CDR /Linux ---> Apple - Issues Getting Software into the //GS :-(

["Marvin Miller" <marvinmiller@hotmail.com>]

I just posted this message to the A2 mailing list and was hoping it might
prove useful for someone to archive.
It outlines the issues I had with xferring data to the //gs and may be of
help with anyone looking to use Linux
to move data back & forth to the //gs.

Best;
Marvin Miller


Hi Phoenyx et al,

I got the issues resolved in regards to burning a CD-ROM for the Apple //gs
to recognize. Some of the key issues as to why my system would not read the
CD-ROM were because the operating system I was using was version 6.0 and not
6.01.

Once I had 6.01 installed, the CD-ROM read the IS0-9660 disk with no issues.
Still, the chicken before the egg routine on the Apple //GS has been a
headache in the least.

I tried null modem cable, but this would not work as I needed to xfer more
than 32 megs of data. It seems none of the comm programs really work with
either multiple partitions or HFS drives. In my case, 640 megs neccessitated
a HFS volume that no comm programs would recognize.

Because the only O/S I had on disk was 6.0, and my unfamiliarity with the
GS/OS, I thought that 6.0 was the same as 6.01. It's NOT!!! It seems 6.01
has some fixes related to reading CD-ROM's. As well, with the addition of
6.01, there have been zero crashes as opposed to several running 6.0

The easiest way to get the data to the //gs seems to be using burned CD's.
ISO-9660 causes problems though because of the 8.3 filenames. This means
that 90% of the stuff you x-fer ends up truncated into an unreadable mess.

The conclusion I came up with was using Linux. Here's how it worked. I
formatted a SCSI drive from the //GS into a single 2 gig HFS volume. I than
plugged it into the Linux system & booted up. From a Linux command prompt I
than typed these two KEY commands;

[1] insmod hfs <return>
[2] mount -t hfs /dev/sdb /mnt -o fork=double

At that point the ReHat Linux 6.2' KDE GUI could read & write to the HFS
disk. These commands took a great deal of work to come up with (thanks
Dennis Jenkins!!). I could than xfer the CD's data to the HFS drive using
the Linux GUI.

Once that was done I could install the HFS drive back into the //GS and
presto, there it was. Now I can organize the data and bring the HFS drive
back into the Windows environment to make a HFS CD that will be readable
using all the HFS features like long file names etc.

NERO burning ROM (cd writer prog) will run in Windows and write a HFS CD.
Provided there is an HFS drive with data on it available at startup. Whether
Windows recognizes it or not is of no issue. As long as it's there NERO will
see it and dump the contents to a HFS CD.

So, after a really long and arduous process, it looks like I'll have a fully
readable HFS CD-ROM that my //GS will love!

I thought I'd post this whole mess as it took an enormous amount of effort
to figure out the proper way to do this. Because I have no Mac & null modem
cable won't cut it, and I had no 6.01 disks - I had to go this route to get
the !@#%$^$& data into the //GS. Along the way, I learned a lot of things I
really didn't want to ;-) but it's done now. I'll post a copy of this to the
comp.sys.apple2 group in the hopes somebody archives those Linux commands.
Once you have those it's pretty easy - getting them is pretty hard if you
have no Linux know-how.

Best Everyone;
Marvin Miller