Re: Getting software onto a IIgs

[shack@onyx.southwind.net (Randy Shackelford)]

LJSILICON (ljsilicon@aol.com) wrote:

: While some of the new drives have problems with the Apple 800k format (mine was
: one) not all are bad as Nothin seems to imply. It is more likely that the disks
: that you are trying to use are HD (high density) disks. If that is the case,
: just cover the hole in the upper left corner with a piece of tape. You can
: remove the tape when you move the disks to the GS.

I've heard of defective drives that can't read anything in new boxes, but not
much talk about being able to use HD disks and having DD disks unreadable. It
would be swell if Apple still used Sony drives like the olden days but I bet
most people would rather save the $200 off the price of a new Mac box and
make do.

Here are some things I'd try if I couldn't get a Mac box to read 800K disks:

1. Clean the IIgs' drive heads. I bet most people's drives have some mileage 
on 'em.

2. Format 800Ks on the Mac if it's having trouble. Then both should work as
the old 800K drives aren't as picky.

3. Use HFS 800Ks when possible. My experience indicates that it's more
reliable than ProDOS when you're sneakernetting to/from a IIgs.

4. Read the TIL article (on til.info.apple.com) about getting newer boxes to
read 800K disks. Despite what Nathan says, things like composite SIMMs and 
speech recognition can affect how well the drive works with 800Ks. For
example, my 840av with Sony drive became a little more picky about 800Ks
after upping the memory from 56 mb to 64 mb. It'll still read anything except 
the occasional ProDOS disk from the previous decade.
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