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

["Steve Mentzer" <dropthistext.smentzer@pacbell.net>]

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.

Anyone interested?