geary@blueberry.cis.ohio-state.edu (Lord High Everything Else) (12/12/90)
I've got an apple II+ with some rather old versions of Prodos. Since I've recently started using it a lot more, I thought I'd see what I could do about getting the latest version of Prodos. I went to the computer store to inquire about obtaining it and the salesman there told me that the latest version woll only run on apples with at least 128K of memory or more. Is this true, and if so, what is the most recent version that will run on a 64K Apple II? Also I seem to rember reading something on here about they are supposed to copy Porodos onto your diskettes free. All he showed me was a package that included a user's guide and the disks all together for $20. Mark Geary
alfter@uns-helios.nevada.edu (SCOTT ALFTER) (12/12/90)
Your dealer, like most dealers when it comes to the Apple II, is
feeding you a line of bullshit. The ProDOS 8 kernel has always
required no more than 64K, so if you have a language card in your II
Plus, you should be all set. The ProDOS 8 System Utilities that come
with the system disk do require 128K, however. Older versions of the
system disk had two programs, Filer and Convert, on them that will
work on your II Plus; you should hang onto a copy. (Personally, I
think Davex is better than any of the above; the only thing Davex
won't do is copy stuff between DOS 3.3 and ProDOS. I also need to
figure out how to patch the "init" external command to make 38-track
disks. Has anybody done this already?)
As for getting new system software, you should be able to take any
system disk you presently have and get the new software for free from
your dealer. If he gives you grief about it, (1) get the system
software from an online service such as GEnie and (2) fire off a
letter to Apple complaining about your local dealer's lousy service.
Scott Alfter-----------------------------_/_----------------------------
/ v \ Apple II:
Internet: alfter@uns-helios.nevada.edu ( ( the power to be your best!
GEnie: S.ALFTER \_^_/AABENSON@MTUS5.BITNET (12/12/90)
Well, you should have bopped him in the head. Yes, they are REQUIRED to give
you a copy, if you so desire. And, I believe that they WILL run on a 64k
Apple II+, but they just do a little more with more memory. In fact, now
that I'm thinking about it, I KNOW they do -- All they do with that extra 64K
is configure a 64K RAMDisk in slot3, drive2, and call it "/RAM".
- Andrew.brianw@microsoft.UUCP (Brian WILLOUGHBY) (12/27/90)
In article <2461@unsvax.NEVADA.EDU> you write: >the only thing Davex >won't do is copy stuff between DOS 3.3 and ProDOS. I also need to >figure out how to patch the "init" external command to make 38-track >disks. Has anybody done this already?) > >Scott Alfter-----------------------------_/_---------------------------- > / v \ Apple II: >Internet: alfter@uns-helios.nevada.edu ( ( the power to be your best! > GEnie: S.ALFTER \_^_/ To: uunet!unsvax!uns-helios!alfter First of all, I understand that there is a bug in the utilities supplied by Apple when converting large files between DOS 3.3 and ProDOS. I don't know much more about the bug though, it may be fixed in later versions of the tools. Creating 38-track (or even 40-track) disks is not your biggest problem. You have to modify ProDOS to allow seeks on 5.25" disks beyond the usual 280 blocks. If you don't make the modification, ProDOS will return an I/O error even before it attempts to seek to the extra tracks. This process is complicated by the fact that each version of ProDOS moves the Disk II code addresses around in memory. The trick is to search for the machine language statement CMP #$18 and change it to CMP #$40. 35-track disks have 280 blocks, which is $118 in hexadecimal. 40-track disks have 320 blocks, which converts to $140 hex. What you are changing is the least significant byte of the total number of blocks supported in the internal 5.25 disk driver of ProDOS. I've found that the CMP opcode is not followed by $18 anywhere else in the ProDOS code, so it is fairly safe to search for that two-byte sequence on your disk copy of ProDOS. You'll have to look up the value for the CMP opcode because I don't remember it. (Hint, use the monitor to disassemble some code, you'll probably quickly find an immediate compare opcode CMP #$nn, looking to the left of that line will show the byte value for the CMP #$nn opcode). Making 40-track ProDOS disks is not too hard if you already know how to make 40-track DOS 3.3 disks. You'll need to edit the directory of an empty 35-track ProDOS disk with a sector editor program. Beneath Apple ProDOS has the information you need to change the total number of blocks to be 320 (40-track) instead of 280. Again, you'll be changing a hex byte from $18 to $40. Then you can hang on to this master disk to create future 40-track ProDOS disks, provided that you have a utility which can copy the sectors of the first track from your master floppy to each new disk (by the way, you should never write any files to the master disk so that it will have an empty directory). You can convert any formatted DOS or ProDOS 40-track floppy, even if there are files on it, since the new directory is empty. A smoother way of doing this would be for someone to write a "Zero Directory" utility which could wipe a disk by rewriting a new directory (provided that you could specify the total blocks). P.S. In case you don't know how to make 40-track DOS 3.3 disks - here is the process: Boot a Master DOS diskette Execute CALL-151 to enter the monitor Type the following three lines: AEB5:A0 B3EF:28 BEFE:28 Then type INIT HELLO to format a 40-track DOS 3.3 disk that is compatible with standard DOS (but only when using a 40-track drive). Brian Willoughby UUCP: ...!{tikal, sun, uunet, elwood}!microsoft!brianw InterNet: microsoft!brianw@uunet.UU.NET or: microsoft!brianw@Sun.COM Bitnet brianw@microsoft.UUCP