2 Oct
2007
2 Oct
'07
3:59 a.m.
Morning,
What's the normal procedure to boot a floppy from an Apple ][? I'm just taking
a look at my Mitac [1] clone (with a view to selling it) and got curious as to
whether it'd boot a standard Apple DOS system disk.
If powered up with a drive connected the spindle motor starts and it'll step
the drive head back to track 0 - but nothing more.
On the one hand, it's entirely possible that the machine isn't a close enough
clone to work with standard Apple DOS (that wouldn't surprise me at all, in
fact) - but on the other, maybe I'm just missing some standard key combination
to magically boot from the drive... (whilst I've got an Apple ///, I've never
used an Apple ][ in my life)
I can hit CTRL-reset and the machine will drop to BASIC; is there a normal way
of booting (or at least bringing up a dir) a floppy from BASIC on a genuine ][?
[1] Quite an impressive machine. Has some flavour of far-east legends on the
key fronts, as well as regular ASCII (we had a discussion about it on here
once, but there were conflicting opinions on what language it actually was).
Built-in disk controller, joystick port, tape, TV modulator, 80-column card.
There's a little backplane which can be plugged into the machine's expansion
port and gives you five Apple ][ card slots, too.
cheers
Jules
2 Oct
2 Oct
5:23 a.m.
Hi,
Unfortunately, this is normal behaviour for a lot of disk system faults.
I've just worked my way through a huge pile of Apple II disk drives and
controllers. Many of the drives and some of the controllers showed the fault
described here - head stepped all the way out looking for data on track
zero, finding nothing. #1 cause here was dirty heads, followed by bad
alignment, then various analog board faults. Slight alignment issues or
slightly dirty heads would cause a violent-sounding reseek.
I will have to spend some time eventually going through the faulty drives
and figure out what's wrong. I have an oscilloscope (10Mhz only, but I have
a feeling that'll do!), and the analog boards don't look overly complicated.
Does anyone know of a reference that details signals at test points etc?
Knowing what I'm looking for would be nice. Does anyone have an image or
similar for a test disk that can be written with a known-good drive? As
mentioned in a recent post, any disk without copy protection would do if
not.
I developed a very rough but surprisingly functional test for bad alignment;
putting a little pressure on the head carrier (or spiral disk) to move it a
tiny amount in each direction was often enough to bring track zero close
enough to alignment that the drive would spring into life. If that worked,
at least I knew that the drive was basically functional, and probably just
needed an align. I also need to track down info on how to align those
spiral-disk-head-drive type mechanisms (Shugart? or were they ALPS? I
forget). I used to know this stuff once, but that was a long time ago, and
it's just not coming back on its own.
Mike.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jules Richardson" <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk>
To: <General at 5star.net.nz>; "Discussion at 5star.net.nz:On-Topic and
Off-Topic
Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 11:59 PM
Subject: Apple ][ (clone) disk booting
Morning,
What's the normal procedure to boot a floppy from an Apple ][? I'm just
taking a look at my Mitac [1] clone (with a view to selling it) and got
curious as to whether it'd boot a standard Apple DOS system disk.
If powered up with a drive connected the spindle motor starts and it'll
step the drive head back to track 0 - but nothing more.
On the one hand, it's entirely possible that the machine isn't a close
enough clone to work with standard Apple DOS (that wouldn't surprise me at
all, in fact) - but on the other, maybe I'm just missing some standard key
combination to magically boot from the drive... (whilst I've got an Apple
///, I've never used an Apple ][ in my life)
I can hit CTRL-reset and the machine will drop to BASIC; is there a normal
way of booting (or at least bringing up a dir) a floppy from BASIC on a
genuine ][?
[1] Quite an impressive machine. Has some flavour of far-east legends on
the key fronts, as well as regular ASCII (we had a discussion about it on
here once, but there were conflicting opinions on what language it
actually was). Built-in disk controller, joystick port, tape, TV
modulator, 80-column card. There's a little backplane which can be plugged
into the machine's expansion port and gives you five Apple ][ card slots,
too.
cheers
Jules
6:39 a.m.
I developed a very rough but surprisingly functional
test for bad
alignment; putting a little pressure on the head carrier (or spiral disk)
to move it a tiny amount in each direction was often enough to bring track
zero close enough to alignment that the drive would spring into life. If
that worked, at least I knew that the drive was basically functional, and
probably just needed an align. I also need to track down info on how to
align those spiral-disk-head-drive type mechanisms (Shugart? or were they
ALPS? I forget). I used to know this stuff once, but that was a long time
ago, and it's just not coming back on its own.
A very common procedure here in Brazil in the apple days: Put the drive
to be aligned as the #2 drive. Load up Locksmith 6 on the drive 1 and try to
read a disk in drive 2. Loose the screws on the stepper motor and turn it
cw/ccw up when all the sectors read right. Try 2 or 3 different disks
(commercial software is great for that!) and tight the screws. You're done!
3 Oct
3 Oct
10:26 p.m.
On Tuesday 02 October 2007 08:23, Mike van Bokhoven wrote:
Hi,
Unfortunately, this is normal behaviour for a lot of disk system faults.
I've just worked my way through a huge pile of Apple II disk drives and
controllers. Many of the drives and some of the controllers showed the
fault described here - head stepped all the way out looking for data on
track zero, finding nothing. #1 cause here was dirty heads, followed by bad
alignment, then various analog board faults. Slight alignment issues or
slightly dirty heads would cause a violent-sounding reseek.
Not near as violent-sounding as those 1541 drives whacking against the
stop... :-)
I will have to spend some time eventually going
through the faulty drives
and figure out what's wrong. I have an oscilloscope (10Mhz only, but I have
a feeling that'll do!),
Yup.
and the analog boards don't look overly
complicated. Does anyone know of a
reference that details signals at test points etc? Knowing what I'm looking
for would be nice. Does anyone have an image or similar for a test disk that
can be written with a known-good drive? As mentioned in a recent post, any
disk without copy protection would do if not.
I thought I might have something in my files here, but after looking through
a couple of folders it appears not. I *did* however get a surprise while I
was looking -- a brand new, still in the bag, Vector prototyping board for
that machine, accompanied by the layout sheets that go with it. Hmm. :-)
I developed a very rough but surprisingly functional
test for bad
alignment; putting a little pressure on the head carrier (or spiral disk)
to move it a tiny amount in each direction was often enough to bring track
zero close enough to alignment that the drive would spring into life. If
that worked, at least I knew that the drive was basically functional, and
probably just needed an align. I also need to track down info on how to
align those spiral-disk-head-drive type mechanisms (Shugart? or were they
ALPS? I forget). I used to know this stuff once, but that was a long time
ago, and it's just not coming back on its own.
Mike.
I remember working on those, but like you, it's been a long time and I'm
damned if I can remember what it is that you're supposed to do to set track
zero on those, though I could probably figure it out if I had one of those
drives in front of me.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jules Richardson" <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk>
To: <General at 5star.net.nz>; "Discussion at 5star.net.nz:On-Topic and
Off-Topic
Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 11:59 PM
Subject: Apple ][ (clone) disk booting
> Morning,
>
> What's the normal procedure to boot a floppy from an Apple ][? I'm just
> taking a look at my Mitac [1] clone (with a view to selling it) and got
> curious as to whether it'd boot a standard Apple DOS system disk.
>
> If powered up with a drive connected the spindle motor starts and it'll
> step the drive head back to track 0 - but nothing more.
>
> On the one hand, it's entirely possible that the machine isn't a close
> enough clone to work with standard Apple DOS (that wouldn't surprise me
> at all, in fact) - but on the other, maybe I'm just missing some standard
> key combination to magically boot from the drive... (whilst I've got an
> Apple ///, I've never used an Apple ][ in my life)
>
> I can hit CTRL-reset and the machine will drop to BASIC; is there a
> normal way of booting (or at least bringing up a dir) a floppy from BASIC
> on a genuine ][?
>
> [1] Quite an impressive machine. Has some flavour of far-east legends on
> the key fronts, as well as regular ASCII (we had a discussion about it on
> here once, but there were conflicting opinions on what language it
> actually was). Built-in disk controller, joystick port, tape, TV
> modulator, 80-column card. There's a little backplane which can be
> plugged into the machine's expansion port and gives you five Apple ][
> card slots, too.
>
> cheers
>
> Jules
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
2 Oct
2 Oct
5:59 a.m.
What's the normal procedure to boot a floppy from
an Apple ][? I'm just taking
a look at my Mitac [1] clone (with a view to selling it) and got curious as to
whether it'd boot a standard Apple DOS system disk.
If powered up with a drive connected the spindle motor starts and it'll step
the drive head back to track 0 - but nothing more.
On the one hand, it's entirely possible that the machine isn't a close enough
clone to work with standard Apple DOS (that wouldn't surprise me at all, in
fact) - but on the other, maybe I'm just missing some standard key combination
to magically boot from the drive... (whilst I've got an Apple ///, I've never
used an Apple ][ in my life)
I can hit CTRL-reset and the machine will drop to BASIC; is there a normal way
of booting (or at least bringing up a dir) a floppy from BASIC on a genuine ][?
Powering it on should be enough to boot it. The apple launches the ROM on the disk
controller as part of it's initialization and that ROM tries to boot. If it's
booting at all, you should observe the disk head step all the way out, then back
in a bit as it reads the OS. If it just stays on the outside track, it's probably
not getting very far.
Normally, you will see the drive select and hear the head "rattle" against the
stop
of a bit (Apple does not use a Track-0 sensor - it simply steps out 40 times no
matter what), then you head the drive seeking around as it loads the OS (Most
AppleII drives seek very smoothly, with a "swoosh" sound).
If you hit ctrl-reset it will interrupt the boot attempt and drop you to the
Apple basic prompt.
To re-try booting, you need to activate the disk controller ROM again, this is
easily accomplished with a PR# or IN# command referencing the disk controller
slot. The convention is to place the disk controller in slot-6, so the normal
way to reboot an AppleII is "PR#6"
--
dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Collector of vintage computing equipment:
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html
6:28 a.m.
Dave Dunfield wrote:
Hmm, I don't see the heads move (other than stepping to the outside track at
power-on if I've manually moved them) - no luck with PR#6 either (same
behaviour; starts the spindle motor, then briefly rattles the heads against
the end - outer - stop before just sitting there with the motor turning).
I'm going to take the machine in to the museum tomorrow though and try
combinations of different drives / media, as there's no way I can test here
that what I have is working.
What's the
normal procedure to boot a floppy from an Apple ][? I'm just taking
Powering it on should be enough to boot it. The apple launches the ROM on the disk
controller as part of it's initialization and that ROM tries to boot. If it's
booting at all, you should observe the disk head step all the way out, then back
in a bit as it reads the OS. If it just stays on the outside track, it's probably
not getting very far. (Most AppleII drives seek very smoothly, with a
"swoosh" sound).
This one's something of an unknown - it's a half-height drive in a case best
described as "borderline homebrew" (i.e. it's quite well done for something
done in a home workshop, but not quite as good as something I'd expect from a
professional product). No identifying marks as to who made it, but the drive
inside is made by ALPS - it's got a band-driven stepper motor for the heads
rather than the spiral groove that I seem to remember the disk ][ units having.
I'll dig out a genuine disk ][ drive tomorrow and see if that makes any
difference.
(The DOS disk I have is 3.2 incidentally... the wikipedia article on the A2
suggests there was a tweak available for genuine Disk ][ interface cards
post-3.2 to allow more sectors per track; I presume that such 'tweaked' cards
will still boot 3.2 and earlier media though? I've got no idea which 'type' of
interface this clone copies)
The convention is to place the disk controller in
slot-6, so the normal
way to reboot an AppleII is "PR#6"
PR#5 seems to activate the drive on this system too - weird. Hmm... if the
number following PR# is the slot, then I'll try this drive / disk combination
with a real Disk ][ interface card plugged into the Mitac's expansion
backplane (I've got a pile of Apple cards, I've just never had a genuine A2!).
Thanks for the info anyway - will see what I can find out tomorrow.
J.
11:34 a.m.
Hmm, I don't see the heads move (other than
stepping to the outside track at
power-on if I've manually moved them) - no luck with PR#6 either (same
behaviour; starts the spindle motor, then briefly rattles the heads against
the end - outer - stop before just sitting there with the motor turning).
Couild this be a 13 sector .vs. 16 sector issue?
IIRC, the early Apple disk drives used a 13 sector format. Apple worked
out a modification (basically allowing some bit patterns that were
illegal before) to pack 16 sectors on to each track. The modifications to
a real Apple cotnroller were 2 new PROMs, one was the state machine logic
(the modified state machine could physiaclly read both 13 and 16 sector
disks), the other was the bootstrap firmware, and IIRC the new firmware
would only boot 16 sector disks. Of course an unmodified controller could
only boot (heck, could only read) 13 sector disks.
(The DOS disk I have is 3.2 incidentally... the
wikipedia article on the A2
suggests there was a tweak available for genuine Disk ][ interface cards
post-3.2 to allow more sectors per track; I presume that such 'tweaked' cards
will still boot 3.2 and earlier media though? I've got no idea which 'type'
of
interface this clone copies)
Aha... IIRC, 3.2 is 13 sector, 3.3 is 16 sector. If your clone is
expecting 16 sector disks, it will not boot 3.2 AFAIK.
-tony
3 Oct
3 Oct
10:31 a.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
IIRC, the early Apple disk drives used a 13 sector
format. Apple worked
out a modification (basically allowing some bit patterns that were
illegal before) to pack 16 sectors on to each track. The modifications to
a real Apple cotnroller were 2 new PROMs, one was the state machine logic
(the modified state machine could physiaclly read both 13 and 16 sector
disks), the other was the bootstrap firmware, and IIRC the new firmware
would only boot 16 sector disks. Of course an unmodified controller could
only boot (heck, could only read) 13 sector disks.
Aha, OK - that's plausible I suppose... *reading* either format is OK, but
booting isn't... releasing an upgrade which could no longer make any sense of
the old format would seem a funny thing to do :-)
Anyway - progress of a sort. I've got hold of a proper Apple Disk ][ drive,
and some 3.3 media - and the clone machine boots that quite happily. The 3.3
media I have *won't* boot in the half-height ALPS drive I had, suggesting that
there's a fault with the drive (heads cleaned with IPA just for the record,
there's evidently something else up with it).
I haven't tried the 3.2 media with the Disk ][ drive yet, but if you're right
about the above then it won't boot (although if catalog works with both disk
formats then I should be able to boot via 3.3 and catalog the 3.2 disk).
Aha... IIRC, 3.2 is 13 sector, 3.3 is 16 sector. If
your clone is
expecting 16 sector disks, it will not boot 3.2 AFAIK.
Yes, that seems to be the concise answer :)
Still, I'm happy because I've seen it boot *something* - major plus point
considering that the machine's a clone rather than the real thing (and useful
to know that the disk interface hardware's functional).
cheers
Jules
3:25 p.m.
Aha, OK - that's plausible I suppose... *reading*
either format is OK, but
booting isn't... releasing an upgrade which could no longer make any sense of
the old format would seem a funny thing to do :-)
This is taking me back many years, and I didn't do much with Apples
anyway, but IIRC the DOS 3.3 system came with a disk that you booted,
then replaced with a 13 secotr disk and it booted that. Since the new
state machine could handle 13 sector disks without problems, and since
the boot PROM was only used for booting, there was no problem after that,
the system acted as a 13 sector one). There was also a program, IIRC
called 'MUFFIN' (why???) on the 16 sector DOS disk that would transfer
files from 13 sector disks to 16 sector.
I haven't tried the 3.2 media with the Disk ][
drive yet, but if you're right
about the above then it won't boot (although if catalog works with both disk
formats then I should be able to boot via 3.3 and catalog the 3.2 disk).
It doesn;t :-(. DOS 3.3 will not natively read a 13 sector disk. The
hardware can do it, the software can't.
-tony
4:55 p.m.
New subject: MUFFIN (was Apple II (clone) booting)
ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote:
This is taking me back many years, and I didn't do
much with Apples
anyway, but IIRC the DOS 3.3 system came with a disk that you booted,
then replaced with a 13 secotr disk and it booted that. Since the new
state machine could handle 13 sector disks without problems, and since
the boot PROM was only used for booting, there was no problem after that,
the system acted as a 13 sector one). There was also a program, IIRC
called 'MUFFIN' (why???) on the 16 sector DOS disk that would transfer
files from 13 sector disks to 16 sector.
MUFFIN, good question. It's a somewhat symmetrical yet assymetrical
word, maybe suited for a conversion utility, and also fitting
in the vague pattern of food-like words for Apple software tools?
Tim.
4 Oct
4 Oct
10:55 a.m.
New subject: MUFFIN (was Apple II (clone) booting)
MUFFIN, good question. It's a somewhat symmetrical
yet assymetrical
word, maybe suited for a conversion utility, and also fitting
in the vague pattern of food-like words for Apple software tools?
I thnik 'MUFFIN' was the only food-named progam I came across, what were
the others?
-tony
12:33 p.m.
New subject: MUFFIN (was Apple II (clone) booting)
ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote:
AppleSOS, Sweet 16, and a food-named 6502 assembler whose name
is just barely escaping me :-).
Nibble was a famous Apple II magazine.
I wanted to quote Bagle Brothers but it was really Beagle Brothers :-).
Tim.
MUFFIN, good
question. It's a somewhat symmetrical yet assymetrical
word, maybe suited for a conversion utility, and also fitting
in the vague pattern of food-like words for Apple software tools?
I thnik 'MUFFIN' was the only food-named progam I came across, what were
the others? 
12:50 p.m.
New subject: MUFFIN (was Apple II (clone) booting)
On Thu, 4 Oct 2007, Tim Shoppa wrote:
ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote:
AppleSOS, Sweet 16, and a food-named 6502 assembler whose name
is just barely escaping me :-).
Nibble was a famous Apple II magazine.
I wanted to quote Bagle Brothers but it was really Beagle Brothers :-).
Stuff from Interplay frequently had files named BURGER which had something
to do with a programmer so nicknamed.
--
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
MUFFIN,
good question. It's a somewhat symmetrical yet assymetrical
word, maybe suited for a conversion utility, and also fitting
in the vague pattern of food-like words for Apple software tools?
I thnik 'MUFFIN' was the only food-named progam I came across, what were
the others? 
8:58 p.m.
New subject: MUFFIN (was Apple II (clone) booting)
David Griffith wrote:
Stuff from Interplay frequently had files named BURGER
which had something
to do with a programmer so nicknamed.
That was Bill "Burger" Heineman, so named because he was fond of keeping
burgers in his desk drawers so he could eat without having to take a
programming break. I don't recall what kind of burgers, but they were
probably McDonald's because those are the only fast-food burgers I can
think of that would still be edible after having been in a desk drawer
for a few hours.
As what seems to be a trend with classic game programmers (Bunten,
Mataga, etc.), "he" is now a "she" and can be found online as Rebecca
Heineman.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
1 p.m.
New subject: MUFFIN (was Apple II (clone) booting)
MUFFIN, good question. It's a somewhat symmetrical
yet assymetrical
word, maybe suited for a conversion utility, and also fitting
in the vague pattern of food-like words for Apple software tools?
I thnik 'MUFFIN' was the only food-named progam I came across, what were
the others?
6289
days inactive
6292
days old
14 comments
10 participants
participants (10)
-
alexandre-listas＠e-secure.com.br -
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
dave06a＠dunfield.com -
dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu -
julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk -
mike＠ambientdesign.com -
rtellason＠verizon.net -
shoppa_classiccmp＠trailing-edge.com -
spectre＠floodgap.com -
trixter＠oldskool.org