Re: trying to get an Apple II GS going for fun...

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

wizard@direct.ca (Astro) wrote:

>supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) wrote:
>
>It's a bit of a roller-coaster ride.
>
>>Use the same method you did [to convert the System 6.0.1 system disk]
>> to convert all six System 6.0.1 disks...
>
>Yep that project is definately on the agenda. Now when I ran the
>system disk file through Stuffit on the Mac it turned into [expanded
>into] a .SEA file. According to one reference material I picked up
>along the way, a .SEA file is a "Self-extracting archive (Might be
>Mac, Might be Shrinkit archive)"... which is kinda weird cause it
>didn't seem to self-extract, I ran it through ShrinkWrap and it copied
>as a disk image onto the floppy. What I was more expecting was
>something like a .IMG or a .DSK file representing a disk image, but I
>guess I may have been a little off-track in this [see below]...

Well, there are disk images for real computers (Macs and IIGS)
and there are disk images for emulators.  .IMG and .DSK are
for emulators and are somewhat more of a pain (and some formats
are impossible) to convert back to disks for real computers.

DiskCopy is the Mac's way of storing disk images, so this
qualifies as a disk image for a real computer.  There are also
disk images designed for the IIGS.  These are stored with
either the .shk or the .sdk suffix.  I know, .shk stores files in a
compressed archive, right?  But ShrinkIt! GS also has the
option of storing compressed disk images.

Apple's site used to include images in both DiskCopy and
ShrinkIt! GS image formats.  Thus, a real IIGS user could
also extract a working disk as a whole disk rather than as
single files.  You are using the DiskCopy images, which
are similar but are meant to be extracted on Macs.  Since
neither were meant for emulators, .IMG and .DSK do not
come into the picture.

>>folder of each one until you find an FST file named HFS.FST.  Copy
>>that file to the FST folder of the System 6.0.1 "system disk" that you
>>currently have.  Once you reboot, you'll be able to read and write
>>and even format Mac HFS 800k disks!
>
>Cool. Umm... can it be copied in there in addition to the other 2
>FST's that are already in there? I assume it can provided the disk
>capacity can handle it. The more FST's, the more kinds of disks you
>can read at once? Or is it just 1 at a time?

Yes, it can be copied in addition to the two FSTs already there.
You are correct in assuming that the system software will support
as many disk formats as you install FSTs for and that the only
limit is the number of FSTs available to install and the capacity
of the disk to hold those FSTs.

I am pretty sure you have room on the System Disk downloaded
from Apple to install the HFS FST.  If not, go into the System
folder and double click on the Fonts folder within the System
folder.  You can delete all of the fonts except Shaston, I think.
Shaston is used in the menu bar and dialog boxes.  That should
free up space.

If a hard disk is installed in the future, naturally, you'd want to
install all the FSTs at one time, but that's another story...

>>Keep that HFS.FST file handy too because you can also use it when
>>your System 5.0.4 disks come.
>
>Yeppers.
>
>>You should also take a look at the "synthLAB" disk...
>
>Will do, I am into music apps on my PC so that should be extra-fun!!!

Cool!  Don't forget to borrow the speakers from the PC or use
headphones.  The built in speaker on the IIGS is like...well, it
is like the built in speaker in PCs.  You wouldn't want to hear
your sound card through the PC speaker.  You don't want to
hear the IIGS' built in sound system (an Ensoniq 32-channel
wavetable synthesizer, absolutely state of the art for 1986,
used in professional synthesizers by Ensoniq throughout the
1980s) through the IIGS' equivalent of the PC speaker either.
Thus, external amplified speakers or a set of headphones is
a must for IIGS music.

>Now onto a couple of brick walls I have run into...
>
>Nothing happens when I try to double-click on objects. A single-click
>definately hi-lights objects, but so far no amount of double-clicking
>does anything. Maybe my mouse is fritzed. I'll have to swap it with
>another one and see if anything happens.

Try going into the one of the control panels (Display or
General, I think) and change the double-click speed.  It is
probably set to fastest.  You can also launch objects with a
single click and going to the file menu and selecting "Open."
The keyboard shortcut for going to the menu and selecting
open is Command-O.  Hi-lighting an icon plus using
Command-O will also launch a program.

>And now the bombshell. Delighted with my success in setting up the
>system disk, I eagerly went back to the Mac and got into a
>power-session. [It's an older Performa so actually it was like a
>time-elapsed-power-session]. First I wanted to get ShrinkIt onto a
>disk so I can use it to expand a whole bunch of .SHK archives I picked
>up on the internet with my PC. I had downloaded and brought with me a
>file called shrinkit2.dsk which I tried to run through ShrinkWrap.
>Didn't work, no error messages, no action, nothing. I used the Mac to

That's because it is the wrong format.  .DSK files are for
emulators.  Besides, shrinkit2.dsk contains the 8-bit version
of ShrinkIt!, which WILL NOT extract any IIGS archive containing
an extended file.  Since the IIGS uses extended files, like the
Mac, the 8-bit version is useless.  You want the 16-bit version,
called ShrinkIt! GS, which comes in a self extracting archive.
This archive self-extracts on a IIGS.  But to get it in the
proper form for the IIGS to self-extract requires processing
it on a Mac through a program called ProTYPE, which
removes the binscii encoding and sets the correct file type
(identifying the archive as an executable file so that it can
be launched from Finder).

Well at least it requires ProTYPE when you download it or pass
it through a Macintosh.  If you were downloading directly to a
IIGS through IIGS communications software, the IIGS transfer
program would automatically type the file as a self-extracting
executable.  The Mac does not know how to do this normally,
which is why it needs the help of ProTYPE.

Here are the steps:

1) Get ProTYPE from the following site.

Read about it here:
http://ground.ecn.uiowa.edu/apple2/Mac/protype10.txt

Download it here:
ftp://ground.ecn.uiowa.edu/apple2/Mac/protype10.txt

2) Install ProTYPE

3) Get ShrinkIt! GS from the following site (ftp in binary mode
   or right click with a Windows browser or click and hold with
   a Mac browser and select download link/file).

http://ground.ecn.uiowa.edu/apple2/apple16/Comm/Utils/Shrinkitgs.v11/gshk11.1
http://ground.ecn.uiowa.edu/apple2/apple16/Comm/Utils/Shrinkitgs.v11/gshk11.2
http://ground.ecn.uiowa.edu/apple2/apple16/Comm/Utils/Shrinkitgs.v11/gshk11.3
http://ground.ecn.uiowa.edu/apple2/apple16/Comm/Utils/Shrinkitgs.v11/gshk11.4

4) Pass all four gshk file archive through ProTYPE onto a
   ProDOS or HFS disk (preferably HFS if you already installed
   it.  ProTYPE will extract a single file.

5) Take the ProDOS or HFS disk to the IIGS and double click
   on the .sea file's icon.

Now GS ShrinkIt! will self extract.  You can use the resulting
program to unpack all your .shk files.

>connect to the internet and hastily tried to locate ShrinkIt [a
>different format] and I found something called shrinkit.gs.exe which I
>copied to an 800k floppy and brought home to the IIGS, but in Finder
>when I tried to open it, I got a "Cannot find application" error, so I
>dropped into a ProDOS prompt and tried RUN and BRUN on it, getting
>like a "No Path" error or something. 

ShrinkIt! GS is the right program, but you need to download
it using the method above.  Also, get the version from the
ground ftp archive.  It is newer and can itself create
self-extracting archives.  No telling when that might come in
handy.

>Anyways, while I was there [with the Mac] I copied a bunch of .SHK
>files to floppy and one thing I noticed was that the filenames had to
>be changed to for example "CASTLE~1.SHK" to "CASTLE.SHK" before they
>would copy. Looks like MS-DOS! Maybe my failure to copy the
>shrinkit2.dsk to disk was a similar problem, or maybe it has something
>to do with something Supertimer referred to in a previous posting: to
>the effect that a .dsk file is not valid for Apple II use and must
>first be converted?

The ~ thing is from Windows 95/98's long file names.  The Mac
can only see the short file name version intended for DOS,
which is a truncated version of the Windows 95/98 file name
with the truncated portion represented with an ~.  This is not
a problem, as you've seen.  Just rename the file as you have
done.

>As we can see, I am still swimming around in all of the
>file-format-conversion issues which is a key element of my Apple IIGS
>restoration project.

With the HFS FST installed and ShrinkIt! GS up and running,
you will be well on your way to smooth downloading!  Good
luck!