Re: Apple /// Help?

[jsr4@ukc.ac.uk (Monts)]

In article <DFMDsJ.EA5@actrix.gen.nz>,
David Empson <dempson@atlantis.actrix.gen.nz> wrote:
>In article <445a0g$f0a@Mercury.mcs.com>, Greg Linder <fluke@MCS.COM> wrote:
>> 	I have come into possession of an Apple ///, without manuals or any
>> type of monitor. I can get into the debugger, but it refuses to boot
>> Prodos 1.1 or Dos 3.3. Does the apple /// need a different dos?
>
>Yes.  The Apple III has its own native operating system called SOS
>(Superior Operating System).  This uses the same file system as

Thought it was "Sophisticated Operating System" ?
The OS looks *very* dated nowadays but I suppose it was really good
for it's time, and has a lot of the basic ideas behind quite a few
more modern OS's...

As for booting, was there ever a way of booting from a hard drive? Or 
did you always have to boot from floppy and just access the files on 
hard disk as though they were a big floppy? 
Obviously a card for driving the hard drives would need a boot rom, but
did anyone ever prodice one? (I'm curious, I've got a /// with a couple
of ProFile 4Mb hard drives, and it's really irritating having to boot
from floppy to access them).

[deleted]

>In this mode, you should be able to use much old DOS 3.3 software, but
>not anything which requires 64K or a IIe or a later machine.

Out of interest, I picked up a IIe over the summer, someone gave it to 
me thinking it was a regular II machine. What were the specs for this
machine? How compatible was it with the II? 

I also got a Mitac machine which appears to be a II or IIe but in a 
more "standard" box, with TV and disk interface on board. I seem to 
remember it was called "great little computer" or something like that, 
and had some Japanese characters on the keyboard. Anyone know anything
of this machine? I plugged a disk drive into it from an old II and
just got a lot of smoke... but the machine seems to power up ok and
Basic seems to work...

>> Where might I get a tech manual for it?
>I don't think there is a technical manual for the Apple III.  It was
>a much more "closed" machine than the Apple II, and very little was
>released by Apple in the way of technical documentation.  There might
>be third-party books that fill the gap.
>
>The Apple III Owners' manual and SOS manuals contain enough technical
>information to whet your appetite, but don't go into much low-level
>detail.

Yeah, I hate that about all the stuff I got with my ///, all the manuals
seem to be there but don't really explain anything at all. I don't know
of any tech manuals, and all the third party stuff I've got (eg. ProFile
manuals, Software manuals etc) seems to be equally bad...

>(I have a few Apple III manuals, but I've only briefly seen the actual
>machine.)

:)
they're not bad... very difficult to work with due to the lack of ROM
and the need to load drivers all the time. Surprised the single sided
drives weren't upgraded to double sided for the /// machines...

ta

Jules



--
 <9~      ..      ..        ---..   ..   .--..---         ..      ..       <9~
 (W) ___.'  `    '  `    .-    ||   ||   |-- `--.  -.    '  `    '  `.___  (W)
             `..'    `..'   __.'`._.'`.__`._.__.'    `..'    `..'
                     Julian Richardson * University of Kent