Re: not there yet (FAQ info)

[shack@deimos.frii.com (Randy Shackelford)]

In article <5hu8i9$hj4@uni.library.ucla.edu>,  <pubpc1@library.ucla.edu> wrote:

[snip]

>Randy, the GS's HFS FST is a bit easier to use than the Mac's PC
>Exchange because it does not need to be configured to read an HFS
>disk, as PC Exchange must be configured to read ProDOS disks.  The
>HFS FST is also faster than PC Exchange, which seems to take a while
>to access a ProDOS volume.

Gee, I never configured my PC Exchange, just installed it and it started
working. You can configure it to map DOS style three letter extensions to 
Mac creators and set it up to provide device drivers for non Apple formatted
SCSI devices, but that's all the configuration I ever noticed.

>For 8-bit users, HFS disks are no help for 5.25" drive owners.  Let
>us keep in mind, however, that many 8-bit II users do have 3.5" drives.
>The //c+ and the Laser 128EX/2 computers had 3.5" internal
>drives (the former as the standard drive, the latter standard in some
>units).  Also, it does not cost too much to get one for an 8-bit II
>these days.

Righto, except unidisk 3.5s are getting a little hard to find.

>The ProDOS 8 program A2FX is as easy to use as Mac ProTYPE.  Just
>stick in your Mac 800K HFS disk and it will display a list of files.
>You can extract the data or resource fork of any file and A2FX will
>prompt you for a filename, a filetype, and an auxtype.  The resulting
>files will thus be correctly typed and resource stripped (but you
>can also take the resource fork containing a sound and convert it
>into data for one of those nifty sound programs for 8-bit IIs).

Unless there's a new A2FX which I haven't seen, you can't drag 'n drop
files onto it to convert 'em. Nothing's as easy as drag 'n drop.

>While I understand Nate's desire to put the "lowest common denominator"
>of all Apple IIs and thus only list the 8-bit/5.25" solutions, I think
>that for the sake of completeness, all the major solutions should be
>listed: GS (GSHK, HFS FST, GSCII+), 8-bit II w/3.5" (A2FX), and Mac
>(ProTYPE, PC Exchange) as well as the 8-bit/5.25" solutions.

No objection here, but I got my opinion as to which is the easiest.
-- 
Randy Shackelford                                 
shack@frii.com