Re: Q: Can you read IBM DOS 3.5" disks on a ][?

[nathan@cco.caltech.edu (Nathan Mates)]

In article <lazarus.long-0606961710470001@longgpc.sea.adobe.com>,
Lazarus I. Long <lazarus.long@adobe.com> wrote:
>I know there's an utility for Macintosh disks
>is there one for DOS disks?

>i'm not talking GS, i'm talking ][..  thanks!

   This dang question keeps coming up we should have a FAQ for it.

1) IBM PC and Apple II 5.25" disk formats are written out differently
at a hardware level. Without specialized hardware (from the Apple II
side, this means you pretty much must have a PC Transporter card and
a PC 5.25" drive connected to that), you CANNOT read one on the other.
Apparently bundled with the PC Transporter card was copying software
that could copy files from disks on one side to the another.

   I think the PC transporter was only available for the //e and GS;
not sure on the ][+.

2) Same thing for IBM PC 3.5" disks. I think you could use the PC
Transporter to read 720K (not 1.44MB) disks using its own
software. Without one of those cards, it's pretty much impossible.

Nathan "Now that classes are done, I SHOULD make a WWW page on this
dang subject and get a shorter middle name" Mates
-- 
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~nathan/      <*>
# And he said to them, "To you has been given the secret of the
# Kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in 
# parables" Mark 4:11, NRSV