Re: question on Standards for files

[cturley2@aol.com (Cturley2)]

Most of you probably know that I seldom (if ever) use the PC platform or
machines, as I like using Apples.  So, I seldom concern myself with the needs
and desires of accessing to; write, read or format a ProDOS floppy disk, hard
drive or other storage device on a PC, WINDOW based machine.

I've seen a lot posted from people wanting to see support and the ability for
PC based Apple II/IIgs emulators to permit such and with the use of the various
WINDOWS and other PC machine OS systems also to allow and support this ability.


As yet, I've found no programs alone - (without the need of special RARE
hardware cards and such) for the PC - to allow it to write to a real ProDOS
floppy disk or ProDOS media storage device.  It's unlikely that anybody will
ever develop and release such PC software only for such a thing either.

What I'm wondering is why these people don't just settle for the use of
formatting, reading and writing in the standard Mac format with media storage
devices and with floppy disks?

I've found two PC program bundles, src. code, included with one of them and so
on - that will allow this to be done with both emulators and most all of the PC
operating systems also.  I thought that in the event anybody wants to be able
to do this, I'd provide them from the GS WorldView online ezine - Jan2000 issue
for their downloads and the PC users needs with such.   

They can be downloaded from the URL and folder noted below.

http://www.grin.net/~cturley/gsezine/GS.WorldView/v2000/Jan/Special.Archives/

The archives and text file info for them are hdexp.zip, hdexp.zip.READ.ME.txt
and Transmac.v4.0.zip  (which also contains detailed documentation for its
use).

I've seen a lot of requests for them in several Mac Usenet newsgroups also,
which provoked me into finding them to provide with downloads as zip archives. 
One is a shareware, the other is a freeware - with no restrictions on
distribution.

There's also an article you can read that covers this option on the PC with
several other commercial programs that permit it mentioned also - available in
the GS WorldView Jan2000 issue in the folder: Articles.News.and.Reviews -
linked from the main index page.

http://www.grin.net/~cturley/gsezine/GS.WorldView/v2000/Jan/

The text file is named "Mount_Apple_3.5_on_PC's.txt".

Almost all of the Apple II models that can run ProDOS v2.0x and GS/OS (with the
IIgs) can read and write to a Mac floppy disk or media storage device. You can
even launch GS/OS apps from them with the IIgs - (but, not ProDOS apps).  

So, why not just settle for this ability rather than go on some endless quest
to make a PC program that supports direct read/write format of a ProDOS floppy
disk or media storage device?

Looking forward to your reply on this.

Cheers,
Tom