Diskettes. .
..
...
Diskettes.
......
001- How many tracks can I use on a 5.25" diskette?
002- Can I use high-density 3.5" and 5.25" diskettes
on my A2?
003- How can I tell DD from HD diskettes if they
are not labeled?
004- Some old 5.25" disks with splotches don't
boot. What gives?
005- How can I defragment a diskette and what
is the speed gain?
006- Why aren't my old diskettes recognized by
GS/OS?
007- Can I read Apple II diskettes on my PC?
008- Where the heck can I buy double density 3.5"
& 5.25" diskettes?
009- Where can I find out about different floppy
disk formats?
010- How can I copy disks?
011- How can I read Apple II 5.25" floppies on
a Mac?
012- Can I create standard 3.5" IIgs diskettes
on a Mac?
013- Can I transfer files on
MS-DOS disks to my IIgs?
001- How many tracks can I use on a 5.25" diskette? So far,
I've heard 35, 36, and 40. What's the actual
number?
The standard number of tracks on a 5.25" diskette
is set by DOS 3.3 and
ProDOS at 35, numbered 0-34 ($00-$22 in hexadecimal).
The original Disk ][ drive can usually handle
36 tracks with no problem.
Newer 5.25" drives can handle 40 tracks.
Various modified versions of DOS 3.3 allow
using 36 tracks and a few allow
using 40 tracks. These mods, especially the 36-track versions, were
fairly
popular before the advent of 3.5" diskettes when an extra track made
a
noticable difference in capacity. However, unless the extra capacity
is vital
for some specific application, it is best to stick with 35 tracks in
order to
retain full compatibility with disk utilities (such as Copy II Plus)
and other
wares.
002- Can I use high-density 3.5" and 5.25" diskettes
on my Apple II?
I did some magnetization tests on Double Density
(800kB) and High Density
(1.4MB) diskette surfaces. The tested DD surface produced more than
twice the
deflection of the tested HD surface. Clearly, there is a big difference
in
signal levels required to reliably store data on HD vs. DD.
In fact, 5.25" HD (1.2MB) diskettes will not
work at all on Apple Disk ][
drives. The 3.5" HD's may work fine on your 800k drives; or, they may
just seem
to work fine. Either way, there's no question: a drive optimized for
DD will
not be optimized for HD. If you'd rather not 'roll the dice' on your
software
collection, stick with Double Density diskettes.
From: Rubywand, George Rentovich, Mad ATARI user alternate, Joel
003- How can I tell the difference between unlabeled
DD and HD diskettes?
3.5" HD (1.4MB) diskettes come with a square
notch in the upper left
corner. DD (800kB) 3.5" diskettes do not come with this notch. In the
early
days of PC computing, some PC users punched or drilled notch holes
in DD
diskettes and used them as HD diskettes. If a 3.5" diskette has a circular
notch in the upper left corner, it is likely to be a DD diskette.
DD 5.25" (360kB) diskettes look very much like
HD 5.25" (1.2MB)
diskettes; however, HD diskettes seem to almost never have a hub ring,
while DD diskettes usually do. The hub ring may be white paper, etc.
and easy
to spot or cut from the same material as the diskette and barely noticeable.
This difference has been mentioned by Peter Norton (of Norton Utilities
fame)
in one of his books.
The hub ring makes it easier for the Apple
Disk Drive II and other older
DD 5.25" drives to clamp and hold the diskette. Older DD drives also
tend to
damage the center when there is no hub. If the hub ring of a DD diskette
has
fallen off due to age, it's a good idea to transfer the contents to
a new diskette.
Otherwise, about the only observable difference
is that DD diskette surfaces
often exhibit a more brownish cast whereas HD diskette surfaces are
generally
dark grey or black.
The surest test for 5.25" diskettes is to place
the diskette into an Apple
Disk II 5.25" drive and try to do a DOS 3.3 format. If it formats okay,
it is
almost certainly a DD diskette. (This test will not always work with
the newer
40-track drives. Some of these can get through a format with an HD
diskette.)
004- Recently I found that some of my old 5.25"
disks would
not boot. A check showed splotches etched
on the surface
of the media. What's going on?
As you may recall, a number of the classier
5.25" diskette brands employed
(still employ?) a lubricant on their jacket liners. While the lube
worked to
reduce drag and noise, it also, evidently, served as a growth medium
for a
particularly nasty plastic and/or oxide-eating fungus!
It's probably a good idea to check each of
your old diskettes. Immediately
backup any diskettes with splotchy discolorations.
005- How can I defragment a diskette and what is the speed gain?
You can defragment a diskette by doing a File
Copy of all files to a blank
formatted* diskette or RAM disk which is the same size as the original.
The
Files on the copy diskette or RAM disk will be almost completely unfragmented.
*Note: If the diskette is supposed to be bootable, the target disk should
be
INITialized for the DOS (e.g. DOS 3.3 or ProDOS) used on the original
before
doing the copying. For DOS 3.3, you INIT a disk. For ProDOS, you can
do an
"Initialize" from the IIgs Finder or a "FORMAT" using Apple's ProDOS
FILER
utility or a ProDOS version of Copy II+.
A whole-disk copy back to the original completes
the process. Tests show
that this method produces much speedier diskettes than using a utility
intended
for optimizing hard disks.
For a nearly full 'workhorse' diskette which
has seen may deletions and
additions, you can expect the File Copy defragmentation method to yield
a 30%
to 40% improvement in access speed.
006- Why aren't my MECC and many other old diskettes
recognized
by GS/OS and mounted on the Finder display?
The problem you mention is fairly common. GS/OS
via its FSTs has pretty
strict definitions for what qualifies as a valid DOS or ProDOS diskette.
For
example, perfectly good 36-track DOS 3.3 diskettes will not be mounted
by the
Finder just because the number of tracks is 36 instead of the expected
35.
Naturally, copy-protected diskettes have practically
no chance of being
recognized. Almost certainly, this is the reason the Finder will not
mount your
MECC disks.
You can, still, run software from most copy-protected
diskettes by just
booting them.
From: Vincent Joguin, Charlie, Rubywand
007- Can I read Apple II diskettes on my PC?
Yes. There is a way for some PCs to read Apple
II DOS 3.3 and ProDOS
5.25" floppies which are not copy-protected.
By "some PCs" I mean that the PC must have
two floppy drives (only one
has to be a 5.25" drive) and it must be running MS-DOS or Windows 95,
98,
or ME. (It won't work with NT, 2000, and XP).
You also need a program called "DISK2FDI".
(See Q&A 007 on the
File Utils FAQs page.)
DISK2FDI reads the Apple floppy and creates
a disk image (.do) on the
PC. These images will work on most emulators.
You may find that DISK2FDI has difficulty reading
some sectors which
read fine on your real Apple II. If that happens, try making a fresh
copy of
the diskette using Disk Muncher or some other fast whole-disk copier.
For a collection of postings on using Disk2FDI
see ...
http://apple2.org.za/gswv/a2zine/Docs/Disk2FDI_InfoPostings.txt
.
From: Chris Norley
A while back I requested some information regarding
the reading of Apple
II floppies by an PC:
ORIGINAL POST:
--------------------
We have some old data from a small NMR spectrometer
that was run from an
Apple IIe. The same spectrometer is now run from a DOS machine and
we'd like to
be able to access the old data from the PC.
Does anyone know of or possess some utility
to allow the data from the 5
1/4" Apple II floppies to be read from the PC? Any hints as to program
names,
ftp sites, etc. would be greatly appreciated.
SUMMARY OF RESPONSES:
--------------------
>From uli@izfm.uni-stuttgart.de
>From news ...
Les Ferch
There is a card called the MatchPoint PC card
that will let you read and write
Apple II DOS, ProDOS, and CP/M disks on a PC 5.25" 360K drive. We used
to have one installed in an XT here and it worked fine.
The other common way of moving the data is to connect an Apple II to
a PC using
a NULL modem
cable and using comm programs such as Kermit to transfer the
data.
Michael Hoffberg
About a year ago, I picked up card for my ibm made by TrackStar.
It is
basically an apple II that sits inside your IBM. When you enable
it, it can
boot off an apple drive, it uses the ibm keyboard and monitor.
In any case, I think that it is possible to transfer files between the
IBM and
Apple II with the card.
Fred R. Opperdoes
Any Apple II (E or GS) owner having an Applied Engineering PC
Transporter
card is able to do the job easily. It is maybe not easy to find such
a person in your
neighborhood. Another possibility would be that you ask someone with
an Apple
IIGS to have your 5 1/4" Dos 3.3 or Prodos disk transcribed to a 3.5"
Prodos
disk. Every IIGS owner would be able to do so. Files on such disks
can then
easily be converted to MsDOS files on an MsDOS disk on a Macintosh
using the
Apple File Exchange Utility that comes with every modern Mac.
Leonard Erickson
You can use a COPYIIPC deluxe option board
or some such. Central Point
Software used to sell them.
From: Peter Maloney
You could use an Apple Turnover,
a PC/XT card that allows older IBM floppy drives to
read/write Apple 5.25" diskettes. It was made by Vertex Systems Inc..
From: Rubywand, Brian Hammack, Jay, Joan Sander, Simon
Williams,
Matthew S. Carpenter
008- Where the heck can I buy the double density (DD) 3-1/2 &
5-1/4 diskettes
required for my Apple II drives?
Here are places to try ...
GarberStreet Electronics ( http://www.garberstreet.com/
) sells 5.25"
and 3.5" DD diskettes ($3 per box of ten.)
GSE-Reactive ( http://www.gse-reactive.com/
) sells boxes of 10 5.25" DD
floppies for $5
Albert Franklin (email: jfrankl1@mindspring.com) sells 5.25" DS/DD diskettes.
XDR2.com ( http://www.xdr2.com/ click
on "Disks") sells 5.25" & 3.5" DD diskettes
in bulk (e.g. 3.5" at 50 for $13).
Meritline.com ( http://store.yahoo.com/meritline/floppydisk.html
) sells 3.5" DD diskettes
in bulk (e.g. 100 for $14).
Peripheral Manufacturing, Inc (800-468-6888; email: periphman@periphman.com
) sells
5.25" DD diskettes in 10 packs ($2.95) and 50 packs (with sleeves,
$15.00)..
Commodore 64 & 128 Products ( http://www.oldsoftware.com/Commodore.html
search
the page for disks for sale) sells 5.25" & 3.5" DD diskettes.
Floppydisk.com ( http://www.floppydisks.com/ ) sells 5.25" and 3.5" DS/DD diskettes.
Check the non-Apple sections on eBay.
Sometimes you'll see boxes of a thousand disks
going for the cost of shipping -- if they're listed outside of Vintage
Apple they seem to go
a lot cheaper.
Thrift shops: you may find packs of used 5.25" DD diskettes at bargain prices.
009- Where can I find out about different floppy disk formats?
Here is a table of floppy disk formats I have
built up over the years:
disk speed data rate
encode trk
sector trk/hd
size in disk
size" rpm
kb/s scheme
kb cnt*sz
count kBytes
type
---------------------------------------------------------------------
8 360 500
FM 41.67 26*128 77/1
260 SSSD (8)
8 360 500
FM 41.67 26*128 77/2
520 DSSD (8)
8 360 500
MFM 83.33 26*256 77/1
520 SSDD (9)
8 360 500
MFM 83.33 26*256 77/2
1040 DSDD (9)
5.25 300 250 FM
25.00 8*256 40/1 80
SSSD
5.25 300 250 FM
25.00 8*256 40/2 160
DSSD
5.25 300 245
GCR 49.00 16*256 35/1
140 SSDD (1)
5.25 300 250 MFM
50.00 8*512 40/1 160
SSDD (3)
5.25 300 250 MFM
50.00 9*512 40/1 180
SSDD (3)
5.25 300 250 MFM
50.00 8*512 40/2 320
DSDD (3)
5.25 300 250 MFM
50.00 9*512 40/2 360
DSDD (3)
5.25 300 250 MFM
50.00 9*512 80/2 720
DSDD
5.25 360 300 MFM
50.00 9*512 40/2 360
DSDD (4)
5.25 360 300 MFM
50.00 9*512 80/2 720
DSDD
5.25 360 500 MFM
83.33 15*512 80/2 1200
DSHD (4)
3.5 300 250
MFM 50.00 9*512 80/2
720 DSDD (5)
3.5 300 250
MFM 50.00 5*1024 80/2
800 DSDD (2)
3.5 var var
GCR var var*512 80/2
800 DSDD (7)
3.5 300 500
MFM 100.00 18*512 80/2
1440 DSHD (6)
3.5 var var
GCR var var*512 80/2
1600 DSHD (A)
3.5 300 1000 MFM
200.00 36*512 80/2 2880
DSED
(1) Apple ][
(2) Applix
(3) IBM PC
(4) IBM PC/AT
(5) IBM PS/2 25,30
(6) IBM PS/2 > 30
(7) Macintosh & Apple //
(8) IBM 3740
(9) IBM System 34
(A) AE 1.6MB drive on Apple //
010- How can I copy disks?
Neither ProDOS nor DOS 3.3 includes a built-in
Disk Copy command. So,
to copy diskettes you will need to use some kind of copy utility. The
ProDOS
standard Utilities Disk includes a Disk Copy option. The DOS 3.3 System
Master disk includes a Disk Copy program named "COPYA".
A very good Disk Copy utility for 5.25" (DOS
3.3, ProDOS, ...) diskettes
is Disk Muncher. It is fast; and, the current version will automatically
try to
copy 36 tracks (used on some diskettes) and it includes verification
checks. A good fast-copy utility for 3.5" diskettes is Diversi-Copy.
The newer
version of the ProDOS Utilities may be adequate for copying many 3.5"
diskettes, too. The popular diskette utilities Copy II Plus and Locksmith
include plain Disk Copy options, too.
Most of the above will work with standard disk
images on emulators.
However, Copy II Plus's regular DISK COPY will not work on emus
(whereas, Locksmith's Fast Copy seems to work fine).
If you are on a PC running Windows, an easy
way to copy a .dsk, .nib,
etc. disk image file is to do a Right-click drag-and-drop of the file
in the
same folder.
On a IIgs, the easiest way to copy ProDOS diskettes
is on the usual
Finder desktop. You drag the icon of the disk you want to copy to the
icon of a same-size target disk.
The above options are fine for copying diskettes
which are not copy
protected. COPYA and some other copiers which use the current DOS's
RWTS routines can get around some forms of protection via POKEs to
DOS which turn off checking of Address header bytes, checksums, etc..
Otherwise, a bit copier, such as the ones included in Copy II Plus,
Locksmith, and Essential Data Duplicator, may get the job done. Using
it's built-in parms library, Copy II Plus can reliably make copies
of many
copy protected disks.
If a lot of the software you need to copy is
from MECC, a good try is to
get an MECC copy program by John Kielkopf named "meccopy". It makes
deprotected copies of many MECC diskettes.
You can find Disk Muncher, Copy II Plus, and
other utilities mentioned
above on several archives as separate files, on disks in ShrinkIt whole-disk
(.sdk) form, and on emulator disk images (.dsk files). To download
see links in File Utils Q&A 007.
From: Streaming Wizard, Phil Beesley
011- How can I read Apple II 5.25" floppies on a Mac?
Reading Apple II 5.25" floppies on a Mac requires
the addition of special
hardware. One company, Kennect, did make two drives that would handle
this
trick: the Drive 360 and the Drive 1200. They were primarily meant
for reading
5.25" PC disks but were also advertised as having the ability to read
Apple II
DOS 3.3 and ProDOS floppies. Both required a device called the "Rapport",
which plugged into the Mac's external floppy port and also gave the
internal
3.5" drive the ability to read 720K PC disks.
If your Mac is an LC or some later model with
the LC Processor Direct
Slot (PDS) and it supports 24-bit memory addressing, you may be able
to
plug in a IIe LC Card (or "IIe Emulation Card"). This, basically, installs
an
Apple //e in your Mac to which an Apple II 5.25" Platinum drive can
be
connected. For more information, see Main
Hall Q&A 014.
012- Can I create standard 3.5" IIgs diskettes on a Mac?
You are most likely to succeed with an older
Mac. However, even older Macs
that have built in compatible 800k (DD) drives will often produce a
IIGS diskette
that is not quite right-- such as a diskette that should boot gives
the "Unable to
Load ProDOS" error message.
If you have an older Mac that should write
standard IIgs disks properly and it
does not, clean your Mac drive and keep trying. For instance, you may
need to
extract a diskcopy archive a few times for the disk to write properly.
Newer Macs are, generally, less likely to succeed.
Some Macs, such as iMacs
with a floppy drive option, cannot format IIgs-compatible 800k diskettes.
From: Simon Williams
There was a thread discussing the impossibility
of creating bootable ProDOS
disks from a Mac with a 'force-feed' floppy drive. Seems it ain't necessarily
so.
Using Bernie ][ the Rescue on a G3 iMac with
a cheap USB floppy, I first
create a Diskcopy 4.2 800KB image, which I copy to a 1.44 MB diskette
with
the finder.
Then I transfer the disk image to a PowerPC
6100/66 which has the non-
auto-inject disk drive (running System 7.5)... copy the image to the
HD. Format
an 800KB ProDOS disk with the finder and then use DiskDup+ to copy
the
image to the floppy... (See Q&A
007 on the File Utils FAQs page.)
So far it's worked perfectly. I've made both
GS/OS 5 & 6 and ProDOS
startup disks this way... :) The one oddity is that GS-formatted
disks take a
long time to write, whereas the ones formatted under MacOS seem to
write
much quicker...
DiskDup+ is the key. I wondered myself why
I hadn't tried Diskcopy... so
I tried it -- without success.
013- Can I transfer files on MS-DOS disks to my IIgs?
You can use Peter Watson's MUG! program on
your IIgs to transfer files
via MS-DOS Iomega Zip disks. MUG! will let you read Zip disks on a
IIgs
equipped with a Zip drive and a SCSI interface.
MUG is an NDA; so, it can be installed like
other NDA's-- e.g. having
the main MUG! file (probably MUG.1.01) in the System/Desk.Accs/ folder
when booting. (See Q&A 007 on the
File Utils FAQs page.)
For easy use, start with a regular ProDOS Zip
disk in your IIgs Zip Drive.
Start a standard IIgs desktop program that does not test inserted disks.
A
good choice is PMPUnzip. Swap in the MS-DOS Zip disk. Start MUG!
from the Apple menu on the top menu bar.
