Re: Apple /// Help?

[spector@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article dempson@atlantis.actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) writes...
>
>Yes.  The Apple III has its own native operating system called SOS
>(Superior Operating System).  This uses the same file system as
>ProDOS, but the applications are not interchangeable.  Most data files

	Actually SOS stands for "Sophicated Operating System". At one
point I believe it was referred to as "Sarah's Operating System", taken 
from a code-name given to the Apple III. It was the name of a designer's
young daugther (I recall that's how the Lisa got it's name too :-)

>There is a third-party Apple IIe emulation card for the Apple III
>which gives you a 128K IIe, I think.

	It was called the Titan ///+//e to be exact, and emulated 
an unenhanced 128K Apple IIe. Apparently you could replace the on-
board 6502 with a 65C02, but it was still more or less unenhanced. 

>The Apple III contains practically no ROM.  All it has is a very
>rudimentary debugger and enough code to boot from the internal 5.25"
>drive.  All device support (keyboard, video, serial port, joystick,
>printer port, disk drives, ProFile, other add-on devices, etc.) is
>provided by device drivers loaded from the SOS boot disk, which must
>be installed as required.

	There is some form of RAM Diagnostic within the firmware. I'm
not sure how to invoke it, but if you remove the keyboard mini light
lamp (or the one installed is burned out) the test will start upon a
cold-boot. 

>It might appear to work (I know of one person who has done it, with
>problems), but I wouldn't recommend it.  The Apple III expects a

	I was the one who tried this. It worked fine expect for the
fact the color information was incorrect (wrong colors displaced or
repeating patterns of the same color where missing colors should be).
At a later time I noticed the monitor would shift to a kind of pink
hue and flicker, yet I'm not sure whether this damage occured before
_or_ after connecting the GS RGB to the III. I had only briefly tested
the screen once or twice before storing it in a closet (it had other 
problems). I wouldn't recommend it either unless you don't mind risking
your AppleColor RGB screen. 

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

Mitchell Spector
spector@vax2.concordia.ca