Apple IIGS System Disk

[mfumu@ss.apana.org.au (Willy)]

Alan Augusta <sales1@omegapower.com>

AA> Help, I recently purchased a Apple IIGS for my nephew who has a
AA> learning disability. I am not Apple literate, but the hardware
AA> appears to function. My problem is that there is no system disk.
AA> Any sugestions as to how I might purchase or get a copy of this
AA> disk?

Actually for the most recent update, version 6.0.1, there are six 3.5
inch 800K disks.  Apple has made these available as downloadable files
on a number of information services, and probably can be found on many
local BBSs as well.  Better yet see if you can find a local users
group and someone who'll supply you with a copy of the disks.  In any
case, don't pay any more than a reasonable fee for copying and for the
disks themselves.

I'd send them to you myself, but since I happen to be in Australia,
that seems a bit foolish.

Bill Robbins
   mfumu@ss.apana.org.au
   Sent with ANSITerm 2.1 at 11:41:34 AM on 25-Apr-96

   "When all else fails, throw the instructions away"


 are numbers from 128 to 255 left unused by text based editors.
However graphic based editors do not have this limitation, opening the
way for 127 special characters of all sorts, including the handsome
"curly" brackets and apostrophe.  (With IIGS desktop editors you get
the extra characters by typing a character key while holding down the
Option key.)  When you convert files using the "high ASCII" characters
to text, these characters automatically get the extra 128 subtracted
from their code and you end up with whatever "low ASCII" character is
represented by the result.

The solution is to change all "curly" brackets to "straight" ones before 
making
them into text files.  You could do this by loading them into a GS desktop
editor and change them one by one, but some GS desktop text editors give 
easier
ways of accomplishing this. For the one I know best, the desk accessory 
EGOed,
you can simply search and replace the offending characters with the normal
ones.
(If I'm not mistaken one of the preferences in EGOed allows you to
automatically
get curly brackets when typing the normal keyboard characters.  For the 
future
you may want to turn this feature off so that your files don't contain these
special quotes in the first place.)

The desktop publishing program GraphicWriter III allows converting
characters one way or the other when either saving or loading onto the
desktop.

Hope this helps.

Bill Robbins
   mfumu@ss.apana.org.au
   Sent with ANSITerm 2.1 at 11:40:17 AM on 25-Apr-96

   "Help!  I've called and I can't hang up!"