MicroDrive Turbo Rebuild – Partitions and CiderPress with “Special” 32MB Drive Images

March 17, 2019 NOTE: As of March 17, 2019 The Hard Drive Images on Alex Lee’s site noted below have all been redone with a block size compatible with the MicroDrive Turbo.

http://whatisthe2gs.apple2.org.za/updates-and-the-current-state-of-solid-state-storage/

This post is about how CiderPress and MicroDrive Turbo treat some 32 MB hard drive images that are found on Alex Lee’s site for the IIGS. Some of the images are larger than others by a block. This is not an issue with CFFA3000 cards or Emulators. But with MicroDrive Turbo cards and CiderPress this led to an issue with loading them onto the partitions as recommended by the microdrive documentation. This post carries on from my post of 5 days ago.

http://www.whatisthe2gs.apple2.org.za

So I experimented by increasing the block size by one as you’ll see in the pictures below and the odd sized or other sized, if you want to call them that, images loaded just fine and work on the MicroDrive without issue so far.

This reports the files in KBytes but illustrates the different sizes.

The series of screens can also serve as a bit of a tutorial on using CiderPress to load images.

Image 1: The 3 Partitions that come standard. All are 65535 as recommended in the manual.

Image 2: Two of the three partitions appear on the desktop. The third does not appear since its image is not loaded, as yet.

Now I add a 4th Partition. A 65356 block partition.

Using the Volume Copier in CiderPress

You’ll see the 3rd and 4th Partitions listed. One at 65535 blocks. My experimental at 65536 blocks.

Loading the Productivity and Graphics image.

Now, loading the other size, block size, image. System Addons.

Here the images appear on the desktop.

Starting MicroDrive Setup from GSOS to add another partition, Load it, and use it.

MicroDrive Turbo CF Card Rebuild for IIGS

I recently had to rebuild the CF card that was in my MicroDrive Turbo. Here are some of the pictures as I went through creating the partitions with the MicroDrive Setup Utility Backup Disk. You’ll see I added partitions in increments and tested along the way. Like 1 partition, 2 partitions, 4, 8. I did test boots after 2, 4 and 8. Eight was my final. [Note: it’s best to read the wiki at the ReactiveMicro site covering the MDT before and while running setup]

I love the icon that comes with the MicroDrive Turbo Setup Disk.

Below: I added partition 2 but also changed default boot drive to 2.

Just an FYI: I’m running CiderPress in Windows XP using Parallels on my iMac.

Although there is a version of CiderPress that runs within Wine on Macs it will not recognize the CF Card. Tried it.

Note below: make sure you uncheck the box “open read only” or you won’t be able to Load. My card was a 512MB CF. Below noted as 500MB.

Select your partition. Then click Load From File button. Here I replaced partitions VG1 and VG2 with Audio Utilities and Prod Visual. Then select the image.

Note: for some reason MDT will not load images with size 32,769. It will load 32,768.

Further down is a picture of the error message. I work around this by loading in an Emulator and copying individual folders to an image which is 32,768 or smaller.

Since it says you need a partition of 65536, which is one block larger than the MDT Setup Utility Manual says I thought I might try to actually set up an image of this size and see what happens. Soon…

Cassettes – Loading a Program to Apple IIe

December 4, 2018

Today, I wanted to re-create the Cassette program loading process on the Apple lle. Referencing my old write ups. I hooked up an audio cable to the input jack plug on the Apple IIe (the plug closest to joystick plug), and the other end into the out or earphone or speaker jack on the Cassette player.

1. I started the IIe.
2. Hit control reset to get the basic prompt.
3. Typed NEW and hit return.
4. Typed LOAD….[did not hit return yet]
5. Started play on the Cassette player and then immediately hit return.
6. When the program starts loading the IIe beeps once. [ takes a few seconds before you get a beep ]
7. When the program finishes loading the IIe beeps again and gives you a basic prompt.
8. I then hit Stop on the Cassette player.

I performed a LIST on the IIe to see the program listing. In my case it was the program Lemonade by Apple. It is a long program and took over a minute to load into the IIe.

Note: the output volume from the Cassette player must be very high in order for the IIe to pick it up. For me, the volume must be at a point where it is annoying.

Below are my original write ups from 3 years ago with various attempts to load programs, Cassette, Wav or other formats. I tried a number of sites. These write ups predated this blog so I’m adding now for anyone who wants to read.

This is a nice exercise to go through to understand and experience the pre-floppy load process back then. But most, if not all these Cassette programs are available as dsk images now.

Here are a couple of pictures of saving and reloading to B side of cassette tape.

September 11, 2015 – [ Old original write ups ]

I used the cassette player today to LOAD the Lemonade Game from the Original Tape, then SAVE it to a new blank cassette. It worked like a charm. I was able to LOAD the game from the new cassette and RUN it…multiple times.

September 10, 2015

I used the Cassette recorder/player to Record/SAVE and LOAD a basic program to and from the Apple IIe with a new blank cassette. The program code is the following:

10 Print “Smudge”

September 8, 2015

Cassette Game Trials

Streams from BrutalDeluxe.fr

Today I tried using Virtual II emulator on my MacBook Pro to play some cassette images from the brutaldeluxe.fr site.

But, first I had to convert the wav file to a .do disk image file so it would run on Virtual II. Trying to load the wav file or aiff file directly using the cassette feature of Virtual II would just not work as it wouldn’t allow me to select those files. So, based on something on read on the Virtual II site, I think, I changed the extension of aiff to cass. These were then available to Load using the Cassette selector feature. However, I would get a ERR when I tried to load these about 10-15 seconds into the LOAD effort. After a control reset to get to the prompt I performed a LIST command. Some code was there but it wasn’t pretty.

So, instead I used CiderPress to: 1) create a New Disk Image (a .do image) 2) Then from the Action dropdown I select Load from wav file to that image 3) You then select the wav file and Ciderpress opens the contents.

The contents are lists and could be Integer Basic, Binary or AppleSoft.

I could only find one program/wav whose content was AppleSoft. This was the Address File Database Program.

Once you insert the AppleSoft Program in the .do image you can double click on the .do and it will boot up Virtual II. From there you CATALOG the disk and then RUN the Program. I ran the Address Database Program and created two Address File Databases called Chris and Computers. The first was actual addresses. The second was a Database of Computers.

The other .do programs I got to run were Binary image programs within the wav file. These were Text Adventure Games, which included a sample Adventure Game and Mission Impossible Adventure Game.

The other .do image I created contained Integer Basic programs. These I could not get to run. I probably need to have Integer Basic loaded. The wav files contain Integer Basic but I didn’t try to combine it and a game program on the same .do image. Maybe I should try that and run Integer Basic before trying to run the Integer Basic Program itself. Perhaps tomorrow.

September 7, 2015

STREAMING Old Cassette Program Images

AsciiExpress.Net

I went to the Asciiexpress.net site which has old Cassette Program images written for the Apple II and Apple II+ which you can stream and LOAD directly into IIe and RUN.

I used Firefox on MacBookPro to download.

Hit load and click play on screens.

When streaming from this site the IIe starts reading file and in a few seconds displays ETA on completing the load on the screen.

I streamed/downloaded and played Draw Poker and Moon Patrol.

When done playing I hit control reset as I wanted to get to a Basic [ prompt so I could list and save the code. It was a no go as it went to an asterisk prompt.

Also went to the brutaldeluxe.fr site to download/stream into the IIe wav and aiff data files. But all of them produced an error at 12-14 seconds into download.

Don’t know why it does this. When you enter LIST some code is displayed.

September 3, 2015 [Original Write Up to my Journal]

Cassette Game Loading

I was successful in loading the Lemonade Game from Cassette with the IIe today. I also loaded the Hoppalong Cassidy on the reverse side. You have to connect the cable into the speaker out plug on the cassette player and the other end into the plug furthest to the right on the back of the IIe…right next to the Joystick.

It took some doing to figure it out. It turns out it’s much simpler on a IIe since it boots to a basic prompt [ .

From there you type NEW and return, type LOAD…

Then you turn on the cassette player and hit RETURN

The computer will beep once to say it begins reading the program. Then when it’s done reading it will beep a second time and return you to the basic prompt [ .

Then you can type RUN to start the game or type LIST to see the basic code.

I repeated the LOAD, RUN process a few times.

Copies of Cassette Programs: Since the input is analog song I found a site on the net that actually provides sound files you can play into the port, I’ll have to try some of these.

CiderPress – Creating Disk Images from BXY Files

I downloaded a number of BXY files (filename.bxy) that contained Christmas art for Apple II Programs. In the example below I used PublishIt4 to import the individual pictures.

Anyway, the bxy files contained 24 pictures each but only 8 can fit on a 5.25 disk image. Here is a picture in CiderPress. You can also create a .2mg file containing all 24 files if you want. I created all 24 on a 800k.po file and then converted it to the 2mg. Works perfectly fine in the Virtual II Emulator as long as you configure Virtual II with SCSI drives. See earlier blog post on doing this. I think you can search on OmniDisk.

I used File, Open dropdown to view contents. Then, I selected the pictures I wanted. Next, go to Actions, Convert to disk archive. Following usual CiderPress actions, Name the volume, click OK, and then save file, use same name or different name. This gives you a filename.po image which I loaded to my Virtual IIe Emulator. Below is a snapshot of PublishIt4 printout of some of the pictures.

The End

AppleWorks 3 and TimeOut Thesaurus

I have AppleWorks 3 on a number of images for Virtual II Emulator. Some 3.5″ (.2mg) and some OmniDisk SCSI ProDOS 32MB (.2mg). I keep adding the TimeOut applications to the mix. By the way, The version of Thesaurus online at Apple2online.com is a “.BIN” file. I used CiderPress(Mac Wine version) to create a .2mg image from the .po image since Virtual II does not like 99% of the .po images. [ I have an earlier blog entry on the CiderPress Wine and the link to it ]. I’ll post here but if I forget you can search for it.

Some other AppleWorks 3 and TimeOut Note Pad.

By the way the Notes for Note Pad are stored in a TXT file so you need to select create new word processing file in AppleWorks and then text file to pull into AppleWorks. That is if you want to read them outside of TimeOut Note Pad.

CiderPress on macOS 10.nn via Wine (see link below)

I’ve been a long time user of CiderPress for Windows to manage images for my Apple II computers. But, it required me to run Parallels for macOS.  [ since I haven’t permitted Windows computers among family members since 2005; I got tired of fixing everyone’s issues ]. So, when this popped up I jumped at it. Straight download, app lands on desktop and off you go. So far, it’s done everything I’ve needed. I’m running macOS Sierra in case you need that for reference.

RCA Downloads

RCA Downloads

MicroDrive Turbo

I use the MicroDrive Turbo on my IIGS computers. I originally installed it in my Rom 01 IIGS. It greatly reduced bootup time. The 4 partitions that came with the drive give you everything to get started. With the floppy drives I was able to copy or install many programs on the partitions.

If you count the partitions in the next to last picture you’ll see 5. I added a partition with the utilities that came with the device, and I created one of my own with CiderPress. Plus, I downloaded hard drive images from: 

http://www.whatisthe2gs.apple2.org.za

and installed those over existing partition images. Once again, with CiderPress. 

This is Alex Lee’s great site.

Creative Computing Software – Apple II Cassettes

Apple II – Create .do files from .wav cassette files

http://www.brutaldeluxe.fr/projects/cassettes/index.html has many of the old Apple Cassette programs on it’s site.

They are in wav file format compatible with playing them from your computer directly into your input port of your Apple II, Apple II+, and Apple IIe via the [LOAD and [RUN commands.

However, you can convert these wav files to .do images which can be played in an Apple II emulator such as Virtual II. I run Virtual II on my MacBook Pro.

The program you need is called CiderPress. It runs under Windows. I run Windows XP under Parallels on my MacBook Pro to perform these conversions.

The following are the sequence of pictures for creating the .do from .wav file.

As you can see from the pictures I didn’t spefically name any of the basic programs and just let the default From.Tape. However, on subsequent imports I name the program on one of the basic tracks…like Lunar, or Maze which are just two of the 20 or so files I’ve converted.

Cassettes – Loaded to Apple IIe from Audio output on MacBook

The wav files downloaded from http://www.brutaldeluxe.fr/projects/cassettes/index.html are loaded into my Apple IIe from my MacBook. Output from earphone jack to input port on back of IIe. In put port on back of IIe is the one closest to the joystick connect port. I had to keep the volume high on the player on the MacBook for this to work. It worked on a number of wav files. Others not so much. Here are a few.