Re: Apple II newbie HELP!!!

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

Douglas Carroll <dcarroll@internetcds.com> wrote:

> I recently purchased a used Apple IIC Plus and really like the little
> computer, but I've never used an apple before and am having a hard time
> figuring out a few things.
> 
> 1)    The internal drive is a 3.5 and my external is a 5 1/4"..how do I
> make a "bootable" i.e. Prodos version of an internal 3.5..whenever I try
> and use my 5 1/4" copy of Copy II+ to trandfer the dos from a 5 1/4"
> disk to my 3.5 I get a "disk II only" error.  What the hell does that
> mean?

The "Copy DOS" function of Copy II+ is only applicable to DOS 3.3 disks.
DOS 3.3 is the last version of the original disk operating system for
the Apple II, which was superseded by ProDOS in 1984.

DOS 3.3 doesn't support 3.5" disks, though there are third-party
variants which add somewhat clumsy support (but a lot of DOS 3.3
applications won't work on anything other than 5.25" disk anyway.)

(On a DOS 3.3 disk, the disk operating system is not a normal file - it
is stored in a special reserved area of the disk, which is why a special
method is needed to copy it.)


To set up a bootable 3.5" ProDOS disk, just copy the file PRODOS over
from an existing bootable disk.  Depending on what you want to do with
the disk, you will also need a startup application, such as
BASIC.SYSTEM, or a program selector.

> 2)    Is it possible to copy games from a 5 1/4" disk to a 3.5 in order
> to fit a bigger program onto 1 3.5 disk?  I have an original copy of
> "The Ancient art of War" for the Apple II and I want to put it on a 3.5"
> diskette.

This depends on whether the program in question uses ProDOS or DOS 3.3,
and whether or not it is copy protected.

In general, if the program already uses ProDOS and is not copy
protected, then you should be able to copy it onto a 3.5" disk, by using
the "copy files" function in Copy II+.  (There are a few obscure
exceptions to this - some programs are overly dependent on 5.25" disks.)

If the program runs under DOS 3.3, or if it is copy protected, then it
is unlikely that you will be able to get it to work on a 3.5" disk.

In the case of programs which occupy more than one disk, but are not
copy protected and already run under ProDOS, the answer to this question
varies depending on the program.  Some such programs look for particular
files by the name of the disk, so you would be forced to use two or more
disks with different names.

Other programs check to see if the file is available on the current
disk, and if not, asks you to insert the expected disk.  AppleWorks is
an example of this - it requires two or more 5.25" disk sides, and will
prompt for disks as required, but will run happily from a single 3.5"
disk without any disk swapping prompts.

> P.S.  What does the "Keyboard" button on the IIC+ do?  It doesn't seem
> to do anything!

I would expect that on the the IIc+, it changes the keyboard layout
between the standard QWERTY (Sholes) layout and the American Simplified
Keyboard (Dvorak).  This should be very obvious, because all the keys
will generate different characters.

I'd have to dig out my technical reference manual to confirm this, and
it is rather buried at the moment.

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz
Snail mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand