pfs:Stocks and pfs:Convert and pfs:File

Early on [1983] the pfs productivity series had a number of special forms sold separately. Stocks, Home Budget, Mail List, Disk Library, Checks. See picture of complete items available at the end. The Stock$ disk is the only physical one I’ve been able to acquire. I’ve yet to find disk images of any.

Since they were in the original non-DOS non-ProDOS format they need to be converted. This was the first time I did this.

This was all completed on a Laser128. Although you’ll see my Apple lle in the picture.

Recently acquired the Stock$ Disk/Manual

Booted the Convert Disk

Selected pls:file format

Selected a ProDOS disk as the destination

Converting Begins

Tells you what it’s about to do

Progress

Completion

Booted up pts:file

Selected Stocks from Comm2 ProDOS [earlier conversion]

Stocks Form up

Close Up – Rudimentary, but it was 40 years ago.

The other manuals I have. Also the list of forms pfs: sold.

Mouse Card by MacEffects for IIe IIGS

Here is the start. Link to their products….

https://maceffects.com/collections/all

The Card

Close Up

You can see this lle is loaded. Cards include SCSI, Liron, Disk II, FastChip//e, MegaAudio and 8 mb card.

You can see this lle is loaded. Cards include SCSI, Liron, Disk II, FastChip//e, MegaAudio and 8 mb card.

MacEffects Mouse Card and FastChip//e. Starting PublishIt 4 at 10 MHz

Other pictures

I have a glass shelf over the IIe so I can see the cards and lights flashing.

I tested a number of mice. These three “simple” worked perfectly. The more feature rich designs did not.

MouseWrite running with Serial Mouse attached to MacEffects card. FastChip//e set at 3.3 MHz.

Time-Trax Calendar Seiko Watch Interface

This is a second entry. First blog entry January 2018. Five years. Yikes.

This is a calendar program that uploads data to your watch. I wish I had the watch and interface. Just have to use my iPhone and Apple Watch.

The link below on Applefritter has some nice info. The program author made a few entries.

https://www.applefritter.com/node/176

The Game Show for Apple II

Fun little Q and A Game Show program. running it from my DuoDisk on Apple IIe which also has a FastChip and MacEffects Mouse Card and a couple other A2Heaven cards. The virtual disk images are at the link below.

https://www.apple.asimov.net/images/educational/

One-Armed-Battle (Bandit) for Apple IIGS

Fun Game.

https://www.whatisthe2gs.apple2.org.za/one-arm-battle.html

Play others and or the IIGS.

MicroZine Fun – Education Stuff

Here are more screen shots. Also, links to the disk images and manuals on Archive

https://archive.org/search.php?query=Microzine+&and[]=mediatype%3A%22software%22

https://archive.org/search.php?query=Microzine+

IIGS Keyboard Boot, Reset, Test Combinations

Here’s a chart of the keyboard key combinations to perform special boot or reset or test functions.

Switcheroo – A Drive 1-2 Switch for Apple II Computers

Switcheroo! is a Drive 1-2 switch for Apple Disk ][ compatible devices (devices with a 20 pin ribbon cable) including Disk ][, FloppyEmu, wDrive, etc. It features two 20 pin drive headers (A,B) into which you plug your devices.

The first of two selector switches allows you to select which of the devices (A or B) is Drive 1 (the boot device), with the other device being recognised by the system as Drive 2.

The second selector switch allows you to hide Drive 2 from the system – in this mode the unit functions purely as a Drive A, B switch where one of the devices connected to the A B headers will be Drive 1 and bootable.

Switcheroo! allows you to easily switch the boot device without having to unplug cables (and risk damaging the hardware) – just flip the switch. This is very handy when testing physical disks that you have created from images (copied from an emulated floppy drive) – boot your copy utility off the emulated floppy, load the source disk, copy to physical, flip the switch and test that the physical disk boots.

I recently bought and installed this on my Platinum IIe. I had a wDrive Emulator from KbooHK [ see other blog entry https://vintagegeek.wordpress.com/2019/10/05/wdrive-apple-ii-floppy-drive-emulator-by-kboohk/ ] and a regular Disk ][ 5.25″ Drive. I like the wDrive since you can boot from many disk images, including 3.5 (800k) and larger. But there are some things where the 5.25 with original media is better (more fun).

Here’s my setup with the Switcheroo, the Disk ][ and the wDrive. A little clumsy looking but I just started. [ ignore the db19 drive adapter Card in the background. That’s for a completely different configuration ].

The disk ][.

The wDrive.

System Utilities running from Disk ][.

Below is the Pinball Construction Set running from its original 5.25 Disk.

Below is Paperboy.woz running from the wDrive. Yes, a woz image.

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You can order the Switcheroo! Via eBay.

Designasaurus for Apple IIGS

Just picked up these four original 3.5″ disks. Good fun. I ran Designasaurus by booting the disk directly, and also starting it under GSOS 6.0.1. Both ways were fine.

Designasaurus is an interesting educational application. Simple to run but extraordinarily limited in actual number of dinosaurs you can mix and match fossil parts. [ only 3 ] However, there are 12 Dinosaurs you can print on paper or t-shirt.

ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/images/educational/Designasaurus%20v2.12%20(4am%20crack).zip

ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/documentation/applications/misc/Designasaurus-Manual.pdf

When you want to print it appears on the screen as white lines on black. This concerned me as I didn’t want to use all my ink. I took a chance and it did print as black lines on white paper background. Here are pictures to illustrate.

Here is the picture on the screen.

Page 1 is the actual picture. Since was my first print job I printed in draft mode.

Page 2 is the facts.

X

X

X

AppleWorks 5.1, 4.3, 3.01, 2. No-Slot Clock in Virtual IIe plus TimeOut Apps Yearly Calendar

I’ve managed to install four versions of AppleWorks on my OmniDisk in Virtual II Emulator. I’ve also been testing various TimeOut Applications. AppleWorks 5.1 and 4.3 come with many of the TimeOut functions built in. So I’ve been trying lots of the other add-ons published separately to see what is out there. Here’s a link to startup video:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0pagxsmp82toatf/aw5%20ipod.m4v?dl=0

Here is a link to lots of the stuff: Link updated 1/27/2020.

https://mirrors.apple2.org.za/ftp.apple.asimov.net/images/productivity/integrated/appleworks/timeout/

Here is my OmniDisk 32 MB HardDrive in Virtual II. This Super Selector is a pretty nice text based Launcher. It has Quick-Keys you can set up. You can see Closed-Apple-F is for AppleWorks 5.1. There’s an extra step to setting up the Quick-Keys which isn’t noted in the process. Easy, once you know. I’ll post the Steps at the End.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ganv43vy8dyggvu/SUPSELECT322.dsk?dl=0

In Virtual II Emulator I always had the No-Slot Clock selected but I wasn’t seeing the time-stamps showing up on files. Then a light bulb finally went on. I had to Install it on the Boot Disk and run the Setup. So I downloaded the ProDOS version:

https://ultimateapple2.com/forums/forum/main-forum/no-slot-clock-goes-under-the-ram-chip/250-no-slot-clock-software

Click to access No-Slot%20Clock%20-%20User%27s%20Manual.pdf

Time stamps finally showing up.

Also, I grabbed the TimeOut TO.ABOUT.TIME application (from link at top) because it has yearly calendars for every year. It turns out there are 14 types of years. The Calendar.A turns out to be 2017.

I’ve been working with the Super Selector v3.2.2 on the Hard Drive (Virtual and Real) on the Apple IIe. I wanted to change some of the “Quick-Keys” which startup  programs you assign to them.  It turns out the entry of the information is easy. However, the saving  your entry process is has an extra step not noted in the screens process. Quick-Key Setup.

1) You use the Open-Apple-Q to bring up the Menu of Quick-Keys.

2) From there you select the Quick-Key you’d like to change by scrolling to it
and hitting the Return Key. This brings up the edit menu for that item.

3) You change the Title of the Quick-Key on the top line and the path on the
second line.

4) Then you select Open-Apple-A to Accept.
[ the Accept box disappears ]

5) Lastly, you a) hit esc to go back to the Main Menu b) Then type Open-
Apple-O to go to the Options Screen and then c) you save permanently with Open-Apple-S. You’ll see the box blink a little.

On the Save screen there are other configuration options. See below:

[ Super Selector 3.2.2 ].

Not only are you saving the Quick-Key you just Setup, but also the location. In my case I run from a Hard Drive (OmniDisk in the Emulator as well as SCSI Drive in real lle) so Slot 7 Drive 1 is the selection. When you use Open-Apple-S to Save the Config you’ll see the Box with “Save Copy” change to semi-solid background until save is completed.