Apple //e Just pulled the trig on a Mac LC to use the //e card in

[The Usotsuki]

So I was looking around and saw a Mac LC on evilbay that supposedly booted to the Finder, but didn't have a keyboard or mouse.

 

I need to find where the heck I left my mouse, but I do have a keyboard, mouse, and a VGA dongle so I can use one of the monitors I already have lying around... and two //e cards.

 

I'll prolly need a hand getting going, but if I get this in one piece, and here's hoping, maybe I'll be able to get it running, not as a Mac, but as a glorified //e.

 

...I'll probably need to find a way to get the emulator software onto it - a way to wipe the hard drive and reinstall the OS probably won't hurt - and a Y-switch, but once everything is settled, I should be more than set. I think I'd prefer this setup over my Platinum, since I can replace the damn keyboard relatively trivially. (And iirc, it's possible to devote part of the hard drive to ProDOS?)

[rpiguy9907]

So I was looking around and saw a Mac LC on evilbay that supposedly booted to the Finder, but didn't have a keyboard or mouse.

 

...I'll probably need to find a way to get the emulator software onto it - a way to wipe the hard drive and reinstall the OS probably won't hurt - and a Y-switch, but once everything is settled, I should be more than set. I think I'd prefer this setup over my Platinum, since I can replace the damn keyboard relatively trivially. (And iirc, it's possible to devote part of the hard drive to ProDOS?)

 

 

Creating and ProDOS partition on the LC hard drive actually requires a reformat and re-install anyway.

 

http://www.apple-collection.com/CarPos/AppleIIeCrd2.1.pdf

 

Check out page 3 for instructions on using your LC HD with the AIIE card.

[The Usotsuki]

...I should prolly get a USB floppy drive to make the necessary disks. =p

[Lee Adamson]

Oh man... One of my greatest regrets is getting rid of my LC2 with //e card. But it was a long time ago and there just wasn't room to pack it when my ex and I split up. I want to crawl under a rock when I think about that thing sitting at the bottom of a dump somewhere. I painted barns all one summer in high school to buy that machine...

[Byte Knight]

I've got an LC III with a IIe card. I would highly recommend getting a Floppy Emu in order to move things onto the computer.

[The Usotsuki]

I prefer the Real Thing®™©. I'm thinking I might want to get a USB floppy drive and try to put the necessary images on floppy to transfer to the LC, and for the most part, I intend to use it as an Apple //e, utilizing the hard drive to store games (I've filecracked a fair handful into ProDOS myself just for this purpose).

 

Anyway, I've got a few spare parts I've already pulled from the two dead LCs I have. That includes a new CMOS battery that I only used for testing, a floppy drive, an 80 MB SCSI hard drive and a power supply.

[Lee Adamson]

Although those LCs only have one expansion port (making an ethernet card and the //e card mutually exclusive), you ought to be able to set up a null-modem cable on the LC's serial port, to a Linux box, set up PPP or SLIP and some routing rules, and get the thing on the internet. Browser choices are slim for System 7 (I used Mosaic back in the day), but you'd be able to use things like FTP or NFS to get your disk images on there without stacks of floppies.

 

Edit: Apple 2 disk images, to write to 140k floppies, I mean. And you'd still need to get the TCP/IP stack and nfs software onto it with floppies.

Edited December 9, 2018 by Lee Adamson

[The Usotsuki]

Although those LCs only have one expansion port (making an ethernet card and the //e card mutually exclusive), you ought to be able to set up a null-modem cable on the LC's serial port, to a Linux box, set up PPP or SLIP and some routing rules, and get the thing on the internet. Browser choices are slim for System 7 (I used Mosaic back in the day), but you'd be able to use things like FTP or NFS to get your disk images on there without stacks of floppies.

I have a SCSI ethernet adapter that I tried to get running with my 636, but the driver explicitly doesn't support the '040 (!). I think it supports the '020, but not sure what-all I'd be able to do internetwise with that (although I do have 2 Linux boxen on my network).

 

Edit: Apple 2 disk images, to write to 140k floppies, I mean. And you'd still need to get the TCP/IP stack and nfs software onto it with floppies.

Well, there's no reason I couldn't theoretically make *1.44 MB* Apple ][ disk images if the emulator card will support using them... Most of my software has been ported to ProDOS and as such there's no need for 5.25" floppies in theory. I don't know if the emulator card will allow the internal floppy drive to be used as a "Superdrive" but it would be daft not to...

[Lee Adamson]

You know, in all the time I had that thing, I never tried to use the superdrive in apple 2 mode. I have no idea if it works with the //e card or not!

 

I never even set up a hard drive partition, lol. Just used it with my existing floppy library for a while until I'd learned C and quit using BASIC.

[MrMaddog]

If you have an Apple IIgs on hand, you could format a ProDOS 3 1/2" disk to use on a Mac w/ that card.

 

My college professor, who used Macs to run both MS Write and an Apple II English tutorial program, had us bring in disks to be formatted with the tutorial app on it. He used a IIgs to copy the orginal 5 1/4" disk onto the 3 1/2" ones.

[The Usotsuki]

I unfortunately only have one other Apple ][, and it's a //e.

 

For what it's worth, although I haven't tested it with the emulator card, it works perfectly fine without, with 4 MB RAM and an 80 MB hard drive (which I'll probably be repartitioning to 50 MB HFS and 30 MB ProDOS). Next month I'll probably buy a USB floppy drive and copy over a lot of the software I want to run on the //e card.

[Aunty Entity]

My two cents worth on this one, is only to make sure you've got all genuine low density drives. Its a lot more reliable than using high density drives on low volume floppies. Otherwise I'd probably serial attach the two beasts together. Speaking of which, if you bang the IIe card in your LC you could always PPP to your linux box, over a serial link.

 

I have 1 box (its a pi really) set up to handle incoming from my IIe or GS, so it'll give you shell on arrival, but once in, you can start PPP if you're on the GS. Or you can script the startup on the GS in marinetti. If you need access from a IIe and a GS set the port speed to 19.2k if you're only using a GS go for 38.4k.

 

On a slightly less related note, are there nubus slot doublers, and is the LC a nubus slot? Ahh I see its not nubus, its a PDS.

 

A

Edited December 16, 2018 by Aunty Entity

[The Usotsuki]

Keep in mind the LC's built-in floppy drive is already a 1.44 MB drive.

[The Usotsuki]

I think I might need to point out some things about the setup I've got...

 

First, it's a Macintosh LC... although it has in the form of the //e card a version of the hardware of the IIgs, we're not talking a IIgs, and some of the Apple ][ limitations are a bit lifted. For example, the main floppy drive is a 1.44 MB drive - so the DD vs. HD issue is academic, since all my software's on this desktop. (The emulation card is the only thing that really makes this on-topic and the only reason I really wanted an LC in the first place. LCs have the advantage of access to certain hardware that the //e proper doesn't.)

 

Second, there still seems to be the "muh 140K floppies" perception here... and I have to get into this one, since I'm the one who really broke down this wall. See, before I took Qix, Pick-a-Dilly Pair and Donkey Kong, and made them ProDOS-compatible (and thus hard drive installable), for the most part, people wanting to run games on their Apple ][s were pretty much limited to floppy emulation - and when I started getting those games up on ProDOS, I broke that wide open. (qkumba is the undisputed master of the ProDOS conversion - but I'm the one who really got the ball rolling.)

 

I don't intend to use floppy disks as the primary medium for running Apple ][ software. I fully intend to exploit the LC's functionality for what it's worth by allocating 30 MB of its 80 MB hard drive to ProDOS so I can store my games on the hard drive. So even when I do need to access the floppy drive to get stuff off it...I only need to do it once, so medium longevity of the disks is academic.

[The Usotsuki]

[Aunty Entity]

Ok, so if we're really in IIe mode, then you'd probably only have 19.2k available, and then a serial link gives you shell access. What would be really interesting would be if you could appletalk the two together However, I left the GS info in there, because a router doesn't have to be used with just one device. Your friendly pi has 3-4 serial ports on board..

 

If floppys are really just a backstop then it'll probably get you by with a minimum of fuss. But have had problems in the past, with DD formatted in a HD drive in particular if my brain cells are working properly. I like the work off the HD, always makes the most sense to me, even more than all these flopulators that are out there now.

 

A