ST802414@BROWNVM.BITNET (CHRISTOPHER CHUNG) (10/28/86)
Does anyone know how to modify Softerm II to work on a hard drive? I called Softronics technical support and they said it couldn't be done because DOS 3.3 cannot be run on a hard drive. This sounds very funny to me. The problem I am having is that I cannot load any of the configurations once I get softerm to boot. Anything that has to access the hard drive gives an I/O error. Anyone know why this is happening or how it can be fixed? Are there any other programs that you have encountered that do the same thing. Chris Acknowledge-To: <ST802414@BROWNVM>
JOSEPH@BLUE.RUTGERS.EDU (Seymour) (11/04/86)
Chris It is very difficult/Impossible to put softerm // on a hard disk. I tried very hard to do it some time ago and found out the following things. Although Softerm ][ comes on a DOS disk, it replaces DOS 3.3 with its own custom operating system (that is smaller, faster and that can read Pascal and CP/M) during its startup process. It is not a DOS 3.3 problem that stifles hard disk users, but the incompatability of this custom operating system code. Methods for putting Softerm on hard disk: A)Boot up Softerm from floppy, load and set things just the way you want them and then use a 128K copy card like the Wildcard //e to snap a picture of memory and write it out as a set of binary files. You then move those files to your hard disk and use the WildCard startup utility to replace Softerm in the memory locations it started in. Cons: You cannot change configuration files on the fly and Softerm will not read or write your hard disk for file transfer or disk utilities. B) Call Softronics and complain loudly. It is about time they came out with a new version that was hard disk compatible and supported ProDOS. A better user interface would also help. Let them know that when you decided to buy THE MOST EXPENSIVE terminal emulator for the Apple // bar-none, you expect it to perform accordingly. Sorry I couldn't be of more help. Seymour -------