[comp.sys.apple] Apple //c with UniDisk 3.5

CARPENTR@SERVAX.BITNET (RALPH=CARPENTER) (10/01/89)

Mike Wertheim (mw22+@andrew.cmu.edu) asks:

|I recently bought a used Unidisk (no documentation) for my //c.  I
|attached it to the external drive port, and it appears as S5,D1.
|
|I would like the drive to appear as S7,D1 so that it will boot
|instead of the built-in drive.  Is there any way to do this?

Matthew Lee Stier (sun!mstier or mcnc!rti!sunpix!matthew) replies:

>       >>>>>>>>Take the disk out of the internal drive. <<<<<<<<
>
>Really.  The Boot code for the UniDisk 3.5 compatible Apple //c's
>will boot the first Smartport drive if it can't find anything in the
>internal drive. (In your case the first Smartport device is your
>UniDisk 3.5 @ S5,D1)

        The following info was posted on this list a few months back;
unfortunately, I neglected to retain the name of the contributor (may
his tribe increase). I've been happily using this method of booting my
//c's 3.5" since.  It's fractionally faster than Matt's omit-disk
trick, since it deliberately turns off the internal drive motor
instead of waiting for it to time out. This method is useful for those
older //c's (ID=$FF and $00?) that don't have the Unidisk ROMs.

===================================================================
Re: making a disk to put in slot 6, to automatically boot slot 5

There are a couple of tricks to this.  First, make sure that the first
byte of block 0 is a 1.  The actual code begins at relative byte 1 of
block 0.  (The 1 indicates how many sectors, that's right, SECTORS, to
read in.  The disk controller has the capability to read the entire
track into memory, on bootup, but Apple never used the capability for
some reason.)

Next, make sure you deactivate the 5.25" drive's motor with an access
to $C088,X.  (If you're always booting from slot 6 you can just access
$C0E8.) This might not be necessary on the IIgs, but it sure is on the
IIc, because the IIc waits for the 5.25" drive to turn off before it
will turn on the 3.5. (That's because both devices use the same
softswitches for different purposes.)

After that, just jump to $C500, the PR#5 entry point.

So the complete code for block 0 should be:

00: 01
01: 2C E8 C0
04: 4C 00 C5
======================================================================
 _______________________
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|  Ralph Carpenter                                                            \
|  Dept. of Psychology       InterNet: CarpentR%SerVax.Bitnet@MITvma.MIT.EDU  |
|  Florida Atlantic U.       Bitnet: CarpentR@SerVax  SoBell: (407) 367-2616  |
|  at Boca Raton             GEnie: Ralpho   CI$: 74015.644@compuserve.com    |
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