Re: What makes AppleShare special?

[mdj <mdj.mdj@gmail.com>]

On May 16, 6:26 am, "Michael J. Mahon" <mjma...@aol.com> wrote:
> roughana wrote:
> > On May 14, 6:13 pm, demp...@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) wrote:
>
> >>For Apple II specific information, there was a looseleaf book published
> >>through APDA that covers the internals of the AppleTalk support code,
> >>including details about the extended MLI calls and some background on
> >>the boot process.
>
> > Apple II Appleshare Programmer's Guide
> >http://store.syndicomm.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_...
>
> Hmmm.
>
> While $30 is a very reasonable investment for someone who *needs* this
> information, or who aims to use it to create a commercial product
> (neither of which exist any longer), it's steep enough to be a deterrent
> to idle (or creative) curiosity.  ;-)
>
> Any chance that the APDA "database" can be released on the web (with
> hard copies still available for a price, perhaps)?

I'd really like to see this too - but I appreciate the unlikelihood
that Apple would agree to this, and the risk involved with just 'doing
it'.

A while ago I ordered a copy of the IIgs Firmware Reference, since
this document covers almost *all* the Apple II peripheral firmware
interfaces. More specifically I was interested in the nuts and bolts
of the SmartPort hardware protocol, and an accurate description of the
firmware protocol as well.

While I was more than satisfied with the quality of the product I
recieved, the quality of some of the information left a lot to be
desired. In the end, I disassembled a chunk of the protocol converter
code in the IIc Smartport implementation, since while the
documentation matched what it did, it also could've matched a couple
of other plausible implementations :-S

Much of the technical documentation that pertains to the "Enhanced
128k Apple II series" is an absolute hodgepodge. As a community I
think we'd benefit greatly from starting a documentation project of
our own that provided some consistent, accurate information. The heads
of the more experienced members here contain far better descriptions
of the Apple II's behavior than any of the official documentation.

Matt