Fuzix/Unix... Mac SE (lol)

[raoulduke]

Okay... So let's not start with whether the SE can run a version of Unix or Linux (etc).  If it had an FPU, maybe I'd be more interested in trying but my original SE (with HD) surely cannot.

However, I have two original Kaypro disks - CP/M and MS BASIC (both from 1981).  The BASIC disk may work; CP/M is probably corrupt.

I want to do two things.  I want to image the BASIC disk and I want to try to port data from my current quad-core desktop to a 5.25" floppy.  Ideally this would wind up being Fuzix, but first I'm happy to shoot for proof of life.

  I have a Unidisk 5.25".  The SE recognizes the drive, but of course can't actually read disks (including AppleWorks 3.0).  So there are two issues here.  One is whether creating a foreign image and burning a foreign image is possible.  The format/initialize dialogue box interrupts everything, making it hard - probably impossible actually - to use the system.

  Presuming one can get past the dialogue box, can Disk Copy (well can Disk Copy run... I've had issues with that - 800k drive, no working HD at present, so 6.0.8 disk tools in internal and an external drive for apps).  (longwinded, sorry)  If Disk Copy runs, can it create an image of my BASIC disk; can it burn an image of a Fuzix (or frankly CP/M 2.2) disk?

The second issue is whether the GCR format is in anyway compatible with TRS-80 or Kaypro 2x.

I have a fair amount of hardware to put toward this; another thought is can an Apple IIe support a 3.5 drive; and if so would it be easier/possible to try it on that?  My gut says that doesn't really matter except for the dialogue box.

Any thoughts guys?

 

[Gorgonops]

... Uhm, when you say the SE "recognizes" the Unidisk 5.25 (connected to the normal SWIM port?) what do you mean by that? All the documentation I've seen says "Thou Shall Not Connect-eth a 5.25" Apple II Floppy Drive to a Mac", with the one exception being you can use one on an LC equipped with the Apple II card (But even in that case you have to connect it to the dongle cable on the card, not to a motherboard floppy port), and even says you risk damaging the disk controller. Can you actually format a disk in the drive and the resulting disk works? (And as what, a 140k HFS filesystem?)

As to transferring data to and from TRS-80 or Kaypro disks, there are oodles of (well, a number of) choices for doing so under MS-DOS or Linux, you'd really save yourself a lot of hassle if you could scrape up an older PC that has support for driving a 5 1/4" floppy drive. (BIOS support for these sizes evaporated in the early 'augts, I *think* there may be workarounds for forcing a BIOS type override on newer machines that still have floppy controllers but the BIOS only does 3.5" HD but Googling that is sort of a nightmare.) The TRS-80 and Kaypro both used standard Western Digital FM/MFM controllers and therefore use formats fundamentally incompatible with the GCR format used by the Apple II, and in fact the Disk II-related drives are missing some pieces that are present in drives using standard soft-sector formats. (Biggest one being the "track start" sensor.)

The one thing a PC's disk controller will (often) have trouble with is single-density formats; most (but not all) controllers are missing some bits that allow those to work properly. I *think* Kaypros are all double-density, however, and the only single-density TRS-80 is the Model I.

The people here are really good at this sort of question, BTW. I do think the short answer is that the Mac SE is the wrong pony for this job, however.

 

[raoulduke]

Yeah. I did some research subsequent to this and completely agree.

As to the 5.25 recognition, I only have three 5.25 disks - copied Appleworks 3.0, which is the only disk I have for my IIe, CP/M and BASIC... I'm hesitant to ruin any of those but as CP/M can't be read by the Kaypro or TRS's-80 III or IV, I don't know that the data on it is as interesting as the label/serial. Short story - I'll probably try tonight.

 

[Gorgonops]

Remember of course that one of the *really* annoying things about CP/M is that basically every manufacturer used their own proprietary disk format (IE, different sector sizes, directory formats, etc) so even if you have a working CP/M machine of brand X there's a good chance it won't read disks for brand Y without a translator program. I assume you have a working Kaypro "two", is it the original "II" or the later "2"? I think (but am not sure) that the latter won't boot disks for the former, and possibly vice-versa, but should be readable in the second drive. (And of course a Kaypro CP/M disk won't boot on a TRS-80 Model III or 4; the III actually won't run CP/M at all without a hardware modification, it's TRS-DOS only, and the 4 needs a version of CP/M tailored to it.)

 

[raoulduke]

I've never had any other disks for the machine. Idk... I just bought a disk or two on eBay. I'll wait for them. It says format as SD or DD. We'll see.

(Not clear why that displays upside-down by default, sorry.)

 

[raoulduke]

I had a non-working Compaq (Portable) Plus.  The fuse would blow out every time I turned it on.  I finally got to taking it apart, and I'm a little curious to try a barebones config, but I took the floppy drive out of it.  I was able to make disk images of Kaypro's CP/M 2.2 and Microsoft Basic-80 with SAMDisk, but not Appleworks 3.0.  Omniflop didn't work either.

I know about ADTPro and I'm curious to try the audio bootstrap.  But since this isn't an attempt to get software for Apple II specifically, but rather to test whether reading/writing is possible on this setup - with an IBM PC compatible 360 kb drive.  There is some evidence scattered sporadically and tersely around the web that the drive itself is capable of writing and reading Apple II disks.

Does anyone know of/if there is any software for this purpose?  Either for OS X (I think 10.5.2) or Windows 7 (32-bit)?

 

[Gorgonops]

I know about ADTPro and I'm curious to try the audio bootstrap.  But since this isn't an attempt to get software for Apple II specifically, but rather to test whether reading/writing is possible on this setup - with an IBM PC compatible 360 kb drive.  There is some evidence scattered sporadically and tersely around the web that the drive itself is capable of writing and reading Apple II disks.

So... you probably won't like the answer. Basically what it boils down to is that while the drive itself might be capable of reading and writing *some* Apple II formats (with some notable limitations, notably the inability to do "half-tracks" and a few other oddities that Apple II drives are capable of due to how their stepper motors are directly controlled by the computer) the PC's disk controller can't do it. There have been a number of hardware options over the years for enabling data exchange; an early example was the Central Point Option Board, more recent examples include the "CatWeasel" (discontinued and expensive if you can find it at all), "KryoFlux" and "DiscFerret", but I'm pretty sure the latter two are read-only. (IE, only good for acquiring images for emulation.) Another old home-brew read-only solution was "Disk2FDI" which required construction of a cable going to an old-fashioned parallel port to read Apple disks... which again does you no good if you need to write.

So really your only practical solution is ADTPro.... unless you have a IIgs. In which case you could go the *really* impractical route I used to generate a few disks from bare metal, which was to Netboot the IIgs from a linux machine using the A2SERVER GSOS distribution via an Appletalk->Ethernet bridge and use the disk image tools provided with it to write some images stored on the server. But, yeah, if you only have a IIe it's going to be ADTPro.

 

[raoulduke]

I couldn't get Disk2FDI to work - but in fairness I wasn't totally clear on what the demo version was actually doing.

ADTPro is one of the coolest things I've ever seen, and that does work.  I haven't gone beyond sending the client because I don't have any spare disks, but for sure that seems to be the best practical solution since - at least in theory - it allows access to the drive.  I'm not sure what limitations it has in terms of getting sort of universal or portable data from the cassette port.  But their inadvertent choice to just go with a minijack port built-in, rather than Commodore's model for instance, has left these computers (II, II+, IIe) indefinitely serviceable - in theory.  I just think that's really cool.  

Sadly I tossed my IIgs and IIc years ago - although in ADTPro terms keeping the IIe may have been a smart decision.

In any event, thanks.

 

[Gorgonops]

Yeah, honestly... I'm sure Disk2FDI has been a lifesaver for somebody, but its annoying how limited the demo version is (pretty much to the point of uselessness) and the documentation is pretty terrible. (Some of its advanced usage scenarios require special cabling, the use of *two* floppy drives, etc., and it's not really obvious when that applies. I fiddled with it years and years ago to try to read some single-density Tandy disks and ended up not particularly satisfied.)

As to IIe verses IIc or IIgs, well... the latter two have built-in serial ports so really they're probably *slightly* superior ADTPro machines than a IIe minus a Super Serial card, but it is nonetheless pretty darn cool that it works on the old cassette port. Part of me is itching to write a similar program for bare-metal disk imaging on old Tandy machines. (The III and IV aren't really a problem if you can scrape up a 360k floppy drive, although those are starting to get rare, but the Model I is trickier.)

 

[raoulduke]

I'm going to try burning to III and IV soon.  I only have one DD floppy at the moment.  More should be arriving shortly.