Re: Why? (and more)

[nraymond@k12.ucs.umass.edu (Nathan Raymond (Phillips Academy 94))]

In a previous article, eaiu184@rigel.oac.uci.edu (Jimmy Shaw) says:

>In article <Jul.8.16.09.42.1994.29451@er3.rutgers.edu>,
>Kid <neiderma@eden.rutgers.edu> wrote:
>>egersten@k12.ucs.umass.edu (Eric Gerstenberger (Cathedral HS 95)) writes:
>>
>[obvious flame-bait deleted]
>
>>Please do not post follow-ups to this child.  Please send him email,
>>which is is more likely ro read and won't clutter this group with
>>another "I love the ][" 99-message thread. Thanks.
>
>better yet, write to his sysadmin, at root@k12.ucs.umass.edu, and have
>Eric deal with it.
>
>Jimmy
>
>
>--
>Jimmy Shaw				OS/2: It costs less, it does more.
>eaiu184@orion.oac.uci.edu
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>

I have better advice: e-mail helen@k12.ucs.umass.edu instead, since she is
the sysop of the UMass K12 program.  I think that post qualifies as a
violation of "5.  Users may not harass other users by sending annoying,
obscene, libelous, or threatening messages." from the UMass K12 Policies and
Guidelines, something which that student signed to in order to get his
account.

Fine, yes, so I'm posting from UMass K12.  I don't like to (the insulation
from the system here is suffocating).  My usual internet service has news
down as they change operating systems.  I may be partly responsible for this
post in the sense that things being posted from UMass K12 weren't getting to
the outside world, and I got the sysadmin. to get things up and running
again.  I wonder if he had ever posted before, since apparently nobody had
complained about posting on UMass before me...

Which reminds me, I have some questions I asked which never made it out
there:

Does anybody have a program to convert ][ in a Mac disk images to STMs
format?  It looks like I'll have to write the conversion program myself
otherwise...

I've been trying to get Shrinkit II+ to work with ][ in a Mac v2.53. 
Running under ProDOS 8 v1.9 I can extract files, but when I try to unshrink
a disk it says there are "No selectable devices" even though I have ][ in a
Mac configured with 4 5.25" drives (using disk files off my Mac's HD).  Copy
II Plus 8.3 seems to recognize the drives fine.  Is there something about
unshrinking a disk that only works with low-level drive access?  I can't run
the latest ShrinkIt under the emulator beacuse I the emulator is only
a 6502, even through the docs say its a 65c02 (it has mousetext, though). 
It's supposed to emulate a IIe (PEEKing the ROM location for the model
reports it as unenhanced, although at startup it says //e and not IIe). 

Has anybody had any experience with the ProDOS File System v1.1 extension
for the Mac (the one that comes with the IIe card software and that mounts
ProDOS formatted disks in the Finder like Mac disks)?  I used to use Apple
File Exchange, but the poorly written porgram appears to update the
directory every time it writes a block to ProDOS disk, making the program
unbearably slow for just moving stuff I've downloaded from the Mac to the
Apple II emulator.  Then I got ProDOS error $4B when trying to open any
archives (which decompressed fine when transferred with Apple File
Exchange).  Then I couldn't delete files that had been transferred with the
ProDOS File System extension (I/O error in the emulator and pararmeter
mismatch in Apple File Exchange).  There are three possibilites:

1. Binscii for Mac is causing problems (least likely, I haven't done any
conclusive testing to rule it out, though).
2. ProDOS File System doesn't work for transferring files from Mac to ProDOS
disks (at least very well).
3. SpeedyFinder7, with floppy copy acceleration on, patching the Mac OS in
concert with ProDOS File System, is causing problems in this particular
case. (most likely)

If anybody could help me diagnose this problem any faster I would be
eternally grateful.

By the way, I'd like to know if there is any demand for a good Apple II
emulator for the Mac.  Emulating an Apple //c (ROM 03) with UniDisk 3.5,
800k disk images, DHR graphics, 80 collumns, memory >128k, is what I had in
mind.  I say this because I am dissapointed at the quality of the emulators
out there, and there are no PowerPC native versions yet (heck, the Commodore
64 emulator for the Mac in version 0.4 already includes a PPC version!).  I
might have some time in the next year (I'll doing first year at Brandeis,
and my Computer Science major program doesn't get under way until the second
year).  I really want to be able to run AppleWorks 3.0, ProDOS 2.0.3, and
Zork Zero (It won't run on my //c because I have only 1 drive).  I might do
a test project and design a 65c02 compiler for the Mac first.  There would
have to be demand for a good emulator, though, for me to write one.

Sincerely,
Nathan Raymond
nraymond@genesis.nred.ma.us
-- 
"We don't know one millionth of one percent about anything."
- Thomas Alva Edison