On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) wrote:
> > On Tue, 8 Jan 2002, Don Maslin wrote:
> > > The Microsolutions MatchPoint card in conjunction with a specific
> > > version of UniForm will permit read/write of the Apple II format
> > > disks. That is about the only combination that immediately occurs
> > > that permits this.
> Turnover (previously Apple Turnover) from Vertex was another earlier
> version of the same thing.
Fred, you gave me the impression that the Turnover was a heaping mound of
dung. Does/Did it actually work? Or can it be made to work? Or does
it at least work half-reliably? If so, do you still have the drivers and
docs for one somewhere? (Don't tell me: you gave this to me already ;)
> The Matchpoint is rare. I see them occasionally, but not very often.
> Actually, I saw one at VCF a few years ago, but when I went back to
> get it, somebody else had already bought it.
DAMN!
> Nope. It does RAW track read. You would then have to parse the track
> data to recreate bytes and sector boundaries. Not completely trivial,
> but quite feasible.
Not a problem. I'd just take the Disk ][ controller machine code and
convert it to C ;)
> > What about the (Applied Engineering) PC Transporter? It's an Apple ][
> > card that allows you to connect up a PC drive to your Apple and transfer
> > files. I think I have one somewhere. I also have a Rana PC<->Apple
> > gateway box but I don't know if it works like the PC Transporter. I guess
> > I should play with it someday and see what it does.
>
> There were several after-market devices for the Apple to do it. One of
> them advertised itself as being a "PC drive for the Apple". Inside the
> "drive" box was an Ampro Littleboard! It was just using the Apple as a
> terminal.
This may well be the Rana box. I might have time to check on it today,
but I'm behind on a major move.
> There were two Apple on a board units for the PC. There was the
> Diamond Trackstar (which was even available through RS for a while!),
> and there was the Quadram Quadlink. The Quadlink had some quality
> control issues - of 20 that we bought at the college, 16 were DOA.
> When Quadram replaced those, 12 of the REPLACEMENTS were DOA! C'mon
> guys, you do have to test some of them, and all of replacement units.
> One of them had a connector installed backwards, such that it could
> NOT be connected using their cables
I missed several opportunities to buy a Diamond Trackstar off of Haggle a
few years back. There was this guy who obviously had way too many of them
and one was listed almost every week. I kept holding off thinking that
there would also be an opportunity to buy one and kept spending my money
on other things. Duh.
But actually, I think I did end up with one eventually, and it's somewhere
in my pile ;)
> WHEN we locate the Apple Turnover software, and IF we can find one of
> the boards that WORKS, it can do Apple-DOS, Apple CP/M, P-System, and
> Pro-Dos. The hardware is flaky and the software is buggy, and it is
> picky about which drives it will work with. But it did work.
Hmm. Good enough. So where do you think the software is? Do you have
the source?
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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Received on Wed Jan 09 2002 - 13:28:42 GMT