On Jan 13, 2:59 pm, "Bryan Parkoff" <nos...@nospam.com> wrote:
BTW if the intention is to come up with a hardware device that allows
images for emulators to be made from copy-protected disks, it might
make sense to make it a stand alone device or a PC accessory, not an
apple ii card. What if you had a box that connected to a PC via USB,
and an apple ii disk drive, and appeared to the PC to be a mass
storage device containing a single .NIB file (which you could then
read and write using ordinary PC applications).
I deobt Apple II Disk Drive may work with PC via USB. It depends on the
exact timing. You need to run on real Apple II in order to work with
copy-protection schemes.
I'm sure you're correct about limitations of .NIB. But I would think
that anything that a real apple II could do, some firmware running in
a USB device could do just as well? What I imagined was a little box
with a connector for a disk ii cable on one end, and a USB connector
at the other. There would also be a little button on the box. When you
press the button, the microntroller starts the disk drive spinning,
then reads in each (full/half/ or quarter?) track in turn, and builds
up a .nib or .2mg or whatever format file which is stored on a flash
drive which is also embedded in the box. When the box is connected to
a USB host (e.g. a PC) then the file stored on flash is visible.