Re: Copying IIe disks on a IIgs

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

Kevin Smith <livepoet@together.net> wrote:

> I've never owned a IIe, so I haven't had much experience with using
> IIe programs on a IIgs.  A friend of mine recently gave me a load of
> software on 5.25 disks for a IIe, and I'd like to copy it onto my
> IIgs' harddrive. 

For the purposes of potentially copying somehting onto a hard drive,
there are effectively four classes of IIe software:

1. Programs which use standard versions of ProDOS, and are not copy
protected.

2. Programs which use standard versions of DOS 3.3, and are not copy
protected.

3. Programs which either have no operating system, or use a more obscure
one like Apple Pascal, but are not copy protected.

4. Programs which are copy protected.

All four types are bootable on a IIe, but in general terms, only the
first type (standard ProDOS) can be copied to a ProDOS-based hard drive
(and even then you might run into problems, if the game is doing
something like hard-coding the name of the floppy).

There are a few cases of DOS 3.3 programs written in Applesoft BASIC
which can be converted to ProDOS without too much effort (as long as you
can go through the program and make a few changes).

Otherwise, programs of the second type (standard DOS 3.3) cannot be
copied as files, but might work with "DOS 3.3 Launcher", which sets up
the floppy disk as a 140K image file on the hard drive.

Programs of the third type (not ProDOS or DOS 3.3, but not copy
protected) are unlikely to work with DOS 3.3 Launcher, so you are better
off leaving them on floppies and booting them.

Programs of the fourth type (copy protected) can't even be copied unless
you deprotect them.  In a few cases (old games) they can be turned into
a simple binary file, but even then they might not work under ProDOS.

> However, the finder cannot recognize the disks and asks me to initialize
> them.

If GS/OS can't even read the disks, then they are probably the fourth
type (copy protected).

You can read files from DOS 3.3 and Pascal 5.25" disks under GS/OS if
you have the appropriate File System Translators installed.  This won't
help much for getting old applications running - it is mainly intended
for copying data files from legacy disks.

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz
Snail mail: P O Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand