Re: making GS system disk from an Emulator??

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

"Bob Bazley" <Bobbazley@earthlink.com> wrote:

>Having just recieved my Apple GS but with no disks, would it be possible to
>use one of the GS emulators running on a PC to create system disks for the
>Real GS? would the PC be able to produce GS disks on its disk drives (with
>the help of the emulator I guess!!) anyhelp is welcome.

Only if you want to invest in a high density 1.44MB floppy drive for
the IIGS.  Sadly, these will run you used more than a regular PC
1.44MB floppy drive will run you new.

See, the GS and Mac 800k format (CGR) is incompatible with the
PC's MFM low level formatting.  However, all computers,
GS, Mac, or Windows PC, use MFM at 1.44MB.  But the standard
GS drives are 800k drives.  That's the problem.

If you really want to make disks for the GS this way, Shreeves
(Shreaves?) Systems (don't have their web address handy) sells
the required high density controller card.  You can smuck the
SuperDrive from a Mac user.

However, I'd rather invest that money on a Focus hard drive
from http://www.allelec.com/ Alltech Electronics.  Because at
$59, that would probably be what you would spend for a SuperDrive
controller from Shreeves and a used SuperDrive from a Mac
user.

Even if you got the SuperDrive, you would not be using
the emulator (XGS, the only one for the Windows PC) to
do the transfers.  No, you would be directly taking the MS-DOS
disks containing the .shk files over to the IIGS.  It is the IIGS
that must read the MS-DOS disks and extract the .shk files.
But since you will need a disk to boot FIRST before you
can run the OS and GS Shrinkit (compression utility that
makes and extracts .shk files), well you can see the catch-22.

Well, if you get System 6.0.1 up and running, probably with
the Focus hard drive, you can hook up a modem directly
to the IIGS ports.  They can do 56k with a modem or
null-modem and 230k with AppleTalk.  Hey Earthlink
might even provide the type of account needed for the IIGS
itself to go on the web and download its own software!