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

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

Astro <wizard@direct.ca> wrote:

> Hey it's me again. You can now know me as Astro.
> 
> Although I am mail ordering System 5.0.4 on 3.5' floppies to use with
> my setup, I proceeded with a little experiment. I wanted to see if the
> "PC-Mac-AppleIIGS" file transfer method would work. 
> 
> Oh first, re: 3.5" 800k floppies. People keep telling me I don't
> actually need to search blank ones out, because you can simply put
> little stickers over the little hole on the upper left of a 3.5" 1.44
> meg floppy which will cause a Mac to interpret the floppy as an 800k
> floppy.

Maybe.  High density and double density disks have different magnetic
properties.  The disk produced by using this trick is likely to be
unreliable.  I would have no hesitation doing this for a temporary
transfer disk, but I wouldn't assume that the content would last.

> So this is what I did. I downloaded off the Apple web site the system
> disk file for System 6.0.1 [since I can't find system 5.0.4 posted
> ANYWHERE... weird... not even on the Apple web site]

It is probably still on ftp.apple.com, under /dts/aii, though that image
was a ShrinkIt disk image.

> I downloaded this file to my PC and copied it to a 1.44 meg floppy. then
> I prepared a separate floppy with the stickers over the hole as described
> I above. took both these floppys to a Mac I know. I mounted the 1.44 meg
> floppy and copied the system file to the Mac desktop. Then I mounted
> the sticker-prepared floppy and formatted it to 800k. That worked
> fine. Then I copied the system file off the Mac desktop to the
> prepared 800k floppy.

Did this file get decoded at any point?  It isn't a straight binary disk
image - it is probably a DiskCopy disk image file, compressed (with
StuffIt?) and ASCII-encoded using BinHex.

> It didn't boot into an OS tho. Could be for a number of reasons.
> System 6.0.1 will not boot into my ROM 01 rudimentary Apple II GS?

It will, so that isn't the problem.

> The system file was not properly copied onto the prepared floppy?

Correct.  It isn't a "system file" at all - just a disk image in a
particular format.

> The system file was tainted by a "PC" identifier?

Improbable, though the PC might have interfered with the file content if
it was not ASCII-encoded (e.g. MacBinary instead of BinHex) and you did
an ASCII transfer from the FTP site.

> What's the difference between Mac Binary and Binhex?

MacBinary is the Mac equivalent of the Apple II "Binary II" format.  It
encapsulates the data fork, resource fork and directory information for
a Mac file into a single binary file that can be copied through foreign
systems (e.g. a PC) without losing the extra data used on the Mac.
There is a small header added to the file, about 128 bytes.

BinHex is the Mac equivalent of the Apple II "BinSCII" format, or the
generic "UUEncode" format.  It serves the same function as MacBinary,
except the resulting file is encoded using ASCII, and is about 33%
larger than the combined length of the binary data.

To decode either of these, you need a program on the Mac, such as
Stuffit Expander, which will extract the contained file.  Assuming the
disk image was compressed using StuffIt, this program will also undo the
compression.

The resulting file then needs to be used with the DiskCopy program.
Early versions (e.g. DiskCopy 4.2) read the disk image into memory and
let you write it out to a floppy.  Later versions (6.0 or later)
actually mount the disk image as if it was a floppy, and you can drag
the disk over to a real floppy to copy it.

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