Apple

Ok! The IIgs arrived today. Missing mouse, but powering up. That's a start!

Looking for IIgs games, I found this site: http://www.theoldcomputer.com/roms/inde ... r=Apple/II

Does anyone know how to write Apple IIgs roms to floppy disk from a PC?

some competing home computers (like the Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit, TI 99/4A, PCjr, or ZX Spectrum) had a cartridge port and could use software on ROM chips in cartridges. The Apple ][ series never had that. All Apple software is disk-based, with the exception of some early programs that loaded from cassette tape. The floppy disks use a GCR modulation that is incompatible with PC floppy drives. So to transfer files to a IIgs, you can use a Macintosh with 800KB floppies, or use LocalTalk, or transfer files over a serial link using sz/rz.

http://apple2online.com/index.php?p=1_2 ... re-Library
https://archive.org/details/apple-ii-disk-collection
http://apple2.callapple.org/links.html

late edit: I forgot one other way. If you have both an Apple II "SuperDrive controller" and the G7287 External FDHD Drive, you can use 1.4 MB ProDOS, or (on GS System 6 and up) HFS, floppies that can be written from a Mac or PC. Apple switched from GCR to MFM modulation on HD floppies so compatibility is easier. There were compatible versions of the controller and drive from other companies like Applied Engineering. Other methods using (generally expensive) 3rd party hardware exist...

There is also a program called ADTPro ( http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/ ) that runs on a modern computer and provides data to the Apple II over the serial port (or the cassette port for older Apples). This is not as good as LocalTalk but has some of the same advantages.

I had one of those sylistic tablets breifly. Had the pen and everything but the IDE controller was dead because it could not see a hard drive or the CD drive in the docking station. Modern computers are pretty useless with no hard drive. :/
Getting apple floppy disk images to physical media on anything that was not a an apple II or mac itself has always been a nightmare. Ive seen so much shady software and expensive addon cards. I ended up getting a powerbook 180 and loaded it with all the floppy writing tools I could get. Now I can image and write macintosh, lisa and Apple II 3.5" disks. A localtalk bridge is used to connect to my server which stores everything.

Just a quick update on where I am with everything, per my original list:

1. G4 Cube - 500 Mhz - came with 192MB, I've upgraded to 1.5GB. -- UPDATE: nothing changed; want to fix the reboot issue and do a new OS + app install

2. Apple II GS [Yet to arrive] with display and some games. -- UPDATE: has since arrived. Works great, but I haven't really done much. Have booted into the IIgs demo disk with the silly mouse tutorial ("IIgs territory..") Also have a adtpro cable now from Dr. Ken - but haven't been able to do an ADT pro setup yet.

3. Commodore 64 - I've also ordered an SD2IEC cartridge which allows SD cards with C64 sw images to be plugged in [Has yet to arrive] - UPDATE: This has arrived. I got the SD2IEC going, built an image with tons of games. Got an Atari joystick which is pretty sucky and either I'm not using it right, or it's not particularly usable. Am now looking for a microswitch based Zip stick. Until then, at least this system works. Also got a Commodore 1802 RGB monitor. Pretty yellowed and the original power switch is broken. Seller hacked a flip switch onto the side. Works. The most exciting thing yet has been running Geos and Geo Paint. Pretty cool to see a GUI running in 64K RAM on a 1Mhz system. I am learning a bit about C64 oddities...

4. Mac Color Classic [Yet to arrive] - has a power on issue which I suppose I'll figure out when it arrives. Hopefully this won't be a wasted purchase UPDATE: This has been an ordeal. It arrived, but lots of issues. We've been discussing this one in that other Color Classic thread ( viewtopic.php?f=9&t=16728961 ) The news as of right now is that it was sent for recapping. That didn't fix it. It has now been shipped to yet another repair tech to see if he can get to the root of my troubles. Will end up costing a packet... even if it is salvageable.

5. Mac Plus 1MB [Yet to arrive] - UPDATE: This arrived. No HDD. The Color Classic doesn't have an HDD either. So I'm going to try to figure out the HDD situation on these systems... this one does show the bootup Mac icon. No SW. I ordered System 7.1 disks which came in. Thought they were original ones, but this is copied media courtesy of an ebay seller with a loosy-goosy description. More needs to be done to get this running.

In the meanwhile, an Atari 1040 ST just arrived. Beautiful system. Looks like I won't have to do much to get this going at all. Came with a 30MB external HDD, Atari monitor and quite a bit of SW. Never used Atari before (other than the 2600 for a couple of games, 30 years or so ago...), so there will be a learning curve here too.

I ended up "accidentally" winning auctions on a Color classic and a half. One full system, one for parts. They have yet to arrive. Now I just need four times the space I presently have, and I can display these properly

The Commodore 1802 (and its close relative the CM-141) is a piece of crap. It's actually a substandard composite monitor that cheats by taking the monochrome signal off the DB-9 RGB port a 128 would have. You don't have a 128, so the pathetic monochrome RGB mode it does offer is worthless to you, and the monitor will fail if you look at it wrong. Find a Commodore 1702 instead, which is a superior and indestructible composite monitor suitable for any classic computer.

If you do end up getting a 128, then I'd recommend either a 1084 or a 1902, not the 1802, both of which have a "real" digital RGB mode.

The Mac Plus can only use external hard disks. You can use a (stone-age) HD20, or a SCSI disk that supports narrow single-ended mode, which is a similar situation to old SGIs.

ClassicHasClass wrote: The Commodore 1802 (and its close relative the CM-141) is a piece of crap. It's actually a substandard composite monitor that cheats by taking the monochrome signal off the DB-9 RGB port a 128 would have. You don't have a 128, so the pathetic monochrome RGB mode it does offer is worthless to you, and the monitor will fail if you look at it wrong. Find a Commodore 1702 instead, which is a superior and indestructible composite monitor suitable for any classic computer.

If you do end up getting a 128, then I'd recommend either a 1084 or a 1902, not the 1802, both of which have a "real" digital RGB mode.

Thanks for the info. The monitor is working in color with my 64, though. I will try to look for a 1702 also. And yes, I am looking for an Amiga 500/600, after which a 128 will probably be on the list of stuff to get.

robespierre wrote: The Mac Plus can only use external hard disks. You can use a (stone-age) HD20, or a SCSI disk that supports narrow single-ended mode, which is a similar situation to old SGIs.

I see. I saw a really nice mac+ on eBay, a little too late. This one also has a cd rom hooked up, along with a ram.upgrade and something called a 'fanny mac'. I need to read up on the plus so I can make a list of things I need to get it fully operational.

Here's the eBay auction I'm talking about:

http://ebay.us/XZuKIg

This looks like it should work with the Plus. I read about needing to cut a resistor leg to get > 256K SIMMs to work, but could someone more knowledgeable than me please verify if this > 2 chip 30 pin SIMM set looks legit for a Mac Plus?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/301335035350

sgifanatic wrote:

ClassicHasClass wrote: The Commodore 1802 (and its close relative the CM-141) is a piece of crap. It's actually a substandard composite monitor that cheats by taking the monochrome signal off the DB-9 RGB port a 128 would have. You don't have a 128, so the pathetic monochrome RGB mode it does offer is worthless to you, and the monitor will fail if you look at it wrong. Find a Commodore 1702 instead, which is a superior and indestructible composite monitor suitable for any classic computer.

If you do end up getting a 128, then I'd recommend either a 1084 or a 1902, not the 1802, both of which have a "real" digital RGB mode.

Thanks for the info. The monitor is working in color with my 64, though. I will try to look for a 1702 also. And yes, I am looking for an Amiga 500/600, after which a 128 will probably be on the list of stuff to get.

Right, the 1802 displays colour in composite mode; it's just monochrome for RGB (its RGB "support" was its selling point back in the day and suckered a lot of people who really should have bought a 1902). But it's just a sucky monitor overall.

If you're going to get an Amiga, then you probably want to just get a 1084S (the stereo version). That'll connect to pretty much any Commodore Amiga or 8-bit, including the 500, 128 and 64. The problem with the 500 is that they sprawl across desks like the flat 128 does. I like my tower Amigas much more than the 500 (and the 500 had a GVP A530 sidecar, so it wasn't for lack of power, per se).

sgifanatic wrote: I see. I saw a really nice mac+ on eBay, a little too late. This one also has a cd rom hooked up, along with a ram.upgrade and something called a 'fanny mac'. I need to read up on the plus so I can make a list of things I need to get it fully operational.

that is a box with a fan that would be installed on an early mac (512K or Plus). The machines used convection cooling only, so some people used "system savers" which were externally attached fans. The catch is that it is no longer silent.

You can only run up to System 7.5.5 on a Plus, and support for HFS+ became available in System 8.1. So you're limited to original HFS's support for drive volumes, which if I recall correctly is 2GB per volume. Even at that size, HFS is pretty wasteful with space: each fork gets allocated a multiple of 32KB space on the volume. Since most Mac files have two forks, it will be wasting an average of 32KB per file.
Back when they were deployed it was common to use third-party disk formatting tools, because the Drive Setup utility was so limited.
Silver Lining, Remus, Lido, and FWB were popular ones.

edit: another thing worth knowing about the Plus is that it emits a powerful magnetic field from the left side. Don't put any magnetic media near there.

ClassicHasClass wrote:

sgifanatic wrote:

ClassicHasClass wrote: The Commodore 1802 (and its close relative the CM-141) is a piece of crap. It's actually a substandard composite monitor that cheats by taking the monochrome signal off the DB-9 RGB port a 128 would have. You don't have a 128, so the pathetic monochrome RGB mode it does offer is worthless to you, and the monitor will fail if you look at it wrong. Find a Commodore 1702 instead, which is a superior and indestructible composite monitor suitable for any classic computer.

If you do end up getting a 128, then I'd recommend either a 1084 or a 1902, not the 1802, both of which have a "real" digital RGB mode.

Thanks for the info. The monitor is working in color with my 64, though. I will try to look for a 1702 also. And yes, I am looking for an Amiga 500/600, after which a 128 will probably be on the list of stuff to get.

Right, the 1802 displays colour in composite mode; it's just monochrome for RGB (its RGB "support" was its selling point back in the day and suckered a lot of people who really should have bought a 1902). But it's just a sucky monitor overall.

If you're going to get an Amiga, then you probably want to just get a 1084S (the stereo version). That'll connect to pretty much any Commodore Amiga or 8-bit, including the 500, 128 and 64. The problem with the 500 is that they sprawl across desks like the flat 128 does. I like my tower Amigas much more than the 500 (and the 500 had a GVP A530 sidecar, so it wasn't for lack of power, per se).

Thanks for the input. I got a 1084S. And an Amiga 500. And an Atari 1040 ST.

Having some trouble with the Amiga, though. Got a ton of floppies with it, and many original games. Can't get hardly any to work. Some floppies - even original ones - come back with empty folder listings. Some work partially and then cause lockups. Not sure what the heck is going on. The workbench 1.2 floppy does work and I was able to try out the included utilities, the text editor and speech synth. But that's been about the extent of my fun with the Amiga so far.

Here's a pic of the Amiga:

My bet is disk rot of some sort.

Might be the drive - old amiga drives are a bit prone to duff heads as they don't have a dust flap - might be worth giving the drive a clean first?

As an update to the subject of old floppy disks going unreadable, there is also a failure mode where the floppy media gets detached from the hub. The hub has two pieces that are glued together around the media, and if it lets go, the drive can no longer track the media.

Files and Directories (Drawers in workbench terminology) will only be displayed in workbench if there is an associated .info file .The icon, location, file type etc are all stored in this file and workbench won't know what to do unless this .info file is present. i.e file.aif needs a file.info to be displayed in workbench. Most games on the amiga simply worked by booting from the game disk itself... in fact now that I think about it I can't remember a single game that had to be run from workbench? (if not installed to a HDD, in which case what I said previously doesn't apply, different rules with installed games) Some games were 'kicked' which means they could boot from the amiga 'kick screen' into a pseudo workbench environment (minimal workbench with hardly any modules loaded... certainly none of the 'utlities' you mention would work if you didn't boot from workbench!), but most simply booted into game main menu (or intro etc). Any boot-able (kick) disk could be viewed as a 'disk' in the workbench GUI (without an associated .info file.... kick disks iirc are the only exception and use the default disk icon), but thats pretty much the extent of what you can do in workbench with these kick disks. You might be able to read the files on the disk by firing up a console (Amiga Shell) and traversing it that way, but you probably won't be able to do much other than standard file operations, excluding execution.

Yes the floppy drives had issues, but since it can read a floppy I don't think this is your issue.... try simply turning your amiga on, wait for the kick screen (1/2 secs) and then insert the game disk 1! Now sit back an enjoy the multitude of games you probably have (50+ games should be minimal with second hand amiga's purchased these days )

Hope this helps.

P.S Not been here for a while! good to see Amiga's on nekochan! ... albeit in the apple thread

Thanks so much, Spiroyster! That was good advice. Some games were actually showing an icon after I loaded up workbench, but they wouldn't run. The method you described - plugging them in directly after the KS icon shows up - works pretty well!

Now I need to setup some convenient way to write Amiga floppies and get some non-game apps going! This system came with a trumpcard drive but after much fidgeting and many attempts to make it work, it simply didn't. It is now a two-floppy system.

Glad its working for you sgifanatic. Now that I have reopened that part of the brain I can remember quite a few games that could be run from workbench, so forget what I said in previous post. Also probably best to keep away from the phrase 'kicked' which I used incorrectly, they are just 'kickstart'/'kick' disks! (amiga fans might enter Guru Meditation using the phrase 'kicked' )

Wihtout a HD, Amiga's are only really useful for games without masses of disk swapping/juggling (although I survived using emacs without a HDD for about 1.5 years!), with a HDD there are quite a few applications for the amiga which become practical/usable... AmosPro, highsoft c++, Storm C, deluxe paint (DP3 was shipped with most amiga's from 500+/600 onwards) and even Lightwave3D! I also rememebr a 3d package called Imagine 2.0 which was my first real foray into 3D modeling (I am now a CAD developer!)... quite amazing what you could do with 7.6 Mhz and a home TV!.

You don't need a HDD for most of them, but you may end up with piles of ordered disks laying around your desk/floor for repeated insertion and then ejection! StormC was 6 disks, Hisoftc++ was 7 disks... still, a game called 'Beneath a Steel Sky' for the AGA amiga's was 15 disks! so you saved a lot of time by installing it on a HDD! I'm sure there were many others.

P.S You have an OCS chipset in the 500 for future reference of getting any more games/programs. 1MB ram upgrade would be recommended if you can find one cheap enough, but the A600 has 1MB anyway and is ECS chipset, the A1200 is AGA chipset and comes with a HD iirc (20MB or so).. A1200 was definately the best for the money.

Have fun!

In the last 3 months I spent more than I should of as well on some old stuff.

Alphaserver DS10 - 466MHZ, 256MB RAM, 2 9GB drives. Arrived in pristine condition, with nothing broken and only a missing power supply which was easily replaced. The secondary SCSI drive did develop some kind of electrical fault a while later, fortunately it was during the breaking in period I usually put hard drives through. I loaded the box up, it had 5.3 firmware from year 2000 and an untouched fresh copy of TRU64 5.1 from August 2000. I erased it (since it was so old it predated SSH) and installed VMS 8.4 on it. Upgraded with an Oxygen VX1 2D accelerator and a Compaq Ensoniq sound card.

Then I got enchanted by the SGI thing, by reading this forum. So i started looking for an SGI system that was practical, something with solid hardware, not costing too much, not too old and not too maintenance intensive. Initially I was aiming for an Octane or Octane2, but the lack of an internal cd drive, missing hard drives and sleds, need for a display adapter and media would have made it prohibitively expensive. So... I found this on fleabay for $200.

SGI O2 - 200 MHZ - 128MB RAM. 9GB HD. Arrived with no cracks in the case, the O2 cam, granite keyboard and mouse, AV1 Module and a shoe box full of software including IRIX 6.5, MipsPro Compilers, O2 demo disk, Photoshop 3.0(still wrapped), Illustrator 5.5, Kays Power Tools, NFS 3, Out of Box Library. It runs nicely although it is loud. Getting IRIX installed was an interesting experience. But is that box ever brittle. A small crack has appeared on the backside just behind the power supply and I've found a blue piece of plastic from inside the case above the power supply and a couple of edge chunks of the black top around. I have managed to avoid damaging it any further though.

DS10s are quite nice, as is that O2 - and what luck that the plastic skins survived shipping intact! You'll read plenty of horror stories about them disintegrating during shipping... And quite the collection of software, too. These are generally regarded as quiet machines, so I expect you may just have a noisy hard drive or fan that could be replaced.

Minor correction, though -- SSH originated in the mid-1990s, well before Digital UNIX was renamed Tru64...