Re: Need info on A2 card

[Eric Smith <eric-no-spam-for-me@brouhaha.com>]

dalloff@gcfn.org (Dave Althoff Jr) writes:
> Indeed...the proFile was designed to work with the Apple ///, and I think
> it just plugs into a built-in parallel port on that.  Later, Apple used
> the same drive on the Lisa, but I think you still need an Apple /// to do
> a low-level format on the thing.

To LLF a Profile, you need an Apple ///, and special firmware installed
in the Profile, and a jumper installed in the Profile during part of the
process.

Once a Profile has been used on a Lisa (or Macintosh XL), Apple says that
it can't be used on an Apple II or Apple /// without sending it in to
Level 1 service to be reformatted.  I believe the problem is that the
Lisa will write non-zero tag bytes to the disk blocks, and the Apple II
and Apple /// don't like that.  It should be possible to write a program
for the Apple II or Apple /// to simply write all zeros data to every
block on the Profile, including the tag bytes, and avoid the need to
do a LLF.

I searched for TWENTY YEARS to get the special Profile firmware and
Apple /// software needed to LLF the Profile, and only just got a copy a
few months ago.