Category: Disk II
When it comes to Apple II, I’m easy to please. Every time I see a new product or something that gives new use, combines new technology and makes my retro computing more fun, I’m very happy with it. Now add some lights to the equation and let me control it within the computer – I’m in heaven! That’s just what Plamen Vasilov from a2heaven did: the newDisk II LED, is a perfect addition to the retro gadgetry. It allows me…
John Morris has announced that he is now taking orders for the 2nd run of the Applesauce Floppy Drive Controller. The Applesauce FDC allows users to digitally image their floppy disks (both personal and commercial) in the original format of the disk as it was created. These disk images are then stored in WOZ format (an emulator format), DSK format (old emulator format) or as a raw or A2R file. Built into the Applesauce FDC Software is support for both…
The Apple II floppy emulator options have been shrinking lately, with availability being limited to a few devices. From the CFFA 3000 last run to most other devices deprecated, there’s only two or three available right now. That’s why KbooHK coming into the Apple II community is quite welcome, and their product promises a great deal by supporting the new .Woz file format. The Wdrive is a small device, very well designed and built, It is a real floppy replacement…
Egan Ford, the curator of the Apple ][ Game Server and the Apple ][ Disk Server, has come up with a new application which writes games directly to a disk allowing them to be played, without DOS or ProDOS on the Apple ][. According to his posting on Comp.sys.apple2 usenet group, “I just posted c2d (code to disk) to http://asciiexpress.net/files. I included the source with OS/X and Windows binaries. c2d will take a single binary (with or without 4-byte DOS…
Brutal Deluxe Software has published the first three videos in a their Apple II Cracking Senses series. The video series is designed to teach the current generation of Apple ][ fans what it takes to crack old software from the 1980’s game by game. While much of this software is long abandoned through either non-existence of the company that made it or through the loss of the original code by the author, it is an interesting insight into what these…
R&D Automation, makers of the CFFA Compact Flash drive card for the Apple I and II series computers, has announced the immediate availability of the latest version of the CFFA 3000 Firmware for beta testers. The CFFA 3000 is a dual drive multi-capability card that R&D has been working on for about 2 years now. The card is in final stages of development and release of the initial order of cards is forthcoming. The following email was received by the…
MountIt 1.3 is a new Permanent Init File devoted to handling different disk image files (.DSK, .PO and .2MG) of any size (from 32KB to the maximum RAM available), only ProDOS based. Up to sixteen volumes can be added to the system. MountIt mounts volumes as read-only if the original disk image file is locked. Otherwise, the disk image file is mounted as read/write and the following operations can be performed: read, write and format. MountIt is not ProDOS 8…
As we were going to press, we were handed a copy of the NEW documentation on Disk II. We are pleased to report that this documentation, running nearly twice the length of the original. It is far more concise and detailed and has a very good introductory section. So all you gentle folk at Apple Computer, we retract (sort of) some of the nasty things we said in this month’s editorial (http://www.callapple.org/1978/08/01/an-a-p-p-l-e-editorial-2/). However, we still feel that the Disk II…
Perhaps this may be the first disk program published for Apple’s new Disk II. If so, a feather for our cap! The “SAVE” program, listed in column two will ask the user to input the file names of six disk programs, start recording on tape and hit return. SAVE will then consecutively load from disk and save to tape, in one operation, the six named programs. A neat way to make a tape for a friend from your disk collection….
The big news story of this issue is obviously the arrival in town of Disk II and Applesoft II ROM. Rather than do a review, we have hidden behind the pretext of an editorial to state our feelings on the failings of Disk II and A/S ROM. I’ve got a feeling I’m failing? (Oh dear! )) Applesoft II ROM for $100 is like buying 10K of memory for less than half price, since it frees that amount of RAM for…
Note: In line 400 after the first quote, hit the Control key and the “D” key at the same time. This is how the disk system responds to commands within a Basic program, with Control D in a print statement.
by John Covington Finally! !! Disk II is out. If you’re lucky, you will be able to play with one in your local computer store until yours arrives from Cupertino. That is what I have been doing this last week, and this article comes from using the disk and my varied background in Data Processing. Hopefully, I’ll be able to explain some of the HOWS and WHYS of the disk system and clear up some of the blind spots in…
