Re: Novice Questions

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

Tom Owad writes ...
> 
> I'm working on setting up my Apple IIgs and am having some trouble.  The
> computer is a ROM 1 with a RAMFast/SCSI card, 80 MB HD, two 5.25" drives
> and two 3.5" drives.
> 
> I am unable to get the computer to reconize the 3.5" drives.  They're all
> daisy chained to the onboard disk port but only the 5.25" drives work,
> though I've tried disconnecting various ones.  The drives will not mount
> on the desktop, nor will they object.  What can I do to get these working?

     First, the order of daisy chaining must be 3.5" drives first with 5.25"
drives on the end. (Note: Avoid plugging/unplugging drives while power is
ON.)

     3.5" diskette drives do not mount on the desktop per se. Instead, you
see a 3.5" disk icon if there is a mountable volume in the drive.

     Another consideration is that, at least with some setups, a 3.5"
diskette needs to be present during the first few seconds of power-up in
order to guarantee that the 3.5" drives will be recognized. (If a diskette is
not present, there is a chance that the drives will not be recognized later
on.)

> 
> I also have a "SuperSonic Multi-Channel Digitized Stereo Card" to install,
> but without any manual.  Do I merely need to plug it in and it works?
> There's a seven pin cable coming out the keyboard side of the card.  What
> is it for?
>

     You can plug IIgs Stereo boards into any Slot. The cable goes to the
J-25 molex connector toward the front and right part of the motherboard. The
cable carries the sound signals used by the stereo card-- the Slot holds the
card and supplies power.

     Usually, only 'IIgs sound' goes through the stereo card. Old Apple II
sound (e.g. as from old 8-bit games) is mixed with mono IIgs for output at
the speaker or Sound jack. (The Sound jack is a stereo jack; but, both
channels come from the same line.)  For more about this stuff, see
http://home.swbell.net/rubywand/Csa2SOUND.html


> Just now I double clicked on "Prodos.system" and now whenever I try to
> boot the system I get a "Disk BOOT.DRIVE may be damaged.  Please move data
> to another disk" error.  I'm running System 6.0.1.
 ....

     Don't know what may have gone wrong. You could try booting ProDOS-8 from
diskette and starting Copy II Plus v7.x--8.x to VERIFY your PRODOS and
SYSTEM/P8 files. Perhaps they or some other file on your boot volume is
corrupted. Sometimes, scrapping the Desktop file in ICONS/ helps.



Rubywand