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I just got a IIe, how would you recommend I get downloaded data ont its floppies?

A

arrow_runner

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I have the IIe with one working Disk II drive. I have another drive but it has something wrong with board inside it.(verified by swapping boards and the problem followed the board).

I also have a Mac SE with external SCSI drive, and I have a lot of older PC based equipment going back to XT.

My issue is that I got almost no software for the IIe other than a writing program and dos 3.3. I'd like to be able to download software from the Internet and put it on floppies. The problem that I'm running into is that, as I'm sure most of you already knew (I didn't :/ ) the floppies use a different type of encoding than PC based floppies so the data can't be read back/forth.

What are my options here/what would you recommend? Get a 5.25 drive for the SE? Or a 3.5" drive for the IIe? I heard that there are special controllers for PC to use Disk II drives, but I never found a name/model # to look up. There are just so many drives for these and I'm so green I don't want to buy something I can't use :/
 
Beau Walker said:
...Get a 5.25 drive for the SE?...
Click to expand...

I know the connector is the same and it may be tempting, but do NOT under any circumstance hook an Apple II 5.25 drive up to a Mac, you can, and very likely would, fry the floppy controller (IWM or SWIM chip). SOME of the Apple 3.5 drives are compatible with both Apple II and Mac however (see my link below on the Apple PC floppy, they have a good list of which drive work on which platforms). NOTE: your //e would need a compatible controller to run any 3.5" drive, the plain old fairly typical in a //e "Disk II" or card cannot run 3.5 drives.

There were no direct plugin 5.25 drives made for the Macintosh, all the Mac 5.25 drives that were ever made plugged in through some kind of controller card. There was the Apple PC 5.25 floppy (see A9M0110) with NUBUS or SE-PDS controller card (which only read PC 360k disks), and there was the Apple //e card for the Mac LC line (which allowed a Apple II drive to be connected, and would run //e software on your Mac LC).

In general ADT PRO, which mac512 linked, is the best way for moving software to and from AppleII and PC, and it was developed/written by a fellow VC forum member.

Other do-able options include: a CFFA Card and CF media or USB stick, or a SCSI card with a SCSI ZIP or JAZ drive, and a program called CiderPress which will let you read Apple II volumes (on compatible media, like ZIP&JAZ disk or CFFA formatted CF card) on a PC.
 
magnusfalkirk said:
And here is another option for you to think about: http://dreher.net/?s=projects/CFforAppleII&c=projects/CFforAppleII/main.php Just to let you know I've got one and I think it is fantastic.
Click to expand...

Thanks I saw that on my search before posting this thread. I just didn't want to drop $150 on something just to play around a little. I'm slowly getting things organized and setup. I just need to clear out a room so I can keep my vintage computers setup somewhat permanently.
 
RWallmow said:
I know the connector is the same and it may be tempting, but do NOT under any circumstance hook an Apple II 5.25 drive up to a Mac, you can, and very likely would, fry the floppy controller (IWM or SWIM chip).
Click to expand...

That is just baffling. I'm glad I never tried it. Why would Apple do something like this? At least these days when Apple arbitrarily changes peripheral specifications, they use a different port (and sell an adaptor).
 
Hatta said:
That is just baffling. I'm glad I never tried it. Why would Apple do something like this? At least these days when Apple arbitrarily changes peripheral specifications, they use a different port (and sell an adaptor).
Click to expand...

Across the Apple line, there was a great deal of attempted (and mostly realized) standardization during that era. It's just a matter of fact that no Macintosh ever produced natively supported Apple II 5.25 drives (with the semi-exception of the IIe PDS coprocessor card). They were separate platforms after all.
 
Hatta said:
That is just baffling. I'm glad I never tried it. Why would Apple do something like this? At least these days when Apple arbitrarily changes peripheral specifications, they use a different port (and sell an adaptor).
Click to expand...

I should note, I have tried the Apple II 5.25 floppy on an SE before when I was young and stupid, I got lucky and didn't fry my SWIM, but now that I know better I would never try it again.

Its been posted on newsgroups, BBS's, Message boards, and the internet all the way back to the 80's when the Mac's first came out, that attempting this would/could destroy the floppy controller chip (IWM/SWIM) in the Mac.
 
RWallmow said:
Even that, the DISK II wasn't connected to the Mac, but the Apple II which hosted the prototype Mac. I guess it could be looked at as a very expensive 5.25" floppy controller :-D
Click to expand...

Actually, the earliest Mac prototypes did use the DISK ][ directly, before the Twiggy was available. Here's a picture of Mac prototype #15, with a Disk ][ clearly visible as the built-in drive:

http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/apple/mac/pictures/Mac_Proto_Case_#15.jpg

It's in the Computer History Museum's collection
 
RWallmow said:
Even that, the DISK II wasn't connected to the Mac, but the Apple II which hosted the prototype Mac. I guess it could be looked at as a very expensive 5.25" floppy controller :-D
Click to expand...
Oh no you didn't! Don't you dare relegate my favorite machine to a floppy disk controller! :eek:
 
HoJoPo said:
Actually, the earliest Mac prototypes did use the DISK ][ directly, before the Twiggy was available. Here's a picture of Mac prototype #15, with a Disk ][ clearly visible as the built-in drive:

http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/apple/mac/pictures/Mac_Proto_Case_#15.jpg

It's in the Computer History Museum's collection
Click to expand...
Wow, how have I not seen that one before, like being proven wrong when I get to see new "geek porn", lol

TanruNomad said:
Oh no you didn't! Don't you dare relegate my favorite machine to a floppy disk controller! :eek:
Click to expand...

Was a joke ;)
 
datajerk said:
Already mentioned ADTPro is the universal way to go. However, this is pretty cool too: http://asciiexpress.net/diskserver/ IANS, you connect your phone, tablet, or computer to the cassette input of your IIe and then you can auto-extract 1000s of different disks directly to your disk ][ drive. Takes about 3 minutes however.

Disclosure: http://asciiexpress.net/diskserver/ is my site :)
Click to expand...


I just discovered this - it is friggin' AWESOME! I wanted to get the latest ProDos and started to look into ADTPro, but I somehow stumbled on a link to your web site. I followed the instructions, and, using an iPhone 4S at maximum volume, directly connected into my IIe cassette port (I used a stereo 1/8" male-male cable), it totally worked! I found I needed to select the 8KFI versions for the few disks I created. I also chose the "format disk" option after receiving a disk error on the first disk I tried.

I saw this technique 4-5 years ago with a TI-99 emulator, but this is the first I've seen it with Apple. Given that you can load a bootstrap program ("Insta Disk"), this is much better than ADT in my opinion, since it automatically puts a client program on the Apple II and doesn't require a host to run a program. In full disclosure, I haven't really played with ADT, but when the ASCII Express Disk Server scheme works so well, there is no need to even futz with it.

datajerk - this is a great, great service to the Apple II community, a good web site (like the mobile version), and the demo video shows it works as well as it is described!! I tip my hat!

-Matt
 
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