Re: XGS/32, KEGS and IIgs emulation on various platform(s)

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Steve Mentzer suggested:

>I have an idea.
>
>We all know that the PC is totally incapable of reading/writing apple II
>diskettes in any reasonable fashion. Hardware devices are scarce, software
>only solutions are impossible. We also know that our existing IIgs hardware
>is getting.... shall we say... long in the tooth? Power supplies are fading,
>accelerators are few and far between. The 12" IIgs monitor was barely
>adequate in 1989, let alone 2002.
>
>I have several old/bare IIgs boxes sitting in a garage with 3.5" and 5.25"
>drives connected to them. I also have a spare CMS scsi controller lying
>around and a few old 120MB SCSI hard disks. I was getting ready to toss
>them...  until now.
>
>I believe that the IIgs can be a perfect host for the exact functions that
>are missing from our PC's..... native file i/o. Here is my idea:
>
>Have a small team of apple II developers write a simple piece of software
>that can run off of a standard 3.5" diskette. It will communicate via the
>IIgs serial port to provide I/O (diskette/hard disk) to another host
>operating system.
>
>Think about it this way. XGS/32 or KEGS will communicate via a serial port
>to request diskette and hard-disk data from a host IIgs that has no
>keyboard/monitor/etc connected. Basically, the IIgs will sit alone, acting
>as an I/O arbitrator, with all CPU activity being hosted on your PC.
>
>What I am asking is simple. Are there any apple II developers that would be
>interested in developing this simple piece of software to arbitrate file i/o
>over a serial port? I would like to begin defining the serial protocol(s)
>for communication within the next couple of weeks.
>
>If this were to succeed, folks would be able to purchase a $25 "complete"
>IIgs system on ebay, plug it into their local PC and be able to read and
>write 3.5 and 5.25" floppies just like the old days.

I believe that Apple II Oasis provides this functionality.

-michael

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