Re: Annc: Digisoft Innovations Announces Golden Grail Version 1.0

[Polymorph <polymorph69@hotmail.com>]

On Jan 13, 12:23 am, "bill.mart...@gmail.com" <bill.mart...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> DigiSoft Innovations Releases Golden Grail 1.0
>
> The latest Apple IIgs version of the popular Golden Orchard Series
> CD's has been released.
>
> 12 December 2009 -- Tokyo Japan -- Digisoft Innovations is proud to
> announce the immediate availability of the Golden Grail CD for the
> Apple II gs and Apple IIgs Emulators.
>
> Golden Grail 1.0 is the result of our effort to make a modern age
> compilation of the best old Apple IIGS software.  Golden Grail
> originates from the Golden Orchard project of the 1990's.  Golden
> Grail finally brings Golden Orchard into the modern age by providing
> the original contents of Golden Orchard in a series of hard drive
> images that can be used by all modern Apple IIGS emulators.  This
> project has been many years in the making, and much like the original
> Golden Orchard, turned out to be more complicated and time consuming
> than originally anticipated.
>
> Let's face it, nowadays most people probably only run Apple IIGS
> software in emulators, not in actual Apple IIGS systems.
> Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to use the original Golden
> Orchard with emulators, due to its complicated multiple HFS partition
> structure.  What's really needed is a version of Golden Orchard split
> into convenient 2MG disk images, and now, after many hours of
> additional work, this is finally possible!
>
> The original Golden Orchard partitions were HFS (except for a single
> ProDOS boot partition) and larger than 32MB in size.  As such, when
> converting them to ProDOS 2MG partitions, we needed to break up the
> original partitions into a new structure.  The details of this new
> structure are below.  We have written what original partitions map to
> what new partitions in the list below.
>
> There are two versions of the original Golden Orchard: one with 6 HFS
> partitions, and a second version with one giant HFS partition.  The
> differences are negligible besides the partition structure.  This work
> is however based on the original Golden Orchard.
>
> We recommend Eric Shephard's Sweet 16 Emulator (http://www.sheppyware.net/software-mac/sweet16/index.html) for Mac users and
> KEGS (http://kegs.sourceforge.net/) for everyone else for running
> Apple IIGS programs in an emulated environment.  CFFA Users should be
> able to copy the particions directly to the CFFA card using Andy
> McFadden's Cidepress utility.
>
> Golden Orchard Partitions -> Golden Grail Partitions
> ----------------------------------------------------
> GO.ProDOS -> GO.ProDOS
> GO-Main -> GO.AppleSofts, GO.Main, GO.Stacks
> GO-Misc16Bit -> GO.Misc16Bit1, GO.Misc16Bit2
> GO-Applications -> GO.Apps1, GO.Apps2, GO.Apps3
> GO-Programming -> GO.Programming1, GO.Programming2, GO.Programming3
> GO-G.S. -> GO.GS.Gfx1, GO.GS.GIF.JPEG, GO.GS.Music1, GO.GS.Music2,
> GO.GS.MODs
> GO-Disks -> Not converted as it is just a disk full of DiskImage
> format 3.5" disk images.  Instead, we are providing the disk images.
>
> Version History
> ---------------
> Version 1.0 - January 11, 2009
>
> Credits
> -------
> Golden Grail Production - Jim Maricondo and Bill Martens
>
> Special thanks to Andy McFadden for CiderPress and Joe Wankerl for
> Shrink II, without which this conversion work would never have been
> possible.
>
> Production Notes
> ----------------
> The original Golden Orchard was converted into HFS disk images on a
> Mac.
> The files on each disk image were then copied individually to an HFS
> volume staging area.
>
> In the staging area, all filenames were converted to ProDOS limits.
> Partitions were split up so that no one partition was larger than
> 32MB.
> Shrink II was used to create a SHK image for each of the new split
> partitions.
>
> The SHK files were moved to a Windows PC and CiderPress was used to
> convert each one to a PO (ProDOS Order) image file.
>
> CiderPress was then used to convert the PO image files into 2MG image
> files.
>
> The 2MG files were then tested with KEGS.
>
> Thank you for your support.
>
> Download Information
> --------------------
> The package is freely available for download from the Digisoft
> Innvations website as a 228MB zip compressed file which is platform
> independent.
>
> Websitehttp://digisoft.callapple.org

Thanks Bill & Jim, much appreciated! I will be checking out your
efforts very soon.

Just a reminder (I mentioned this some time ago) that the disk image
links on the Twilight II page are self-referencing. I wouldn't mind
checking these out one day too.

Thanks again,
Mike