Help with an old Apple IIgs

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Help with an old Apple IIgs

Hi everyone... me and a friend have found an old Apple IIgs with two floppy drives but no disks to boot. I managed to get to the Control Panel and to Basic though. I've read a lot of stuff and I understand there's this ADT for Windows which would allow me to make the apple 2 write a disk through a null modem cable, but it seems it needs the DOS on the apple 2 side, which I don't have cos I don't have any disk, as I've said before. Now, I'd like to know if there's any way to make this ADT work and write disks from basic, i.e. without DOS. And I also like to know if HD floppies work in apple 2 drives if you put tape in the right hole to turn them to DD. Thanks a lot in advance

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Help with an Apple IIGS

Greetings,

The first place you need to go is here: http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/
and download the latest version of ADTPro, be sure to read the website as it will help you understand what you'll need to do. ADTPro is a Java based program that will transfer Prodos to the GS and help you transfer other disk images.

I take it the drives you have for it are 3.5 drives? You can use 1.44MB 3.5 disks on the GS but it would be the left hole you'd need to cover, but that isn't even necessary. Again read everything on the ADTPro website, especially about bootstrapping the computer from bare metal, which is what you'll be doing.

If you need more help, don't hesitate to ask. Another good website you can check out, for help with the GS is: http://www.a2central.com/portal/
you'll find links to stories and access to their bulletin board system which carries the comp.sys.apple2 usenet group, among others.

Dean

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I've read all and I see that

I've read all and I see that I need a serial to mini-din cable. Is there a way to avoid making a cable like that, for example by using the game port with a serial cable or by making a boot disk with the pc? Cables like that can't be found... Thanks for your patience.

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Mini-din cable

Check this web site here: http://www.mcpb.com/html/ap2cbls1.html
or just try doing a Google search for Apple IIGS serial cable. You will prbably need an adapter to hook the cable to the PC/Mac USB port but those are fairly easy to find.

Dean

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We made, following a scheme o

We made, following a scheme on a certain site, a cable that's supposed to work directly from a PC to an APPLE 2. So we did all as exactly is written on the adtpro site, but nothing seemed to work. One could believe the cable was not working, but I wanted to try hyperterminal and, writing pr#2 from the apple while the pc was listening and then typing stuff on the apple II resulted in a bunch of symbols being written on the hyperterminal window. This meant the cable was working. But still, typing in#2 and sending text to the apple 2 gave no results. So we tried changing the flow control from "hardware" to "none" (on the pc I mean) and, ta-dah, the apple 2 receives text from the PC too. And I also tried sending back the random characters the pc received, that resulted, back on the apple 2, as just what was sent in the first place, so no errors or anything. But then ADTpro still doesn't work, and sending (in text mode) from hyperterminal the same files adtpro should send results in a bunch of text with a lot of syntax errors and nothing starts.
What should we do?

ps: thanks for your patience and for reading this huge post

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Pinouts and cables and hardware handshaking, oh my!

We made, following a scheme on a certain site,
a cable that's supposed to work directly from a PC to an APPLE 2.

Uh oh. I can see this coming already. What site was that, exactly?

So we tried changing the flow control from "hardware" to "none" (on the pc I mean) and, ta-dah, the apple 2 receives text from the PC too.

It's your cable.

What should we do?

Let's examine your cable pinout closely.

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http://home.swbell.net/rubywa

http://home.swbell.net/rubywand/Csa2T1TCOM.html#001

Search for "Dedicated IIgs NULL modem cable" on that page since it's pretty long. There's a scheme, that's the one we followed.
We tried making one with the scheme that appears on the adtpro site, but that one gave no signs of life at all, except for making the apple 2 go crazy if you tried sending something from the pc while trying to enter the control panel on the apple

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Null modems are definitely a

Null modems are definitely a tricky thing. Here's another discussion with several pinouts that worked (and didn't) for folks:
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1745593&forum_id=582337

And you can buy a cable for cheap ($2.81 including shipping) from HP:
http://h30094.www3.hp.com/product.asp?sku=1025643

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Can you tell me any other pos

Can you tell me any other possibility or solution? I can't get the cable since I don't live in the USA. And anyway I can't understand why the heck a cable that trasmits stuff (because it sends text flawlessly, as I said) can't be used for ADTpro. Or if there are any other options besides from adtpro for starting from bare metal. Thanks

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Other means of bootstrapping

Can you tell me any other possibility or solution?

The original ADT may work for you:
http://adt.berlios.de

And anyway I can't understand why the heck a cable that trasmits stuff (because it sends text flawlessly, as I said) can't be used for ADTpro.

It's because the hardware handshaking lines aren't wired correctly. Simple one-way-at-a-time text with no concerns for pacing will work fine with just TX/RX/ground wires.

Or if there are any other options besides from adtpro for starting from bare metal. Thanks

Here is the way we used to do it:
http://www.apple2.org.za/gswv/a2zine/Sel/dos33dmp.htm

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I know almost nothing of prog

I know almost nothing of programming, but I'm asking you, what would happen if I erased this line "setHardwareHandshaking(hardware);" in the adtpro code?

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You don't have to know anythi

You don't have to know anything about programming. If you tick the "Apple II Serial" checkbox on the serial configuration dialog (File->Serial Configuration) it'll disable hardware handshaking.

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Can you try one more pinout?

Can you try one more pinout? I have one here that I can't test until later, but this might be what you need (sorry, the "[code]" tag doesn't seem to be working correctly on this site, so it's not as pretty as ASCII art). It's a simplification of the one you wired up already:
<br /> Apple<br /> MiniDIN8 DE-9 RS-232<br /> Pin# Pin# Name<br /> -------- ---- ------<br /> 5 ----- 3 TxD<br /> 3 ----- 2 RxD<br /> 4 --,-- 5 GND<br /> 8 --'<br /> 2 ----- 7 RTS<br /> 1 ----- 8 CTS

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This one works.

I wired one up with this pinout, and it works between my PC and IIgs. I believe this one will work for you too.

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