Apple III & Profile

From: D. Peschel <dpeschel_at_u.washington.edu>
Date: Wed Aug 12 13:15:55 1998

> > SOS (Sophisticated Operating System - <fart>) is the pre-cursor to ProDOS.
> ^^^^
> Yeah, I'm not impressed either. ;)

That may be (I've never seen it). However, I've heard that the file data
structures are exactly the same between SOS and ProDOS. (That is, the format
of directories, volumes, etc. are compatible). ProDOS does have definitions
for many more of the 256 (255?) allowable file types -- SOS defined fewer.

So be a little thankful. :)

> Nope, I've just been using /UTILITIES because that's the only truly
> bootable disk I got with my III. I also seem to have half (?) of Pascal,
> which boots sometimes but not others, but not all the way into Pascal
> because it looks for something on .D2 which I don't have. :/

Pascal (for the ][, anyway) consists of four sides: 0, 1, 2, and 3.
Sides 0 and 1 are two sides of the same disk; ditto for sides 2 and 3.
Put side 1 in drive 1 and side 2 in drive 2. Then you should be able to use
the menu system, editor, and the compiler. (Of course, you may be missing one
or more of those sides.)

I've decided that Pascal is cool but is also a pain to use. It's somewhat of
an offshoot from normal Apple software; I don't know how much Apple updated it
over the years; it's cranky (your disk drives must be in slot 6 -- also, if
you switch disks at unexpected times the program gets discombobulated); and
even compared with other versions of the UCSD software, it's a little unusual.
UCSD updated their Pascal system through two more versions (III.x and IV.x)
but Apple stayed at II.x.

> I do still have all those Apple III disk images that I got from a
> publically unnamable source ( ;) ), but just getting them into
> machine-readable format proved to be such a huge hassle that I never got
> around to completing the task (and even my //e's Prodos disk is now
> corrupted). Give me 48-hour days and I might have it done within the
> week. Though a serial cable for the //c would help loads.

Is that the same source that is mentioned in http://www.emulation.net/ or
somewhere else?

> Does anyone know how ShrinkIt works? I think that's the format of these
> disk images. I'd like to write a ShrinkIt->.dsk image converter, and then
> I can cut out all kinds of messiness. I might even be able to write the
> files directly to disk on my Amiga.

Shrinkit is an archive program (like PKZIP, gzip, etc.) though it does have
a special mode for compressing entire disks. I think it uses a file format
called NuFX and there is supposedly a compatible C library for UNIX (nfxllib?
nfxtools? something like that).

You know, I just happen to have a disk with Shrinkit on one side and ProTERM
on the other. Perhaps it would save you a lot of time if I sent it to you?
(I have another copy of the same disk, so I can spare a copy. Though it's
been a LONG time since I booted it up, so I don't know what shape it's in.)
Both programs should be very pleasant to use on the //e or //c. I don't know
if they'll run on the ///. (The special ][+ versions of Shrinkit/Unshrinkit
should run on the /// but they're less capable.)

Send me your mailing address.

-- Derek
dpeschel_at_u.washington.edu
Received on Wed Aug 12 1998 - 13:15:55 BST

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