Hello everyone. I'm afraid I'm at a roadblock in my relationship with the Apple II platform.
I have two Apple II systems that I have obtained. One is an Apple IIe, the other an Apple IIgs.
The Apple IIgs came with a 3rd-party Applied Engineering "AE HD+" floppy disk drive. It has the parallel-port style floppy disk connector which the Apple IIgs uses. One article (link) talks about how it can not be used a start-up disk for the Mac. I assume the Apple IIgs can use it as a start-up disk. Is this correct?
The Apple IIe does not have a floppy drive, but does come a Disk II interface card.
I do not have floppy disks with the operating systems for either system.
So at the moment I would love to get either of these systems working. I'm not sure which floppy drive I should buy for the IIe. Should I buy one with dual slots? Should I favor 3.5" or 5.25"? Is the Disk II interface card usable for all Apple-made drives I might encounter?
Is there any problem with the 3.5" AE HD+ for the Apple IIgs? Is it important to have a 5.25" drive for it too?
I really appreciate any help you all can give me. I am eager to join the Apple II community.
So it would seem that the disk drive I have (AE HD+) is the 3rd party equivalent to the Apple FDHD External drive, seen here.
According to the article, my Apple IIgs, lacking a SuperDrive controller, will treat it like the old 800k drives.
I can also purchase a SuperDrive card for the IIe so they could share a floppy disk drive (not at the same time, of course).
If I want a 5.25" drive, the Apple 5.25" Drive should do the trick, and can be chained along with the 3.5" drive I already own.
I guess the only questions I have left are:
(1) what is the benefit to having a 5.25" drive?
(2) what is the benefit to having multiple drives of one type?
I guess this shows what I (don't) know about the Apple II. Must the OS disk remain in the floppy drive all throughout the use of the system?
True, and it will boot from an 800k boot disk you create.
True again; but 5-1/4" disks were a much more popular medium for programs, games, etc. While things like GS/OS were distributed on 3-1/2" disks, pretty much everything for the IIe was on 5-1/4". It was simply unusual to have rigid disks with a non-GS.
Almost all software you find on the internet will be made for it, and disk images will be of the 140k, 5-1/4" variety. They won't help you if you only have a 3-1/2" drive.
The ability to quickly duplicate a disk you already have in physical form. That's become less of an issue these days as you can use your host computer as a disk repository and just reconstitute whatever disk you need with the likes of ADT or ADTPro on demand.
It depends. If you're talking about GS/OS, then yes, pretty much. If you're talking about DOS and ProDOS, then no.
Look here:
http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/bootstrap.html
Thank you! Your post was immensely helpful.
The process of getting the image to the floppy seems pretty painless (and would be even more so once ADTPro is written to a floppy). I always wondered how people dealt with those 5.25" floppy images.
From what I understand, the integrated Apple IIgs floppy controller handles both 3.5" and 5.25" floppy disk drives with the 19-pin external connector. However, it only handles a maximum of 800k densities.
My research also suggests that the Apple SuperDrive controller can handle any drive that has the 19-pin external connector. On the IIgs, its only advantage over the integrated is for 1440k floppies. On the IIe, it is the only way to use 19-pin external drives.
My problem so far is that I can not find a SuperDrive controller for sale. Are there any alternatives for those want to use 19-pin drives on the IIe? All the 3.5" drives I've found use the 19-pin connector.
True.
On the IIe, it is the only way to use 19-pin external 3-1/2" drives. The IIe generally came with a 5-1/4" controller that had the 19-pin connector on it.
They are an unfortunate combination of rare and expensive. Just another reason to abandon the search for a 3-1/2" solution for the IIe.
No.
Will do. I was under the impression that a 3.5" drive was part of the "must-have" package, but if I can get away without one, that will do.
Like I said in my first post, I only have a Disk II card for the IIe. So to be able to use the more modern Apple 5.25" Drive I would want something like this, which I could couple with a drive like this.
Thanks again. I really appreciate all the help. Hopefully this thread will be helpful to others in the future too.
That combination will work fine. But since you already have the older-style card, you could just use this.
After making a multi state move I discovered my old IIc in a box while unpacking . It's working great . I bought a 3.5 unidisk off ebay before I found out that my IIC does not have the rom upgrade that will allow it to work . Anyone have any ideas on where I might be able to get a rom upgrade or a upgrade kit ?
Thanks
Joe Wright
UPS UNIX Systems
8001 Ashbottom Road
Louisville, KY 40213
502 359-6024
jrwright621@gmail.com
qrr4gnb@ups.com