Re: Apple IIc Plus System Disks?

[schmidtd <schmidtd@my-deja.com>]

On May 23, 10:03 am, Your name <bo...@fake.com> wrote:
> Hello, I recently acquired an Apple IIc Plus computer, monitor and stand
> all in the original boxes.

Wow.  Nice find.  The IIc Plus is the fastest stock Apple II produced.

> Everything's hooked up and working, but I have no disks.

A common occurrence, for sure.  You'll want to get familiar with
ADTPro, which will give you a (relatively) easy avenue to move digital
disk images down to your IIc+ for reconstitution to physical floppies.
http://adtpro.sourceforge.net
Take a look at the serial connections part, then the bootstrapping
part.  That will get you some experience in building a bootable floppy
disk, and will be good practice for making more.

> It's been so many yeas since
> I've used something this ancient. I'm 42 and have been using computers
> since the mid-80s, but can't recall what's needed to get any use out of
> this. Guess I need to wrap my head around the idea of a system where each
> program you use requires disks that be loaded.

Yep, this is before the age of non-floppy media.  Nowadays we have
various solid-state "hard drives" that can hold a lot of information,
but even those are up against some architectural limitations of the
operating systems of the day.

> My question is where to begin?  Can anything be done without disks?

Hit Ctrl-Reset after powering the thing on to get to an Applesoft
prompt.  This is in the era of interpreted BASIC at the command
prompt.

10 PRINT "HELLO, WORLD!"
RUN

> What commands can be used? What
> is a good resource for the beginner with this system? Any tips or pointers
> are appreciated.

Hmmm.  That's pretty open-ended.  Do you want to program in BASIC?  Do
you want to program in assembly language?  Or do you just want to run
programs that are already out there?

> P.S. I have a whole box of old Mac software from a system I briefly had
> years ago. Can any of that be used?

Nope.  The disks themselves might be useful to you, though, as DSDD
media is getting harder to come by.