Re: PC TransPorter: What are its non-IBM uses?

[gospodin@clubi.ie (Vincent Quinn)]

In article <77evs3$shi$3@lynx.unm.edu>,
buggie@ben09.unm.edu (stephen e buggie) wrote:

>I have absolutely no interest in using PC TransPorter to run old IBM
>software.   BUT, I heard somewhere, long ago, that this card has other
>uses, such as a RAM card 640K.  Is this true???

Yes, under GS/OS (and I presume ProDOS) you'll get 752K (rather than the
PC-side 640K) of RAM disk out of it. You have to patch ProDOS first though
so that it can use the PCT's RAM - the utility for doing the patch comes on
the PCT installation disk.

>Can it also be used as a db-19 disk drive controller?  Can it run one or
>two platinum 3.5 800K drives on a IIe???

Yes - after you have patched ProDOS. Under MS-DOS the PCT can run up to
four drives (floppies can be a mix of one/two 360K 5.25" and/or one/two
720K 3.5", you can also have up to 30Mb of C: and up to 30Mb of D: hard
drives (actually these 'hard drives' are container files that show up, but
cannot be accessed, under ProDOS).If you had the PCT in slot 5, under
ProDOS the PCT RAM disk will be seen as slot 5 drive 1, the floppy drive
with the largest capacity as slot 5 drive 2. That's it - no mapping of
additional drives to other slots: you get the RAM disk and one floppy drive
which you can't boot from (I believe that at least on the GS, there is a
utility that will allow you to boot from the PCT RAM disk - I don't know
what it is though).

I have an Apple 3.5" drive hooked up to my PCT: it works perfectly both as
an MS-DOS and as a GS drive, except just occasionally a disk formatted in
it can't be read on my regular 3.5" drive which is hooked up to the
Smartport.

Vincent Quinn