Re: ProDOS 8 Drivers for IDE Drives

[jaqas@my-deja.com]

Thanks for the feedback.  I will check for the article on ground (I
remember reading it a few days ago) and from memory the requirements
were handled by adding a ROM to the controller board with specific
values at particular addresses.

I am fairly new getting back into the Apple II line having been caught
up in PC's for the last n years..... how much of the software around
still requires DOS 3.3 to run or has most of it been hacked now so it
can run from a ProDOS disk?

My other though was to partition the drive into the equivilent of many
5.25" disks, and patch the RWTS routine in DOS 3.3 so requests for
drives in the slot with the controller card went to the drive for the
data.  If mot stuff can run through ProDOS then I won't bother with
this.  Pity DOS 3.3 only allows 2 devices per slot (is this right... I
remember reading it somewhere) otherwise the hard disk could appear to
be a lot of 5.25" drives.

JAQ

In article <8j8g3g$ur8$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  bobryan9@my-deja.com wrote:
> In article <395794b8.246634968@news>,
>   CUTblakeney@home.com (Jeff Blakeney) wrote:
> > On Fri, 23 Jun 2000 02:42:52 GMT, jaqas@my-deja.com wrote:
> >
> > >Can anyone recommend a source of technical information on writing
> > >ProDOS 8 drivers for a //e
> >
> > I'm not sure where it is documented but you might want to make your
> > interface appear to the Apple II as a standard block storage device
> > and then you probably wouldn't even need to write a driver.
> >
> > However, I'm just guessing at this as my memory of the technical
> > details and such involved with this sort of thing is very fuzzy.
> >
>
> I was going to suggest this.  The Focus drive requires no driver.  A
> SCSI hard drive requires no driver either.  If the drive interface is
> designed in the correct way, Prodos will automatically recognize it
and
> be able to read from the disk.  I found an article on Ground that went
> into some detail on this.  As Jeff B. hinted, if you make your
> interface appear to the Apple II as a standard block storage device
(as
> most mass storage interfaces for the Apple II do) you don't need to
> write a driver.  This may require extra circuitry and I don't know if
> the tradeoff is worth it.  Code a driver for the card, or modify the
> interface to interact with the Apple II like a standard block storage
> device.
>
> Bob
>
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> Before you buy.
>


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