Re: New IIgs owner.

["Roger Johnstone" <rojaws@mac.com>]

In article <20011229154113.08833.00001615@mb-mm.aol.com>, supertimer@aol.com
(Supertimer) wrote:

> I am sure there is a way to get it to run Apple II disks.  The reason
> is that many years ago I read a review of something called the
> Spartan emulator for the Commodore 64.  This was a box that
> was simply a clone of the Apple II Plus complete with seven slots.
> You plugged the entire box into the Commodore 64 and the 64
> now had Apple II Plus mode.  Part of the mod was that the 1541
> drives read and write Apple II Plus disks.
>
> What I don't remember is if this was all done in software or
> whether you had to crack open the 1541 to plug in a new ROM
> chip.  I'm sure a little research will reveal the answer.  The kind
> of research that involves trips to libraries that is.  ;-)  This kind
> of stuff was before the world wide web.
>
> By the way, I am certain of one thing and that is that one of the
> advantages of the emulator I mentioned was that you did not
> have to go out and buy a Disk II and controller.

Applefritter has an excellent article on the Spartan at
http://www.applefritter.com/appleclones/spartan/

"A particularly horrifying addition was the 'DOS Card', an Apple II disk
controller that you installed *inside* the Commodore 1541 disk drive,
between the drive mechanism and the 1541 logic board. In 1541 mode, the 'DOS
Card' simply passed signals through from the 1541 logic, but at the flick of
a switch (F6, I believe) it would take over the mechanism and turn the thing
into an Apple II drive. As you can imagine, the potential for grave damage
to both Apple II and 1541 diskettes was enormous and often realized."


--
Roger Johnstone, Invercargill, New Zealand
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