Re: 2E - 3.5" drive question

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) wrote:

>Supertimer <supertimer@aol.com> wrote:
>
>> dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) wrote:
>> 
>> >neither of Apple's 3.5" controllers
>> >support 5.25" drives.  (The UDC does, but not as well as the standard
>> >Apple controller.)
>> 
>> How so?  When I ran my DuoDisk with a UDC card back in my
>> IIe days, the UDC would let me run Apple UCSD Pascal, which
>> was pretty hard coded for 5.25 drives.
>
>Which version of Apple Pascal was this?  I would fully expect version
>1.3 to work, but earlier versions might not.

I don't remember which version, but it was the version that
would not run on 3.5 drives.  I had a Pascal based program
on 3.5 disk and tried to use a utility program to transfer the
boot files from my version of Pascal to that program disk
so I could make a 3.5 boot disk, but it didn't work.  I knew
then that the Pascal on the program disk was different than
the version of Pascal I had.

>I was under the impression that the UDC provides access to 5.25" drives
>through the SmartPort firmware (and ProDOS block driver), and doesn't
>support the standard Disk ][ controller card I/O addresses (equivalent
>of the IWM).
>
>Can you boot DOS 3.3 on a UDC?  How about copy-protected games which
>depend on the contents of the firmware?

It could boot DOS 3.3 and run some Electronic Arts copy
protected stuff.  It could not, however, run some of the
FTA stuff like Tetris2.