dave@PRC.Unisys.COM (David Lee Matuszek) (03/28/90)
My Apple II+ is pretty old and occasionally flaky, and I'd sort of like to replace it, probably (but not necessarily) with a IIGS. I have a lot of nice software, mostly games, that I'd like to keep and put back into service. The main thing stopping me from buying a replacement is that I don't know what I'm doing, and neither do my local Apple dealers. 1. I have an old but still very nice composite color monitor. Can I use it with the IIGS? Would I be sorry if I did? 2. My family and I have gotten very used to the convenience of having everything readily available on the hard disk (of our Mac+). The lack of same on the Apple II+ greatly reduces the amount it is used. Is there a way to put our assorted games onto a hard disk, instead of having to turn off the machine and reboot every time? 3. If the answer to #2 is Yes, then I have an Apple HD20 hard drive on my Mac+ that I can donate; is there any way to use it? My local Apple dealers both said Yes, just buy a SCSI card. When I pointed out to the dealers that the HD20 is not a SCSI device (the Mac+ treats it like a floppy), one of them had no idea what to do, and the other thought the SCSI card would do the job anyway (!). 4. If it is possible to copy old software onto a hard drive, can I plug my Apple II+ 5.25" floppy drives into the IIGS? (These are the original Apple floppy drives--single sided, I think they hold about 140K--anyway, that's the format all my old games are in.) If not, how much for a drive that can plug into the IIGS and read these disks? 5. Is there good software available to deprotect some of my copy protected games? (I used to have Nibbles Away, but the disk got trashed.) No flames, please, I am NOT a software pirate--but having gotten used to a hard disk, I no longer buy (and hardly ever use) software that I can't put on the hard disk. I would very like to hear from anyone with any facts, experience, or even just opinions on these matters. (I'm hoping to get better advice here than from my Apple dealers!) Please e-mail responses directly to me, since I think the topic won't be of general interest. Thanks. -- Dave Matuszek (dave@prc.unisys.com) -- Unisys Corp. / Paoli Research Center / PO Box 517 / Paoli PA 19301 -- Any resemblance between my opinions and those of my employer is improbable. << "Next time, Jack, write a goddamned memo!" >>
gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (03/29/90)
In article <13304@burdvax.PRC.Unisys.COM> dave@PRC.Unisys.COM (David Lee Matuszek) writes: >1. I have an old but still very nice composite color monitor. Can I >use it with the IIGS? Would I be sorry if I did? While you can still use an NTSC monitor with the IIGS, for use with the new super-hires graphics modes that virtually all GS-specific software uses you really ought to use an analog RGB monitor. Note that you can buy suitable analog RGB monitors from sources other than Apple and save quite a bit of money. (I think the current issue of Nibble mentioned one such monitor.) >2. My family and I have gotten very used to the convenience of having >everything readily available on the hard disk (of our Mac+). The lack >of same on the Apple II+ greatly reduces the amount it is used. Is >there a way to put our assorted games onto a hard disk, instead of >having to turn off the machine and reboot every time? Hard disks are available for the entire Apple II family. The best way to add a hard disk is to obtain an Apple SCSI card (the new DMA SCSI card would be best; if you get the old version make sure it has Rev. C firmware) and add an external SCSI hard disk drive. While Apple sells HD20SC and HD40SC drives, they're rather expensive and if you feel up to it you can build your own and save big bucks, as I recently posted. My feeling is that the IIGS really requires a hard disk, even though you can struggle along with only a couple of Apple Disk 3.5s. However, note that a lot of game software is copy-protected in such a way that it is extraordinarily difficult to get it to run from hard disk, and probably a lot of your older games are DOS 3.3 based, which is not really viable for hard disks (despite special kludgery some vendors provide to support hard disk access from DOS 3.3). The positive side of this is that most recent IIGS games seem to be hard-disk installable as they are shipped. (Copy protection takes the form of some document or code wheel shipped in the product carton.) >3. If the answer to #2 is Yes, then I have an Apple HD20 hard drive >on my Mac+ that I can donate; is there any way to use it? My local >Apple dealers both said Yes, just buy a SCSI card. When I pointed out >to the dealers that the HD20 is not a SCSI device (the Mac+ treats it >like a floppy), one of them had no idea what to do, and the other >thought the SCSI card would do the job anyway (!). I'm not familiar with non-SCSI versions of Apple disks. I do have an HD20SC and it works fine with the Apple SCSI card. If indeed your disk does not come with a built-in SCSI controller, you'll be better off getting a new high-capacity SCSI drive instead of trying to adapt a non-SCSI drive to work with the IIGS. >4. If it is possible to copy old software onto a hard drive, can I >plug my Apple II+ 5.25" floppy drives into the IIGS? (These are the >original Apple floppy drives--single sided, I think they hold about >140K--anyway, that's the format all my old games are in.) If not, how >much for a drive that can plug into the IIGS and read these disks? The old Apple Disk II works fine with the IIGS (of course you need to install the controller interface card in a slot, e.g. slot 6, in the GS). >5. Is there good software available to deprotect some of my copy >protected games? (I used to have Nibbles Away, but the disk got >trashed.) No flames, please, I am NOT a software pirate--but having >gotten used to a hard disk, I no longer buy (and hardly ever use) >software that I can't put on the hard disk. Copy II+ can automatically deprotect some games, but there is no universal algorithm for automatically deprotecting all copy-protected games. There is a hacker periodical that concentrates mainly on Apple II software deprotection: Computist. Back issues are available, and there is an index published in each issue so you can see what back issues you want.
cs4w+@andrew.cmu.edu (Charles William Swiger) (03/29/90)
This is in reply to David Lee Matuszeks' article of 28-Mar-90 Please
refer to it.
Here's answers to most of your questions. (Not quite in order, sorry.)
1. Your composite monitor will work just fine with the //gs. However,
you will probably want to get an RGB monitor, because it looks much
nicer, especially with native //gs stuff. (Don't buy Apples' monitor,
it's somewhat overpriced. Get a Magnavox monitor, or something like
that.)
3. I think the SCSI card will work. Why don't you bring your hard
drive in to one of the Apple dealers you mentioned and have them try it
out for you? Or ask someone at Apple, they should know. Even if the
Apple SCSI card won't work, there should be some kind of card that will
allow you to connect the HD20 to a //gs. It just might not be as fast.
4. Yes, you certainly still can use the old Disk ][ controller cards
with the //gs. Plug 'em into slot 6 & change the control panel setting
for slot 6 to "Your Card." The daisy-chainable Apple 3.5 and/or Unidisk
3.5 drives can be connected directly into the Smart Port (which is the
disk drive port) on the back of the //gs.
2 & 5. With GS/OS 5.0.2, the desktop stays in memory (Note that you
will need to get at least one meg of memory for the //gs, more would be
better.) so you can run old 8-bit programs and return to the desktop
quickly, without having to reboot, >IF< the program exits cleanly. What
I mean by that is the program had better not be highly copy protected or
do strange things with the reset and interrupt vectors. If the program
does, well, you'll have to reboot. Note that you can always copy
unprotected disks from the 5.25" drive onto the hard drive, but you will
also be converting the disk from DOS 3.3 to GS/OS, which can cause
problems for some software. Copy //+ is an excellent program for
copying disks and for deprotecting them. It's much, much better than
Nibbles Away.
However, taking a copy-protected program that uses a customized DOS and
removing all of the protection, and then converting the program so that
it will deal with GS/OS is not an easy matter. It's an entirely
different problem than simply making a physical copy of the 5.25" disk.
What you have to do is first convert the disk to a normal track/sector
scheme, removing any copy-protection associated with a strange disk
format and modifying the program to handle the normal format. Then you
have to modify the program some more, so that it can be run as one or
more binary executable file(s) (ie. BRUN programname) from DOS 3.3,
which can vary from difficult to almost impossible. Then finally can
you copy this file from the DOS 3.3 format onto your hard drive (thus
converting it to GS/OS). This qualifies as hard-core hacking, and for
most people is probably not worth the requisite time and effort. If you
know 6502/65c816 assembly language and the detailed workings of DOS 3.3
/ ProDOS / GS/OS (or are willing to spend a great deal of time
learning), send me mail and I can offer you further advice.
Unfortunately, the games developed for the 8-bit Apples tend to be very
highly copy-protected, so you will have a lot of programs that you would
have to modify. (Apple games are at the leading edge of copy-protection
techniques. No other computer system has quite the number of nastily
protected programs.) The good news is that you can still run your
programs of off the 5.25" drive you have now, without making any
modifications. Besides which, you can do much better by buying //gs
specific programs and working with them. Many are not copy-protected at
all, and the others can usually be deprotected fairly easily. Also,
//gs specific programs are definitely much nicer that their 8-bit
cousins. They are worth getting.
I would recommend buying a //gs (but I admit that I am prejudiced in
favor of the Apple //. You just might wish to consider buying another
computer system instead, depending on just how much you like your Apple.
Oh my! I didn't say that! [as every comp.sys.apple2 reader flames me:
>>SCORCH<< Sizzle. Whimper.] :-)
-- Charles William Swiger
cs4w+@andrew.cmu.edu
PS: {flame on} I hate with considerable vehemence all copy-protection
schemes. I loathe copy-protection "engineers." They make my life so
very difficult . . . . {Rant-and-rave topic detected: flame aborted.
;-| }
PPS: Sorry for a long post, ladies and gentlemen. Not enough sleep
available at this wonderful haven known to the outside world as Carnegie
Mellon University.