[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Apple IIGS Operating System



Mark Percival wrote:
Joe wrote:
oes anybody know of any way that I can write the
floppies successful floppies on a pc or am I going to have to find myself an
old Mac to make this work.
    
Unless you're looking forward to the technical challenge of doing this
on your own, I would just order a set of disks from Syndicomm.  $15 for
the 6 disks that make up System 6.0.1 is pretty hard to beat.
http://store.syndicomm.com/product_info.php?products_id=70

-- Mark
  
I agree with Mark, ordering the disks will be way the quickest, cheapest way to get GS/OS 6.0.1 on 3.5" floppies.  In addition to Syndicomm, Bill Garber has also offered this service in the past (I think he was only asking $5 or $6 including shipping) - try Bill at willy46pa@comcast.net.

Longer term, there are several other methods of transferring software from the web to your IIGS. 
  • a program called ADT which lets you download 143K disk images onto 5.25" disks (does your unit have a 5.25" disk?  I strongly recommend having both a 800K 3.5" as well as a 143K 5.25" drive, preferably two of each).  Unfortunately there is nothing similar for 800K disks (yet).  ADT is free for downloading and all you'll need is a null-modem cable to connect your PC com1 port to the IIGS super serial port.
  • If you buy one of the Compact Flash expansion cards from Rich Dreher or GSE-Reactive.com, the compact flash card acts as a hard drive in your IIGS.  You can pop it out and plug it into a CF reader on your Wintel, and use Andy McFadden's CiderPress program to transfer files back and forth
  • Lots of software is available in Shrinkit format (an earlier compression format for Apple II, file suffix .shk, .sdk, maybe one or two more).  In this case, the challenge is simply to do a straight file transfer onto your IIGS, which you can do again with a null-modem cable connecting the serial ports, and some simple telecom software on each side.  You'll also need the Shrinkit software on your IIGS to expand the files. Bill Garber's website has the freeware Modem Mgr program for download.
  • A free OS called Contiki can run on your IIGS, you'll need an ethernet card (LanceGS or Uthernet) but this software will let you connect directly to your broadband internet connection, surf the web, download disk images directly onto 5.25" (similar to ADT) without using your Wintel.
Bill Garber: http://garberstreet.netfirms.com
ADT:  http://adt.berlios.de/
GSE-Reactive: http://gse-reactive.com/
Rich Dreher: http://dreher.net/?s=projects/CFforAppleII&c=projects/CFforAppleII/main.php
CiderPress: http://www.faddensoft.com/
Uthernet: http://www.a2retrosystems.com/
Contiki: http://www.sics.se/~adam/contiki/
Contiki for the Apple II: http://www.a2retrosystems.com/downloads.htm

So, an old Mac is definitely a convenient appliance to have around for supporting an Apple II habit, but it's not mandatory!

Also fit yourself with some of the older, 8-bit Apple OSes - DOS 3.3, ProDOS 8, ProDOS 16.  Once you start collecting disk images you will probably encounter some or all of these fairly soon.