800k drives (was Re: Apple IIc)

[Robert Sturges <rs43+@andrew.cmu.edu>]

    I just read the post of >voss@i40s16.ira.uka.de (Stefan Voss)< and
am prompted to write to all A2 fans.

   I'm just now graduating to the //e from the ][+ (at work it's all
Mac), and several incompatibilities have come up which perhaps an expert
(maybe you!) might be able to answer straight away:

    1. I just got a (used) Unidisk and find that it's incompatible with
any disk][ devices plugged in my //e at the same time. The scenario here
was to convert DOS 3.3 files to Prodos, but no combination of slot
locations seem to work. Is the Unidisk a bad actor in general? Would you
know if there's another way to get an 800k floppy on a //e?

    2. The floppy drives and hard drives advertised in A+ seem a bit
overpriced compared with similar IBM (shudder) equipment. Would you know
of a DOS 3.3 - compatible peripheral card (and DOS patch) for this
purpose? Seems that there'd be a ready market for it.

    3. Not be deterred, I experimented with converting DOS 3.3 files to
Prodos with just my disk]['s and find my Applesoft compiler (TASC by
Microsoft, c1981) can't access the source code, or write files, etc. Is
there another compiler out there which is Prodos compatible?

    4. Finally, I was surprised to find that Prodos consumes almost all
the space on a 143k floppy. Seems pretty silly to live with this. Am I
missing something obvious?

Well, if this is too much to bother with, I won't blame you.

Dr. Bob
412-268-3657