Re: appletalk printing w/ proterm 3.1

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

Randy Shackelford <shack@onyx.southwind.net> wrote:

> David Empson (dempson@actrix.gen.nz) wrote:
> : If Chooser.II requires slot 7 to be set to AppleTalk, then it is rather
> : out of date.  I don't know if there is a version that is new enough to
> : know about the ROM 3, so it is not likely that this can be solved
> : easily.
> 
> Well, Chooser II works on my //e with a workstation card in slot 1. I would
> expect it to work with any slot since is meant for use with the workstation
> card and you can put it in any ol' slot.

Ah, but in a IIgs, the AppleTalk firmware was originally in slot 7, and
Chooser.II could easily have logic along the lines of:

if Apple_IIgs then
   slot = 7
else
   ask ProDOS which slot to use, or do a slot search

It might be even less fussy: it could simply be doing a slot search for
the old AppleTalk identification bytes, which are provided by the A2WS
card and by the IIgs slot 7 firmware, but NOT by the IIgs ROM 3 slot 1/2
firmware.

There is a technote which identifies the correct method of locating
AppleTalk support, but Chooser.II probably pre-dates it.

> : The main problem is that if you are booting from ProDOS-8, you almost
> : certainly have no AppleTalk support available.  Under normal
> : circumstances, you have to boot GS/OS (with AppleTalk support installed)
> : to get access to any AppleTalk function (except booting over the network
> : from an AppleShare 2.x or 3.x file server, which is built into the ROM).
> 
> That's what I thought, how can you do any networking without booting GS/OS
> or from a server?

There is a special version of the ATINIT file, which i've only seen
supplied with Publish-It!, that enables network printer access but not
file server access.  This ATINIT file includes copies of the AppleTalk
protocols which are missing or incomplete in the IIgs ROM (all of PAP
and parts of ATP, if I remember right).  It loads them into high memory
and hooks them into ProDOS, so everything subsequently works as if you
had booted from GS/OS, a server, or with an Apple II Workstation Card
(with the appropriate ATINIT file where required).

(There are at least two other versions of ATINIT: the one in the IIgs's
System/System.Setup folder, and the one supplied with the IIe
Workstation Card.  The only thing the various ATINIT files have in
common is the format of the data which is stored at the end of the file:
the computer name, printer type and printer name.  All of them contain
different code at the start of the file.)

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