Apple II Unidisk 3.5/LIRON card

From: Louis Schulman <louiss_at_gate.net>
Date: Mon Apr 29 16:47:28 2002

On Mon, 29 Apr 2002 16:08:40 +0000, Rich Beaudry wrote:

#I'm having a problem with an Apple IIe Platinum, and I hope you can
help.
#I recently acquired a LIRON 3.5" floppy controller card, and was
looking
#forward to using 3.5" disks on my AIIe. After some reading, it seemed
that
#the LIRON card would only work with a Unidisk 3.5" (model number
starts with
#"A2M"), and NOT with a 3.5" drive from, say, a IIgs (model number
starts
#with "A9M"). So, of course, I went and found a Unidisk 3.5" drive...

This is correct. The LIRON card works with the Unidisk 3.5, Model
A2M2053.
#
#The combination doesn't work, *even with every other card pulled*, so
here
#are my questions:

Either the card, drive or cable is not functioning correctly.
#
#- Will the LIRON card work with the Unidisk 3.5" drive? My reading of

#several FAQs says "yes", but maybe I misread something...

Yes, and only yes.
#
#- Does anyone have docs for either the drive, or the card? There are
no
#switches or jumpers, and the installation seems obvious, but who
knows,
#maybe I missed something....

Plug and play. If the card is in the highest used slot, it will boot a
properly formatted disk with ProDOS on it.
#
#- Can you boot from the 3.5" drive? Or is it only for storage, and
you can
#only boot with 5.25" drives?

Yes, but it has to be in the highest used slot, or you can select the
slot after booting from another device.

I have had both bad LIRON cards and Unidisk 3.5 drives. If you don't
have any other cards, drives, or machines (like a IIC+) to allow for an
easy mix and match test, then locating the problem will be more
complex.

Louis
Received on Mon Apr 29 2002 - 16:47:28 BST