Questions about disk drives

[iamdigitalman]

Hi all. I was wondering how I should have the disk drives hooked up to my IIgs, and how many I can have. I have 3 5.25" drives, a 800k drive, and a external FDHD, which I tested and it works.

What order should I connect these? It seems the 3rd 5.25" drive does not work in this config (though it works by it's self and with another drive), as in GS/OS, only 2 of the 5.25" drives mount on the desktop. The FDHD only seems to want to work if it is the first drive, as if I put a disk in if it is the second drive, it won't mount. However, it will boot from the FDHD just fine.

I do have 2 5.25" controllers from my IIes I can spare, so maybe I could offload all the 5.25" drives to the card?

I checked in the manual, and there is nothing about what order they go in, or how many drives it can take.

Also, while I wait to try and find a SCSI card, I have a HD 20 drive for my Mac Plus, and it uses a DB-19 port, like the floppy drives, so I was wondering if I could use this on my IIgs, or if I might blow the port or drive. I have not seen anything about doing this anywhere, so I doubt it has ever been tried. The machine certainly has enough RAM, over 2mb.

 

[luddite]

The IIgs' smartport allows you to have 2 800K drives (mapped to slot 5) and 2 140K (slot 6)... if you really want another 5.25" drive, you'll need to install a controller card and set the control panel accordingly.

As far as the HD20 is concerned, it definitely won't work with the IIgs' floppy port. I don't know if you'd actually wreck anything by trying it, but I wouldn't take the chance.

 

[Unknown_K]

You are allowed 4 drives on a IIgs. 2 x 3.5" and 2 x 5.25". The 3.5" have to be connected to the IIgs 1st in the chain (I have the drive manuals from Apple).

 

[iamdigitalman]

ah yes, for some reason, I had a hunch it was 4. So I can't have 3x 5.25" and 1x 3.5? Not a big deal, as I have the right cards. I just need to pull it out of my IIe.

I Could try the HD20, if I blow the port, I actually have 2 other IIgses I could use, though the other 2 are ROM 01s. I might just try it on one of those. I'll let you all know.

 

[david__schmidt]

So I can't have 3x 5.25" and 1x 3.5?

Nope, the whole system has assumptions about two drives per controller "slot." It just so happens that your slots are virtual (vslot 6 for 5.25", vslot 5 for 3.5"), but you still don't get to go above the limit per slot/controller.

 

[waynestewart]

The HD20 definitely won't work on a IIgs. There were only a few macs that it'd work on. Support for it had to be in ROM and unfortunately they never did that for the Apple II line. If one functioned on a smartport then IIc owners would be thrilled. If you want a hard drive, at this time your best bet might be to try http://www.reactivemicro.com/

Wayne

 

[Green78II]

I'm curious why it shows in the manual what looks like a HD20SC attached when there was no scsi port on the IIGS.

 

[david__schmidt]

I'm curious why it shows in the manual what looks like a HD20SC attached when there was no scsi port on the IIGS.

Because you could buy a SCSI card from Apple, too.

 

[barana]

you cant use a hd2o. but there was a software startup init that was used for 512k macs to use hfs 800k floppies and hd20s if u could write it for gsos then maybe u could use it. having said that, a internal hard card for a gs is ten times faster. you might not like me saying this, but a hd20 Is more valulcale as a mac 512 hard drive. as it's the only common option for said machines. on the other hand i have said its near impossible. so may that give u the motivation to prove me wrong. especially for the 2c.

 

[waynestewart]

I'm curious why it shows in the manual what looks like a HD20SC attached when there was no scsi port on the IIGS.

Apple sold the SC20 about that time. A 20mb SCSI hard drive. Apples first SCSI card for the Apple II was what was later nicknamed the Rev C SCSI card. It wasn't that fast but it made the IIgs seem like a whole new computer. Later they made the Apple Hi-Speed SCSI card which did DMA. Others made S CSI cards too. THe CMS SCSI card wasn't one I liked, some versions had a huge amount of jumpers. The RamFast SCSI card was my favorite and the fastest SCSI card.

Also SCSI lets you play with CD drives, Magneto-Optical drives, scanners, Zip drives etc.

There were also IDE cards. Applied Engineering made a card - hard drive combination called the Vulcan. Nice but the ROM on the card was pretty much hard coded to the drive so you had to buy your drive from AE. In the last few years there's been a few cards that could use compact flash cards or ide drives though.

Wayne

 

[Unknown_K]

I have an Apple Rev C SCSI card in one of my IIgs systems and it is fast enough for GS/0S use. What I like about it is if I feel like just booting from a floppy to play a game I don't get SCSI errors (I just turn off the external HD and boot from floppy). SCSI is cool because you can use all kinds of removable drives and move data around between the IIgs and other Apple machines.

Even with a decent SCSI card you need a CPU accelerator to get much speed out of GS/OS (I have a transwarp gs), and some more RAM is nice as well (4mb is enough, I have 8 and use some as a RAM disk).

Can a IIgs use an Apple laser by chance? I never bothered to try it.

 

[iamdigitalman]

yeah, I tried the HD 20, no dice. It just sat there. I booted off the GS/OS system floppy, and ran the advanced disk utility on the system tools 1 disk. It did not even pick it up, though I did get power to it, as I was chaining the floppy drive though the HD20.

Oh, the HD in that pic is a HD SC 20, a different beast.

I am really loving this IIgs. Starting to get really deep into it. Sucks my family was a PC family, and I did not get my taste of IIs, since by the time I went to school, they were using compact macs. I only discovered them 5 years ago. So forgive me if I ask stupid questions.

 

[waynestewart]

Can a IIgs use an Apple laser by chance? I never bothered to try it.

A few people I knew used Apple laser printers. I don't recall which ones though.

I used Epson inkjets. Had an Epson Stylus 800 connected to the IIgs via serial and to a IIe via parrallel and a ProGrappler card

Wayne

 

[Dog Cow]

Yes, I've printed from my IIgs to my Apple Personal Laserwriter NTR. In the IIgs control panel, there's an option to install an ImageWriter emulator in the RAM of the LaserWriter. You use that, then most Apple II apps can print to it.

 

[Green78II]

I'm curious why it shows in the manual what looks like a HD20SC attached when there was no scsi port on the IIGS.

Apple sold the SC20 about that time. A 20mb SCSI hard drive. Apples first SCSI card for the Apple II was what was later nicknamed the Rev C SCSI card. It wasn't that fast but it made the IIgs seem like a whole new computer. Later they made the Apple Hi-Speed SCSI card which did DMA. Others made S CSI cards too. THe CMS SCSI card wasn't one I liked, some versions had a huge amount of jumpers. The RamFast SCSI card was my favorite and the fastest SCSI card.

Also SCSI lets you play with CD drives, Magneto-Optical drives, scanners, Zip drives etc.

There were also IDE cards. Applied Engineering made a card - hard drive combination called the Vulcan. Nice but the ROM on the card was pretty much hard coded to the drive so you had to buy your drive from AE. In the last few years there's been a few cards that could use compact flash cards or ide drives though.

Wayne

Thanks, for some reason I thought the only way to get SCSI in an apple IIx computer was to build one or to get one built. I'd love to get one for my IIGS So I can use my HD20SC with it. I have big plans/hopes for this thing. I wonder if there's a way to get system 7 on one or if I would be limited to GS/OS.

 

[david__schmidt]

Thanks, for some reason I thought the only way to get SCSI in an apple IIx computer was to build one or to get one built. I'd love to get one for my IIGS So I can use my HD20SC with it. I have big plans/hopes for this thing.

SCSI adapters come on eBay fairly frequently. Apple SCSI Rev C, RamFast SCSI, et. al. work fine.

I wonder if there's a way to get system 7 on one...

No. GS/OS is the closest thing the GS can run. And it's amazing just how close it is to early Mac OS.

 

[Unknown_K]

Don't forget ADB came out for the IIgs before it did for the mac.