Liron card and unidisk 3.5 drives wont boot.. But it is it supposed to?

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Liron card and unidisk 3.5 drives wont boot.. But it is it supposed to?

So I just got my first Liron / Apple 3.5" floppy controller card. As soon as i put the card in the system (slot 6 or 7) I was expecting it to behave like a 5.25" floppy drive and attempt a boot from the 3.5" drive. But the Card doesnt even register in the computer the way the 5.25" floppy contoller does. The 5.25" controller at boot will show the Apple ][ at the top of the screen and attempt a boot or stay there. With the Liron card installed the computer always boots to a Basic Prompt. I can type in PR#6 and it will then attempt to boot the disk in the 3.5" drive. If I boot to ADTPro it sees the drive properly and can format and write to it.

 

I have no experience with these unidisk 3.5" drives or the liron card. I am only used to the dumber variant on the IIGS. Am I missing something or is this the way the drives are supposed to operate?

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The diskette must be ProDOS

The diskette must be ProDOS formatted and have appropriate ProDOS botstrapping kernel/sys files on it 

 

It is possible that it will only boot if you have the enhanced chipset, which you clearly do not. I do not have a UniDisk 3.5 to test this theory, just some of the cards, but I suppose I could test with the Floppy Emu in the correct mode. The fact that it drops you to a prompt seems to indicate that you may need the enhanced chipset for it to be bootable. I know that this is required for the 3.5 Drive (SuperDrive) controller, and that I regularly boot from 1.44 MB disks using that on an enhanced //e. 

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Timelord, I tried a working 3

Timelord, I tried a working 3.5" disk of ADTPro, that is prodos. But again the drive doesnt attempt to boot EVER. With just the Liron card installed it goes to the Basic Prompt every boot. I can boot from the disk ONLY if I type PR#6.   If I have the 5.25" controller in it DOES NOT  go to Basic Prompt and attempts to boot ONLY the 5.25" disk.

Funny you should ask if it has something to do with having the enhansed chipset or not. I was thinking the same thing. But That seems strange.. The other Apple Floppy controllers work on un-enhansed systems or even older apple systems (II plus, or II)

I am pretty curious about the superdrive controller but I have never seen one. The liron card is dated 1985, what year was the super drive card made?

Could you test the superdrive card on a non-enhansed apple II just for testing purposes?

 

 

 

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Is this in an unenhanced IIe?

Is this in an unenhanced IIe?

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dorkbert wrote:Is this in an
dorkbert wrote:

Is this in an unenhanced IIe?

That is correct. An unenhansed IIe. Since the enhancement kit and the liron card came out in 1985. It would be odd to think it only works on one and not the other but I dont know.

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I can say factually that the

I can say factually that the SuperDrive card reuqires the enhanced //e. I will try to find the LIRON manual and see what it says. 

 

What happens when you instal the LIRON in Slot 6 and the Disk ][ card in slot 5 or 4?

 

I suspect that the pre-enhanced //e autostart simply cannot recognise the drive. 

 

Ah-ha!

 

I found it: Page 8 of the Apple //e Enhanced Users Manual:

 

The IIe enhancement gives you more flexibility and convenience in several ways:

You can start up ProDOS from other devices besides the Disk II. For instance, you can now start up ProDOS from your ProFile(tm) Hard Drive. 

 

Buy this, save headaches and enjoy the benefits:

https://www.reactivemicro.com/product/iie-enhancement-kit/

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Dug out a Liron card and 3.5"

Dug out a Liron card and 3.5" unidisk.

I was able to autoboot a 3.5" disk in an enhanced IIe

Installed a 6502 and unenhanced ROMs and was no longer able to aotoboot off a 3.5" disk but as in your case the 3.5" unidisk was otherwise usable.

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That is really interesting

That is really interesting and surprising. Let me get an enhanced iie and give it a try.

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I know I'd used a 3.5"

I know I'd used a 3.5" unidisk with my II+ but it didn't matter whether it autobooted because I kept a disk II card in a higher slot. After I got tired of typing in PR#5 , I wrote a little program that would boot slot 5.

Later I rewrote it to boot slot 6 and put it on my IIe hard drive

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Liron cards are smartport

Liron cards are smartport cards and require the enhanced autostart ROM in a 2e because they only match 3 of the 4 card ID bytes expected by the unenhanced autostart ROM.

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Wayne wrote:I know I'd used a
Wayne wrote:

I know I'd used a 3.5" unidisk with my II+ but it didn't matter whether it autobooted because I kept a disk II card in a higher slot. After I got tired of typing in PR#5 , I wrote a little program that would boot slot 5.

Later I rewrote it to boot slot 6 and put it on my IIe hard drive

Did the same thing years ago.

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