Am I the only one who has thought of this? Updating Apple II models to the latest ProDOS

6 posts / 0 new
Last post
FHR
Offline
Last seen: 2 weeks 2 days ago
Joined: Aug 29 2025 - 09:37
Posts: 19
Am I the only one who has thought of this? Updating Apple II models to the latest ProDOS

I've been thinking an idea on Apple II systems, and I'm hoping I'm not the only one who has asked this beofre. I wonder if there's a way to get the latest ProDOS (2.5 a8 or whichever version) and flash onto the ROM. Upon booting, it shows the exact model, (Apple IIe Platinum, Apple II Plus, etc), and on system level 'boot' into the bitsy bye programs, as well as use other new tools provided by ProDOS.  Could something like this work? 

Offline
Last seen: 6 hours 26 min ago
Joined: Dec 20 2003 - 10:38
Posts: 670
ProDOS doesn’t reside in the

ProDOS doesn’t reside in the ROM, it’s an operating system that’s loaded from disk.

In my case when I use ProDOS, it’s mostly from a hard drive.

I generally know which model of Apple II I’m using but it’s not hard to modify the ROM so a custom name shows up at startup. I did that once with someones IIe as a joke

FHR
Offline
Last seen: 2 weeks 2 days ago
Joined: Aug 29 2025 - 09:37
Posts: 19
Huh?

So then what is loaded on the ROM then?

Offline
Last seen: 6 hours 26 min ago
Joined: Dec 20 2003 - 10:38
Posts: 670
In the IIe it’s mostly

In the IIe it’s mostly AppleSoft Basic. If you don’t have a disk controller in the IIe you immediately get a Basic prompt.

Online
Last seen: 1 hour 33 min ago
Joined: Jun 18 2010 - 13:54
Posts: 864
FHR wrote:... system level
FHR wrote:... system level 'boot' into the bitsy bye

 All of the ROMX* products can do this. You could easily make a custom ROM for this, or use the existing ROMX default images to load any existing System ROM and then link it to a ProDOS image with or without launch of BITSY BYE. See https://jdmicro.com/rom_images/romxce

Offline
Last seen: 1 month 2 weeks ago
Joined: Dec 8 2019 - 21:22
Posts: 17
Yeah ROMX* is perfect for

Yeah ROMX* is perfect for this. I have COPY II PLUS, PRODOS 2.4.2, CHOPLIFTER etc as bootable images from the startup menu for my IIc

I'm experimenting on converting some other programs to the ROMX*.

 

How do I create a Prodos 2.5 alpha RMX file to use as the "base"?

Also, I'd really like to add Copy II PLUS 9.1 (as it uses 128k for the IIc, as well as allowing to sort the PRODOS files,so that the correct SYSTEM file is booted in order) to the ROMXc but the UTIL.SYSTEM for verisons 9.x isn't standalone like versions 8.x. There is a UTIL.MORE Binary file (47 blocks) as well as UTIL.SYSTEM (39 blocks). Maybe the combined size of these two, is too much for a ROMX image.

 

Log in or register to post comments