--- "Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" <cisin(a)xenosoft.com> wrote:
There are actually numerous ways to get files from
5.25" Apple ][
diskettes into a PC.
Serial ports are a good one. One of the best ones when the disk format
is HARDWARE incompatible.
Always a favorite. Even a lowly 1Mhz 6502 can bang out bits at 1200 bps.
All of the others require either special hardware, or
multiple steps.
Or, could get network cards for everything and build a heterogenous
network.
I'd *love* that one... the easiest way to "cheat" would be to implement
an 8-bit ISA slot for the 6502 and stick in an NE1000 or 3C501 card.
There are TCP/IP stacks for the 6502, but I think most of them are PPP
oriented and, therefore, don't include support for ethernet protocols
like ARP.
Or connect serial/modem and upload to your ISP, and
then download with
another machine.
Done that one!
Or print it out and scan/OCR :-)
Nice if it's short. Not nice if it's the entire contents of a floppy.
Or transfer through cassette port to a Pet, read the
Pet disks with an
Amiga, write Mac disks with the Amiga, use a Mac to write PC disks.
Or short-stop that one by attaching a 1541 to the PC with an X(E)1541
cable. I think there are more 1541 drives in the wild than 4040 drives.
Can you read 4040 disks in an Amiga, even with a 5.25" drive?
How about interfacing an IR LED to the cassette port
and writing routines
to write Palm compatible IR?
How slow can the Palm go? Slow enough? Interesting idea, though. There
are add-on IrDA interfaces out there - I have one for a 3.5" drive bay -
gives me a window out the front to sync Palms, etc., to a machine with
an IrDA connector on the motherboard. Not sure what the underlying
serial protocol is, though.
-ethan
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