Re: exit

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

In article connolly@cc.memphis.edu writes...
>
>A query for connoisseurs of antique hardware:
> 
>A deserving local lad asked me the following question last night.  He owns a
>Lisa 2b and an Apple III.  He wants to connect the two so he can use the hard
>and floppy drives on the Lisa from the Apple III running in IIe emulation
>mode. He asked whether it would be possible to make the III run Appletalk,
>using the RS-232 port on that machine (which is either really or pseudo-ly in
>Slot 2) and so get to the Lisa's drives.   BTW, the III has a Titan 128k card,
>which is supposedly the only RAM in use in IIe mode.

	To start with, Apple //e emulation was non-existant on the Apple III
which was introduced in May 1980, and then later re-introduced (due to a number
of technical problems) in December 1981. As you may or may not know, the
Apple //e wasn't announced until January of 1983 -- long after the III had 
been around. However, Apple did design the Apple III to be backwards compatible
with the Apple II of that time, which of course was the Apple ][ Plus. Emulation
was not built-in and required a special software-emulator disk. This loaded
a copy of the Apple ][ character set, Applesoft, boot-strap, Monitor and all
else into the III's memory -- where it remained until you did an CTRL-OA-RESET.
Unfortunately, Apple Computer wanted to Apple II to be unpopular and die, so
they actually ADDED hardware within the III to *limit* Apple II emulation.
All you get is a 48k Apple ][ Plus (1 MHz), 40 columns text, Low-Res and 
Hi-Res graphics, even though the III had as much as 256k RAM, 1.8-2 Mhz
speed and Double-Hi-Res graphics (among other things). Apparently you could 
do some hardware modifications to undo what Apple Engineers did, but I don't 
have the information available. Even with those mods, you may just end up with
emulation of a souped up Apple ][ Plus. There was an Apple III Plus introduced
in December 1983, though I doubt it could emulate the //e (Apple discontinued
the entire III line only 4 months later -- not too mention hadn't done any
SOS updates since 1982).

>Can anyone out there help?  Does he need a IIe Appletalk card (if there ever
>was such a thing -- I think there was)?  And what software?

	The Apple II Workstation Card gave the (enhanced) Apple IIe 
AppleTalk capabilities. While it was possible to plug certain Apple II cards 
into III (Grappler+, UniDisk 3.5 controller, etc) I doubt the AppleTalk card 
would be compatible. It's possible Apple or some 3rd party wrote AppleTalk 
drivers for SOS, though it doesn't seem likely. Keep in mind you'd also need 
some form of AppleTalk capabilities on the Lisa 2 (which to my knowledge the
Lisa never had, although it's possible the Macintosh[Lisa] XL did, having
been released the same year AppleTalk came about).

>Even better: can anyone think of simpler way to do this?

	Both the Lisa 2 and Apple III had a serial port, I suppose you
could connect a null-modem cable between the two this way. Certainly this
creates a two-way data transfer, but not quite what your friend wants. BTW,
if the Lisa is connected to an Apple ProFile HD, you can easily connect it
to the Apple III (you'd probably need the correct controller card though).
Apple produced an external 5.25 floppy drive for the III FYI, and plugged
directly into a back port connector. It looked like a cross between the
old Disk ][ and Apple UniDisk 5.25 drives.. :) 

>Leo A. Connolly    Foreign Languages & Literatures    University of Memphis
>connolly@msuvx1.memphis.edu             Formerly "Memphis State University"

Mitchell Spector
m_spect@pavo.concordia.ca / spector@vax2.concordia.ca