add, if anyone has a spare 5.25 floppy drive that they could sell
me, we should talk! It's the A9M0107 model in particular, as I'm sure you
all know. There's a bunch listed on ebay shipping from the US but with the
HEAVY postage being charged, the cost hovers between the �70-�100 mark,
which is more than I want to invest at the moment. I know that there are
cheaper shipping options out of the US to England but the devils selling
on eBay won't make a deal!

S.

[David Schmidt]

On 10/26/2012 8:45 AM, Stephen Thomas Cole wrote:
> In article <notlikely-261...@192.168.0.134>,

> Stephen Thomas Cole wrote:
>> I do believe, however, that it is possible to use disk images. I have two
>> 10MB proDos partitions on my Mac and as I understand it, I should be able
>> to drop images onto them and run them through the emulator card.

It looks like you can tell the SmartPort support to connect to the host
Mac's floppy drive and any ProDOS partitions:

http://www.vintagemacworld.com/lc_images.html

It seems unlikely it could be convinced to use, say, a 140k .dsk image
of plain old DOS, though.

Here are the resources I've collected on the IIe card:
http://www.vintagemacworld.com/lc_card_faq.html
http://www.vectronicsappleworld.com/appleii/appleiiecard.html
http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/lc.html

> I should add, if anyone has a spare 5.25 floppy drive that they could sell
> me, we should talk!

I'd let one go for the cost of shipping from the US, which is not at all
inexpensive. The problem with international shipping is the cheap-ish
options are not trackable and are slow to get through customs (sometimes
file-a-complaint-against-you-to-paypal-slow - been there, am done with
that). Faster couriers are trackable and (of course) fast, but you get
the privilege of paying for it.

[gid...@sasktel.net]

Rich Drehers CFFA 3000 would be a good addition to your Apple III. It emulates the 5.25 drive as well as a USB stick or CFFA card car hold lots of disk images

http://dreher.net/?s=projects/CFforAppleII&c=projects/CFforAppleII/main.php

I don't know if run 3 is planned, but send Rich an email. Sometimes he has leftovers or returns from the last run that needed fixing.

There is also a driver the Apple III in the downloads section

Rob

[D Finnigan]

Stephen Thomas Cole wrote:
>
> I do believe, however, that it is possible to use disk images. I have two
> 10MB proDos partitions on my Mac and as I understand it, I should be able
> to drop images onto them and run them through the emulator card. I did
> find a pretty in depth article *somewhere* that talked about this at
> length, but I didn't bookmark it and now can't find it. Does anyone here
> have any knowledge/experience that they could share? Or throw a few links
> at me? Would be much appreciated!

Do you have all the appropriate IIe Card software installed on the Mac LC
III?

You should be able to use the ProDOS hard disk partition to store files.
Following is an excerpt from the Apple IIe Card Manual:

You can use your hard disk to store Apple IIe files and programs, but only
if
you create a ProDOS partition, as explained in "Reserving Hard Disk Space
for
Apple IIe Files" in Chapter 1.

This appendix explains how to use the partition once you've created it.
Storing Apple IIe Files On a Hard Disk

If you've partitioned your hard disk as described in Chapter 1, storing
Apple
IIe files on a hard disk is much like storing regular Macintosh files on a
hard disk.

Here's a rule to help you avoid trouble using the two parts of your hard
disk: Store Macintosh files on the Macintosh partition and store Apple IIe
files on the Apple IIe partition.

Technically, the Macintosh will let you store either sort of file on either
sort of partition, but Apple IIe programs can't see anything stored on a
Macintosh partition and Macintosh programs may not work well if they're
stored on an Apple IIe partition.

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/0305001AppleIIeCardOG.pdf


As far as disk images, if you are talking about .dsk files for emulators,
those were invented by Apple II emulator authors, and the Apple IIe Card and
its companion software for the Macintosh does not know about those types of
files.

--
]DF$
Apple II Book: http://macgui.com/newa2guide/ Vault: http://macgui.com/vault/
Receive comp.sys.apple2 posts by email digest:
http://macgui.com/usenet/subs.php?group=1

[Steven Hirsch]

On 10/26/2012 10:14 AM, gid...@sasktel.net wrote:
> Rich Drehers CFFA 3000 would be a good addition to your Apple III. It
> emulates the 5.25 drive as well as a USB stick or CFFA card car hold lots
> of disk images

The original poster was referring to a Macintosh LCIII+, not an Apple III.

[gid...@sasktel.net]

Disregard my last post. That'll teach me to speed read and run.

But just to weigh in on the Mac side of things. Your IIe card is not an emulator card. Emulation refers to software of another computer written to understand the mnemonics of the computer you are emulating. Your apple IIe card is hard coded with the IIe instruction set and allows some Mac hardware to interface with it.

[gid...@sasktel.net]

The plus sign threw me. There is no plus sign on a Mac computer. The model numbers are LC II, LC III, LC 475. But there is an Apple III+ (with the plus sign).

Here is my recommendation.

Before you can boot up you IIe card, it should ask for a disk drive to boot into. I would remove the 2x Prodos partitions keep the hard drives totally formatted to HFS.

Get a copy of Disk Copy v6.3.3 and create a disk image. Only some emulators will recognize this disk image format but it is not the standard disk image for emulators. This disk image is for Mac only computers.

You can select the size of disk image you want up to 32 Mbytes. You would then mount the image on the Mac desktop and format it to Prodos. Copy the Prodos and Basic.system files onto the disk image, and you will have a bootable Prodos disk. The only inconvenience you will have is that the disk image has to be mounted on the desktop before booting the IIe card. But this way makes it extremely easy to transfer the image to other Mac computers.

Next, I would download one of the emulators that will run on your Mac. There are 4 or 5. Catakig, Fast Eddie, IIe v3.0, Gus, Bernie2theRescue (not sure about this one, it may require a Power Mac)

These emulators will then allow you to open the .dsk.disk images you download from the internet. You may also be able to mount the disk image you created and transfer all files over. This will give the IIe card access to those files. It has to be done this way because a .dsk disk image cannot be mounted on a Mac desktop.

Also, be aware that .dsk images are almost always DOS 3.3 disks and not Prodos. The majority of applesoft programs will work, but games that use the language card or take up the entire 48k of main memory need a work-around to work properly.

There is a DOS.system program that will allow you to run most DOS games from Prodos.

i will leave it at that for now

Rob

[Wayne Stewart]

There was no plus sign on the front but there was a LC III+ or at
least Apple thinks so
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP210

[A2CPM]

Hi!

That link shows the system as NOT having a floppy. Is that right?

Willi

[David Schmidt]

It doesn't have a floppy *port*.

[magnusfalkirk]

What is strange is that it does show no floppy, yet further down on that page under Storage it says Floppy Size: 1.44 MB Floppy Inject: auto. So does it or does it not have a 3.5 disk drive?

[mspa...@gemsi.com]

> What is strange is that it does show no floppy, yet further down on that page under Storage it says Floppy Size: 1.44 MB Floppy Inject: auto. So does it or does it not have a 3.5 disk drive?

I have an LCIII+ or as it's more formally known, an LCIII that runs at 33 mHz instead of 25 mHz. It has a 3.5" floppy drive. It does not have a second floppy drive or even a port on the MB for one, unlike the original LC.

It runs well, and will until my last SCSI drive dies, then it's dead. A 50 pin SCSI to CF or SD or USB or something adapter will be needed eventually. Or I'll just have to toss it then. The Quadra 630 may stay useful longer since it used IDE drives.

[gid...@sasktel.net]

Well, I'll be.....

Anyways, I have also collected quite a few 80 Mb, 160 Mb and 250 Mb for that same reason. In case they start wearing out. I also have 3 SCSI zip drives and quite a few 100 Mb zip disks, I would send one your way for the price of shipping. Although you would have to find your own adapter. Correct me if I am wrong but you are on 250 V power? You would need an adapter that reduces to 5V DC for the zip drive.

Contact me by email if interested.

Rob

[Stephen Thomas Cole]

In article <c2513e93-3822-48d3...@googlegroups.com>,

What a kerfuffle!

Yes, the LCIII+ did exist. As above, it was identical to the LCIII except
that it ran an extra 8Mhz faster. Indeed, an LCIII can actually be
adjusted with a small motherboard tweak to run at that speed, becoming
identical. To further confusion, mine is actually badged as a Performa
460. This stems from Apple's mid-90s practice of naming the same computer
3 or 4 different ways depending on which market they were going to try and
sell it to. The only difference is the badge. I just refer to it as an
LCIII+ for typing's sake.

Anyway, it's a great computer, I agree! Probably the best 68K Mac I've
owned. Running OS7.6.1 on it and it's absolutely rock solid and FAST!
Really nice machine. Internal floppy has started playing up on mine, so
I'm currently keeping an eye out for similar machines from the era to grab
for cheap and break for a stockpile of parts to keep her running for years
to come.

S.

[Stephen Thomas Cole]

In article <dog_cow-1...@macgui.com>, D Finnigan

<dog...@macgui.com> wrote:
>
> Do you have all the appropriate IIe Card software installed on the Mac LC
> III?
>

Yes, have everything installed on a small OS7.5.3 (for 24 bit addressing
compatibility) partition I made. Everything works and I can boot the Apple
II.

> You should be able to use the ProDOS hard disk partition to store files.
> Following is an excerpt from the Apple IIe Card Manual:

Excellent. I've got the ProDos partitions already made, as per the manual,
but will give it another read to get my head around it. This is all Dutch
to me so far... complete Apple II virgin!

>
> As far as disk images, if you are talking about .dsk files for emulators,
> those were invented by Apple II emulator authors, and the Apple IIe Card and
> its companion software for the Macintosh does not know about those types of
> files.

Got ya. OK, I don't know if this kind of talk is verboten here (as it is
in most Amiga forums I use) but... are there any online archives of Apple
II software available for download? Prefereably in a format that the iie
card can use.

Cheers!

S.

[Stephen Thomas Cole]

In article <k6e2fg$d0f$1...@dont-email.me>, David Schmidt

<schm...@my-deja.com> wrote:

> It looks like you can tell the SmartPort support to connect to the host
> Mac's floppy drive and any ProDOS partitions:
>
> http://www.vintagemacworld.com/lc_images.html
>
> It seems unlikely it could be convinced to use, say, a 140k .dsk image
> of plain old DOS, though.
>
> Here are the resources I've collected on the IIe card:
> http://www.vintagemacworld.com/lc_card_faq.html
> http://www.vectronicsappleworld.com/appleii/appleiiecard.html
> http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/lc.html

Thanks David. The first two links I already have, but the third is a new
one to me. Will have a look shortly.

>
> > I should add, if anyone has a spare 5.25 floppy drive that they could sell
> > me, we should talk!
>
> I'd let one go for the cost of shipping from the US, which is not at all
> inexpensive. The problem with international shipping is the cheap-ish
> options are not trackable and are slow to get through customs (sometimes
> file-a-complaint-against-you-to-paypal-slow - been there, am done with
> that). Faster couriers are trackable and (of course) fast, but you get
> the privilege of paying for it.

Can you mail me directly so we can have a chat please? steve.t.cole (at)
gmail.com

[Steve Nickolas]

On Sun, 28 Oct 2012, Stephen Thomas Cole wrote:
>
> Got ya. OK, I don't know if this kind of talk is verboten here (as it is
> in most Amiga forums I use) but... are there any online archives of Apple
> II software available for download? Prefereably in a format that the iie
> card can use.

Asimov's mentioned as the major archive... I don't know if there's an easy
way to make use of DSK on a Mac though. I've got a small collection of my
own that I'm expanding with the various crunched and filecracked games,
and there's a couple other smaller archives.

I used the card on an LC II once back in high school. It's pretty nice.

-uso.