Re: Help: Old Expert (me) needs SCSI/Syquest help!

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

In article <2vttap$6s3@bach.udel.edu>,
Jeremy A Moskowitz <jeremym@bach.udel.edu> wrote:
> 
> I'm going to be getting an Apple //e with a SCSI board (Apple).

Which version of the SCSI card are you getting?  It is vitally
important that you use a High Speed SCSI card, and not the original
Apple SCSI card.  The original card does not know about removable hard
drives, and you run the risk of destroying the contents of a disk
cartridge if you swap them without rebooting.

It is also highly desirable that the IIe has 128k of RAM and is an
enhanced model.

> I planned on using my Syquest 105 drive with it, and putting
> all my old stuff (nearly 1000 disks) on cartridge, so I needn't
> swap disks anymore. To my horror, I realize that my old DOS
> disks could not be put into subdirectories when I used to have
> a HD on my OLD apple.

There is a solution, if most of your DOS 3.3 disks are not copy
protected, and use a standard 48k version of DOS 3.3.  There is a
shareware program called "DOS 3.3 Launcher" which allows you set up
DOS 3.3 image files on a hard drive and "boot" them from ProDOS.  It
won't work with copy protected disks, or with programs that use the
language card (including INTBASIC).

It works best on a IIgs, but should be usable on a IIe.

The ProDOS disks should be less of a problem, assuming that the
programs don't have any built-in assumptions about running on a 5.25"
disk, in the root directory, or have the name of the disk embedded in
them.  (If they do, you'll have to keep them on floppy.)

All you have to do is decide how to organise the files into
partitions, directories, etc.

> My questions are this:
>     1) How can I use my Syquest to my fullest advantage?
> -I have many many many DOS and PRODOS disks, which
> I want to put on there, and swap the least...
>     2) Where can I get hard-drive partitioning/formatting software
> for the Syquest 105?

The High Speed SCSI card includes a program called HDSCPARTITION which
lets you partition hard drives (including SyQuest cartridges) with two
or four partitions of up to 32 megabytes (maximum 128 megabytes).

The original SCSI card had an earlier version of this program, but I
think it was only able to create two partitions.

There was a third-party program called CHINOOK SCSI UTILITIES which
works on both cards and has much more flexible partitioning support,
but I don't think it is available any longer.

You could also get someone with a IIgs or a RamFAST SCSI card to
partition the cartridges.

>     3) If I make many many many partitions, can I put multiple DOS
> disks on there??

DOS 3.3 cannot use SCSI hard drives directly.  You might be able to
create a patched version of DOS 3.3 which was able to access a hard
drive, but you'd have to use a _lot_ of 140k or 400k partitions, and
the partitioning software and SCSI card don't support very many
partitions.

It would be easier to subdivide a large partition into several
emulated disks in software, but you would probably run into
compatibility problems.  Selecting (and identifying) disks would be
tricky.

DOS3.3LAUNCHER is a much better option - you don't have a to set up a
special partition, because the disk images are normal ProDOS files.
You can give each image a reasonably descriptive name (within the
limits of ProDOS filenames).
-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz
Snail mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand