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Re: PC to GS serial xfer progress report

bw wrote:
In exchange for a favor last weekend my neighbor gives me complete AppleIIgs sytem that was in closet for 15 years. Mint looking, just like a time capsule, keyboard does not even have any stains. No documents, just CPU, one drive, ImagewriterII and a dozen 800k floppies. Appleworks, system, golf games, Broderbund printshop. Opened case, all slots empty, dead battery, Apple memory expansion card has 256k soldered on board, remaining sockets are empty. 

Standard configuration.


Soldered new lithium batt into mainboard.
Plugged everything together, boots into GS/OS Finder 1.2, sharp color.
Tried POST, success. Control panel, success, switch to fast system. Success.
Miniputt, success
Appleworks, success,
Apple tour, success
Apple guide to Appleworks, success.
Jack Nicklaus golf, boots, but seems to have chronic rain, guessing a virus.
Extremely unlikely--there are practically no viruses for the IIgs platform. There may simply be something wrong with the disk.
Check online, find out that pre-mac apples are now antiques, with specialty support. 
Read some FAQs, check c.s.a2 and see some signs of life.
Look for RS232 null modem cable, but decide to try to make my own.
Two pieces of 22awg solid hookup wire. Twist together, push wire ends into GS modem port leftcenter, and rightcenter hole. Other ends attach to pins 2 and 3 of COM1 port of backup Compaq486, Win3.1 Follow instructions in ADTgs. Put files onto PC, and open windows terminal, set to COM1. All defaults used, including 1200 baug. Set GS control panel settings for XON/XOFF and hardware handshaking OFF, 1200 baud. 
Reset GS into command prompt ] IN#2
On PC sent text mode file adtgs.dmp

Success !!
Hex characters appear on GS monitor. About a minute later, at end of dump, I see 
BSAVE ADT, A$803,L$A14,S6,D1
STEP
00/000A:4C (FF)
00/0000E:00 .Trace
* (flashing cursor)

PC terminal off, I try entering BRUN ADT at cursor, but nothing.
Reboot GS/OS, no ADT file anywhere. I'm guessing now, time to do some more reading on the web, look for AppleBasic command manual, etc.
ADT only works for 5.25 inch drives?? I thought 3.5 inch drives were standard. 

Read the FAQ on ADT.  (Google is your friend.  ;-)

It only supports 5.25" disks and disk image files.

The transfer you attempted requires that the Apple II be booted with
DOS (since BSAVE is a DOS command), so you will first need to transfer
an ASCII dump of DOS 3.3 to the IIgs, then INITialize a 5.25" disk to
create a 5.25" disk containing a bootable DOS 3.3.

You then boot this disk and then perform the steps you described to
transfer ADT to the disk.  Then ADT will be ready to go.

But first, you need to get one or more 5.25" disk drives for your
machine.
I'm looking for some TMS4256-15 chips to bring the memory up to maximum. Will 41256 chips be compatible with my 4256 chips?? Need to add a second 800k drive. If I unsolder the 4256 chips and solder in some sockets, can I use 1 meg x 1 chips to get a total of 4 Megs on the expansion board? Or should I just get a 4 Meg board?
The second 800KB 3.5" drive is a nice addition, but a 5.25" drive will be more useful for many of the disk images available on the web. If you want to run GSOS, the GUI-based IIgs operating system, you will need more RAM (as you are trying to do) and will want a hard disk system of some kind. (I'd recommend Rich Dreher's Compact Flash For Apple card.) Once you have a hard drive, you won't need another 3.5" drive, except as a spare.
You cannot use 1 Mbit chips with the Apple IIgs Memory Expansion card, but you can fill up the empty sockets with 41256's and have base memory plus 1MB. This is not a large memory for GSOS, but is _plenty_ for standalone games and applications.
4MB cards come up on eBay pretty regularly (usually in the $40-$80 range), or Bill Garber (here on csa2) may be able to build one for you. 

-michael

New Applesoft BASIC interface for NadaNet networking!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/