Subject: Re: Dos 3.3 w/800k disks Message-ID: <37AD8191.AC7B0A30@swbell.net> From: Rubywand Reply-To: rubywand@swbell.net X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.6 [en] (Win95; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2 References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 85 Date: Sun, 08 Aug 1999 08:09:37 -0500 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.193.10.50 X-Complaints-To: abuse@swbell.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 08 Aug 1999 06:08:51 PDT Organization: SBC Internet Services Randy Herx writes ... > > Hello again.. I have 12 - 5-1/4" disks from Softside magazine from years > ago. I would like to put these files on a 3.5" disk but they won't work > with prodos due to the way prodos handles filenames with spaces in them... > > ex: PR LOSE.BAS becomes PR.LOSE.BAS in prodos. > > What I would like to do, is format a 3.5" disk to Dos 3.3 and copy the files > there. Can this be done? .... Most Softside software was, originally, stuff you typed in which sticks to using standard DOS commands from BASIC. Programs like this should run fine using one of the techniques for accessing DOS 3.3 software from 3.5" diskette on an Apple II. There are two fairly popular approaches. One is to copy a program to a specially formatted 3.5" diskette which boots a modified DOS 3.3 such as AmDOS or OzDOS. Typically, you get two "400k disks" on each 3.5" diskette. A very different approach is used by DOS 3.3 Launcher. It offers two options: 1- You can save some DOS 3.3 programs to ProDOS disk (including 3.5" disk or hard disk). These must be single-file programs that do not access the disk once they are loaded into memory. DOS 3.3 Launcher's Copier is used to set launch options. 2- Using the DOS 3.3 Launcher Copier, you can save an entire DOS 3.3 disk as a disk image to a ProDOS 3.5" diskette, hard disk, etc.. >> Any disk that uses a standard RWTS (Read/Write Track/Sector) routine can be copied in this manner. This includes not only DOS 3.3 disks, but also many old games which use a standard RWTS, but are not actually DOS 3.3. They can then be launched by DOS 3.3 Launcher, which "boots" the large file directly from your hard disk. << To run a program on a ProDOS-8 system, you start DOS 3.3 Launcher from a program selector such as ProSel-8 which supports the ProDOS 8 startup protocol-- i.e. it can make applications automatically open a data file. (The DOS 3.3 Launcher docs tell how to setup a ProSel entry for a program.) Running a program from the IIgs System Finder is much easier. >> If you have properly installed DOS 3.3 Launcher, your DOS 3.3 programs should appear with DOS 3.3 icons when viewed through the Finder. To launch them, you simply double click on them, which launches them via ProDOS 8. << Of the two basic approaches (a special 3.5" DOS 3.3 or DOS 3.3 Launcher), DOS 3.3 Launcher seems to be the better way to go: First, it is easy to set up the contents of a DOS 3.3 disk prior to converting it to disk image form-- you can use any of the popular disk management utilities such as Copy II Plus. Moving DOS 3.3 files onto an AmDOS or OzDOS disk with the crude FID-type copiers available is a hassle. Second, DOS 3.3 Launcher turns out to create and use standard 143,360-byte ProDOS order (.po) disk image files. These can easily be moved to any ProDOS disk including hard disk, RAM disk, or Zip Disk. Also, you should be able to download .dsk disk images on your PC, use an emulator to transfer the contents to a DOS 3.3 format .po disk image, and transfer the .po file via NULL modem for use under DOS 3.3 Launcher. Or you could convert 5.25" .sdk (shrinked disk) files to .po disk image form using Nulib and transfer these via NULL modem. You can find AmDOS at ftp://apple2.caltech.edu/pub/apple2/8bit/utils/ and OzDOS at ftp://tarnover.dyndns.org/cabi/Utilities/ . You can find DOS3.3.Launcher.2.2.shk on ACN Florida at ftp://24.96.48.134:6502/Cabi_Archives/Utilities/ and on ACN Tarnover at ftp://tarnover.dyndns.org/cabi/Utilities/. (ProSel 8 is available in the same folder as DOS 3.3 Launcher on both sites.) On your Apple II, use ShrinkIt to unshrink the file(s) you download. Normally, directions will be included in a Readme or other Text file. One addition to the above: DOS 3.3 Launcher does give its disk images a special filetype (User#1 or, in hex, $F1, I think). So, to use a standard .po disk image from some other source, you would need to have its filetype set to the one DOS 3.3. Launcher expects. Rubywand