I just bought the IIgs MicroDrive IDE Controller card (256MB CF) from ReactiveMicro. I spent all day with the CiderPress software and can't figure out how to use it. I have all these disk images I'm unsure how to get onto CF for use on my Apple IIgs. I looked at some tutorials but I'm still confused. Please could some one could explain how to do it step by step so anyone can understand. The CiderPress software is over engineered and poorly designed for easy of use in my opinion but it seams to be the only option.
BTW all the images are in .2mg there is a few .po but most are .2mg.
The first thing you need to understand is what disk images are, and how they relate to your CF card (or not). Disk images are just as their name implies: snapshots of an entire physical disk (whatever size that disk might be). Typically, images are of 5-1/4" or 3-1/2" floppies. But they might be of arbitrarily sized hard drives too, for example.
Images with the suffix .dsk are almost always the 5-1/4" variety. Images with the suffix .po are often, but not always, 5-1/4"; but there's no set limit on their size. I can make a .po (ProDOS-order) image of my hard drive or CF card, for example. The file size will tell me how big it would expect be when written out to a real disk: divide the file size by 512 and that'll give you the block count; 5-1/4" disks are 280 blocks (140k). 3-1/2" disks are 1600 blocks (800k).
Images with the suffix .2mg are often, but not always, images of 3-1/2" disks. You can still estimate the ultimate size based on filesize, but the .2mg file format wraps the disk image in a bit of an envelope, so it's slightly larger due to some meta-data.
So. You have disk images, and they expect to be laid down on top of media that is of the exact same size in order to be reconstituted correctly. You have a couple of different options for getting them there.
Option 1: copy the .2mg image to your CF card using CiderPress (I've not used CiderPress with my CF cards, so I don't know how that step works exactly). Once the .2mg is on your CF card, put the card in your GS and run a program like Asimov (http://www.ninjaforce.com/html/products.html) to take the .2mg and lay it down on top of your physical 3-1/2" floppy disk.
Option 2: with a connection between your modern computer and the GS, use a program like ADTPro (http://adtpro.sourceforge.net) to directly write the .2mg image to your physical 3-1/2" disk, bypassing the CF card altogether.
Either way, your CF card doesn't play a role in actually *using* the disk image in its ultimate form, which is a physical floppy disk.
I know I can use CiderPress to get the files out of the disk images (and it will protect the Apple II formatting of those files for further transfer back to a Apple II in the future) and I can see everything on the CF card with CiderPress so there has to be away to get those files onto one of the partitions of the CF card. I'm not looking for another drive nor am I looking for a solution that will leave me with a stack of disks. Thanks anyway for that suggestion though. Any more solutions and ideas would be nice. I know you haven't used CiderPress with you CF cards but if someone knows how to, could they explain how they could get files on to the CF card that would be very helpful. Also on the same topic if you don't use CiderPress, how do you manage you CF card?
You will be able to use CiderPress to copy individual files from a disk image (via Ctrl-C) and paste them into your CF card with CiderPress (via Ctrl-V) once you get your CF card mounted by Ciderpress. That technique may or may not work for things like games, though, that expect to be on a particular media type. Later games will be more accommodating than earlier ones; but this technique will likely not work at all for DOS 3.3 games. CF cards simply aren't a replacement for floppy drives, in my opinion.
I leave my CF card plugged into my IIgs and manage files with the GS/OS Finder. And a stack of disks.
It's a pain to open up my IIgs case, so the CF card just stays in there 24x7.
I just figured out how to do it thanks for the help. This program could be easier to use in my opinion.
I've been working on a way to have a internal CF card that can be removed without opening the case. I have an idea of how to do it, but I need to find the time to produce one. I'll post pictures or a link to it when I get that finished.
Kisho,
Rich's CF Card is great, but according to the manual it's only supposed to be used with ProDos. I have been in the process of gathering the required peices to start downloading files myself and kinda got stopped in that area. I just bought a Double Seven card from Reactive (a Littlejohn product)to be able to try and use 2 CF cards in slot seven. One for GEOS and one for Utilities and Appleworks.
I've never tried a non ProDOS disk yet. I've read some where that you can use software that originally came on DOS 3.3 disks if you converted that disk to ProDOS. This some times makes some programs fail to function. Games are most prone to failing when you do this.
So what exactly is your problem? It sounds like your stuck but I'm not sure where. Transferring the images? Or getting it to work in slot 7?
Sounds like a nice setup. What Apple II are you running this on? Where did you find the GEOS image?
Kisho,
All the parts are got. I just have to finish up on the platinum IIe that I'm refurbishing and start transfering images. It's not a GEOS image, it's the actual program on 5.25 disks. The Double Seven Works Great! The only thing is you have to take off the lid to throw the switch right now, but (like the consumate tinkerer) I have a fix for it. As soon as I'm done I'll put up a picture of it.