I'm looking to use an Apple IIe with 'Total Replay' but my financial
situation rules out a modern mass-storage solution (e.g. Floppy Emu,
CFFA). So instead thinking about using vintage-era options I already
have on the shelf: a SCSI controller and external 52x CD-ROM drive.

So, I have a pair of RamFAST Rev C SCSI boards, but the ROM
firmware isn't the latest. One has version 2.01 (in both U15/U16)
while the other has 3.01e *but* 2.01 in U16. Will this combination
work, and support removable storage? (it's been so long I cannot
remember the specific differences between ROM revisions).

I'm almost a bit hesitant to use a RamFAST in a IIe, but I'm
guessing its fast ProDOS-8 performance should be comparable to
what I've experienced with my IIGS's. If not, would I be better off
using one of my Apple High-Speed SCSI controllers to operate a
CD-ROM instead?

And on a side-note, what is the best way to create a bootable
ProDOS CD for Total Replay? Anything on the Windows side,
or will I have better luck using software on my beige G3 Mac?

Mitchell Spector

We support SCSI drives in Total Replay, at least, so if you can hook up a CD you should be able to run but not save high-scores.
I don't know anything about the ROM revisions, so I can't answer that part.
I also don't know if you'll be able to boot it directly from CD because I don't know what the boot-sector looks like. If it presents like a hard disk then okay. If not, then not.
However, if you boot from a floppy into BitsyBye or similar, then you can select the CD drive and run the LAUNCHER.SYSTEM from it.
Let me know if you get it mostly running but some games fail. I can fix the failures.

On 2022-06-14 8:13 p.m., Mitchell Spector wrote:
> I'm looking to use an Apple IIe with 'Total Replay' but my financial
> situation rules out a modern mass-storage solution (e.g. Floppy Emu,
> CFFA). So instead thinking about using vintage-era options I already
> have on the shelf: a SCSI controller and external 52x CD-ROM drive.
>
> So, I have a pair of RamFAST Rev C SCSI boards, but the ROM
> firmware isn't the latest. One has version 2.01 (in both U15/U16)
> while the other has 3.01e *but* 2.01 in U16. Will this combination
> work, and support removable storage? (it's been so long I cannot
> remember the specific differences between ROM revisions).
>
> I'm almost a bit hesitant to use a RamFAST in a IIe, but I'm
> guessing its fast ProDOS-8 performance should be comparable to
> what I've experienced with my IIGS's. If not, would I be better off
> using one of my Apple High-Speed SCSI controllers to operate a
> CD-ROM instead?
>
> And on a side-note, what is the best way to create a bootable
> ProDOS CD for Total Replay? Anything on the Windows side,
> or will I have better luck using software on my beige G3 Mac?

It has been a long time since I played with my SCSI hardware. I have a
couple CFFAs now. What's worse is I hardly ever turn on the hardware
anymore. Finding time to do all the things I want is always a problem.

I believe at one point I was using a RamFAST with v3.01ez firmware (I
think v3.01f was the latest) that I had connected to a 1.2 GB SCSI hard
drive. I had an Apple High Speed SCSI card connected to a CD-ROM drive.
I'm pretty sure the RamFAST did work with the CD-ROM drive but because
I had such a large hard drive with 11 ProDOS and 1 HFS partitions, that
used up all 12 partitions the RamFAST firmware could handle so I put the
CD-ROM on a separate controller. Also, if I recall correctly, the
RamFAST couldn't detect when you changed disks in the CD-ROM drive but
the AHS card could.

As you are planning on just hooking up the CD-ROM drive, I don't think
it really matters which card you use as you would be rebooting all the
time anyway so being able to detect a disc change isn't important.
However, with the RamFAST, I think you would have to access the firmware
(I believe it was hold down the zero key when booting) and map any
partitions on the CD to get them to show up properly.

I'm 99.9% sure that you can boot CD-ROMs on the Apple II but I couldn't
tell you how to set one up or even if both types of SCSI card support
it. I think that some of the CD-ROMs that exist for the Apple II are
bootable. I'd have to pull out my collection or do some online research
to find out and see if there are any details on how it was accomplished.

qkumba <peter.ferrie@gmail.com> wrote:

>We support SCSI drives in Total Replay, at least, so if you can hook up a
>CD you should be able to run but not save high-scores.

I imagine it should work, but there may be unexpected results when Total
Replay attemps to write and unexpectedly encounters a read-only device.

Unfortunately I just discovered tonight my 24x CD-ROM is failing (motor
spindle?). And seems so is my Apple 600i. I do have an Apple 300e Plus
but its been having health issues too. I'll likely burn a CD nonetheless just
to see if it can be done. Apparently no one else has tried yet! Foe extra
fun, I'm going to try using a rewritable CD-RW disc.

>I don't know anything about the ROM revisions, so I can't answer that part.

Well if anyone else out there is familiar with the RamFAST revision C,
what was the final version of the 'U16' ROM (I vaguely remember 3.00)
and what does it control on the card compared to the U15 ROM?

>I also don't know if you'll be able to boot it directly from CD because I don't
> know what the boot-sector looks like. If it presents like a hard disk then okay.
>If not, then not. However, if you boot from a floppy into BitsyBye or similar, then
>you can select the CD drive and run the LAUNCHER.SYSTEM from it.
>Let me know if you get it mostly running but some games fail. I can fix the failures.

Well, as a test I hooked up an IOmega Zip drive, pulled out a 100 MB Zip
cart that already had a copy of Total Replay on it and popped it in....

And it WORKED! The RamFAST detected it and allows me to boot directly
off the Zip drive! It even allows me to Control-Reset and return to the menu
selector. Works nice and fast too! I love that it detects my Phasor card
and has music, sound and speech in a couple of games!

The only issue is it's a faulty Zip drive I retired from my IIGS, and
keeps clicking at random (yeah, that fun click-of-death issue). Good
enough for testing purposes for now, until if/when I can repair it.
Also have to figure out a color timing issue on my IIe, but that'll be
for another post. Long term I'd like to dig up a small SCSI hardisk
to put Total Recall on (kicking myself for giving several of them
away a decade ago!).

Mitchell Spector

Jeff Blakeney <CUTjeffrey_blakeney@yahoo.ca> wrote:

>It has been a long time since I played with my SCSI hardware. I have a
>couple CFFAs now. What's worse is I hardly ever turn on the hardware
>anymore. Finding time to do all the things I want is always a problem.

Still actively using a SCSI Jaz and Zip drive on my IIGS (most of my SCSI
hardisks have failed or too noisy), but not sure I'd be able to ever switch
to a CFFA after being spoiled by the speed of the RamFAST. Yep, I hear
you about time these days!

>I believe at one point I was using a RamFAST with v3.01ez firmware (I
>think v3.01f was the latest)

Yep, 3.01f was the final, but only 1 byte changed from 3.01e (the "ez"
I do remember was for the putting the Zilog CPU into Hitachi mode on
Sequential System boards). As for what the differences are for the U16
ROM on the older revision C board, that's what I'm curious about.

>that I had connected to a 1.2 GB SCSI hard drive. I had an Apple High
>Speed SCSI card connected to a CD-ROM drive.

The RamFAST had issues with devices 1 GB or larger, though I've been
able to use it with my 1 GB Jaz drive with some moderate success. The card
though did not support SCSI arbitration which caused incompatibilities with
several newer drives at the time. Is it possible your Apple HS SCSI was
connected to the 1.2 GB, not the RamFAST?

> I'm pretty sure the RamFAST did work with the CD-ROM drive but because
>I had such a large hard drive with 11 ProDOS and 1 HFS partitions, that
>used up all 12 partitions the RamFAST firmware could handle so I put the
>CD-ROM on a separate controller.

Had that issue back in the day, still do. My solution was to disable some
of the hardisk partitions whenever I inserted a CD-ROM disc. Swapping
partitions in and out as I needed them.

>Also, if I recall correctly, the RamFAST couldn't detect when you changed
>disks in the CD-ROM drive but the AHS card could.

I believe that was resolved in the later firmware updates. I know for
certain with my RamFAST D (ROM 3.01ez) I can pop CD's in and out while
in the IIGS Finder and new discs appear on the desktop.

Also noticed while working on the IIe, if I swapped CD's while in the
RamFAST C's built-in menus, and pressed control-E, it detected the new
discs without the need to restart the computer.

>As you are planning on just hooking up the CD-ROM drive, I don't think
>it really matters which card you use as you would be rebooting all the
>time anyway so being able to detect a disc change isn't important.
>However, with the RamFAST, I think you would have to access the firmware
>(I believe it was hold down the zero key when booting) and map any
>partitions on the CD to get them to show up properly.

Yes, and it works quite well with the Zip drive I'm testing it with!
I'm curious if it would be as flexible with the Apple High Speed SCSI
card, detecting the ProDOS partition and booting it directly. I'm also
curious how it fares in terms of speed--the RamFAST really flies with
ProDOS-8! I may pop in an Apple board just to see the difference...

>I'm 99.9% sure that you can boot CD-ROMs on the Apple II but I couldn't
>tell you how to set one up or even if both types of SCSI card support
>it. I think that some of the CD-ROMs that exist for the Apple II are
>bootable. I'd have to pull out my collection or do some online research
>to find out and see if there are any details on how it was accomplished.

I do remember booting YourWordBox CD-ROM directly from my
RamFAST SCSI on the IIGS. Interesting thing is the Apple IIe is
attempting to do the same. I popped in that same CD-ROM and got
the message "GS/OS REQUIRES APPLE IIGS HARDWARE". So
looks like even on an Apple IIe, booting from a CD-ROM is doable!

I'll do some tests with burning some Total Replay CD's and fooling
about with the RamFAST and Apple SCSI controllers. Unfortunately
my equipment is failing....all 3 of my SCSI CD-ROM drives, my spare
Zip drive. Even the built-in speakers on my CRT TV set I'm hooking
the Apple IIe up to! Speaking of time, I need time to sit down and
repair a lot of my vintage hardware!

Mitchell Spector

On 6/15/22 12:10 AM, Mitchell Spector wrote:
[...]
> The only issue is it's a faulty Zip drive I retired from my IIGS, and
> keeps clicking at random (yeah, that fun click-of-death issue). Good
> enough for testing purposes for now, until if/when I can repair it.

I don't think "repair" and "Zip drive" generally appear in the same
sentence, except in the negative. Do please let us know if you find
such a thing to be possible - I go through them with some regularity.

David Schmidt <schmidtd@my-deja.com> wrote:

>On 6/15/22 12:10 AM, Mitchell Spector wrote:
>[...]
>> The only issue is it's a faulty Zip drive I retired from my IIGS, and
>> keeps clicking at random (yeah, that fun click-of-death issue). Good
>> enough for testing purposes for now, until if/when I can repair it.
>
>I don't think "repair" and "Zip drive" generally appear in the same
>sentence, except in the negative. Do please let us know if you find
>such a thing to be possible - I go through them with some regularity.

After some quick research, unfortunately it appears the "fix"
(straightening the drive head bracket?) is temporary at best.
It's recommended instead replacing the mechanism or the entire
unit itself. I did the latter for my IIGS since I had a spare, but the
clicking/dying one is OK for Total Replay until it goes completely.

I DID find a fix for recovering Zip cartridges that were corrupted
by the clicking drive. Couldn't get those disks to format on my Macs
or PCs, but the RamFAST's built-in utility was able to low-level
format and resurrect the disks!

Mitchell Spector

On 6/15/22 3:26 PM, Mitchell Spector wrote:
[...]
> I DID find a fix for recovering Zip cartridges that were corrupted
> by the clicking drive. Couldn't get those disks to format on my Macs
> or PCs, but the RamFAST's built-in utility was able to low-level
> format and resurrect the disks!

Oh, nice! I'd never want to write out a new Zip; my only interest is
reading and then ending their sorry life. But nice to hear another
outcome is possible!

On 6/14/2022 11:57 PM, Mitchell Spector wrote:
>
> Still actively using a SCSI Jaz and Zip drive on my IIGS (most of my
> SCSI hardisks have failed or too noisy), but not sure I'd be able to
> ever switch to a CFFA after being spoiled by the speed of the
> RamFAST.
>

Like you, I've been using a pair of chained Zip Drives with a Rev D (1
Meg) RamFAST on my work IIgs for well over 20 years now, and have always
been very pleased with the setup.

The RamFAST card has always been my favorite Apple II peripheral; for
working under ProDOS 8, nothing else can compare to its speed. I believe
the MicroDrive Turbo can compete with it under GS/OS, but since the MDT
doesn't cache ProDOS 8, it can't touch the RamFAST there.

I have had a few Zip drives fail over that time, but I've always kept a
few NIB spares on hand to replace them. Sometimes, it's just the wall
wart getting a little weak voltage wise and a new one fixes things right up.

You've probably taken a look at the SCSI Zip Drive replacement options
out there. The SCSI2SD has been around a while, and Wayne Stewart has
used one with the Apple II and RamFAST with good results.

The latest replacements, however, the BlueSCSI and the ZuluSCSI, are
also SCSI devices, but rather than using the SD card as a SCSI block
device (e.g. SCSI2SD), they are actually using disk images on the SD
card, much like a CFFA or the FloppyEMU would.

I've been tempted to try one of those since it would make transferring
my Apple II files to my Mac or Windows box fairly simple.

Maybe I'll let Wayne Stewart do it first. ;-)

I bring it up because if you were to use something like that, you could
just take your Total Replay images, write them to the card, and go to town.

Hugh Hood

Bringing up the Zip drive jogged my memory that I have a Jaz drive that
I never did get any cartridges for. They were too expensive. However,
at the same place and time I picked up that used Jaz drive I also picked
up a used EZ135 drive with 10 cartridges. I used that for a little
while on my IIgs. The plan was to make bootable cartridges for
different tasks. One for games, one for programming, one for
productivity, one for communications (which would also be for downloaded
archives).

I still need to sort through my Apple II stuff. I really should get
stuff that I'm not using and am just storing into the hands of people
who will actually use it.

On Thursday, June 16, 2022 at 6:31:35 AM UTC-7, Jeff Blakeney wrote:
> I still need to sort through my Apple II stuff. I really should get
> stuff that I'm not using and am just storing into the hands of people
> who will actually use it.

I'm currently trying to figure out how to do that. A neighbor down the street decided to get rid of some old stuff that was lurking in a closet, so I'm now the proud owner of a functional but bare-bones Apple ][+, an Apple High-Resolution RGB monitor (that's the fixed-resolution one, not useful for a IIgs), an ADB keyboard and mouse (thick bezel version), and an ImageWriter II that I haven't tried to do anything with. I also have a couple of Mac Classics that I pulled the hard drives out of.

None of this is particularly valuable, but all of it is of interest to collectors, as spare parts if nothing else. So it'd be nice to hand it off to somebody who has a genuine desire for it. I'm trying to figure out if there's a way to do that without having to go through an auction site and deal with packing and shipping everything.

(FWIW, I'm keeping the Apple ][+.)

Mitchell Spector <mitch2gs@hotmail.com> wrote:
> So, I have a pair of RamFAST Rev C SCSI boards, but the ROM
> firmware isn't the latest. One has version 2.01 (in both U15/U16)
> while the other has 3.01e *but* 2.01 in U16. Will this combination
> work, and support removable storage? (it's been so long I cannot
> remember the specific differences between ROM revisions).

I'm not sure what firmware version I have, but I can't even get a CD-ROM
drive working with it in a IIGS, let alone a IIe. I ended up swapping in an
Apple DMA SCSI card, which does work.

> I'm almost a bit hesitant to use a RamFAST in a IIe, but I'm
> guessing its fast ProDOS-8 performance should be comparable to
> what I've experienced with my IIGS's. If not, would I be better off
> using one of my Apple High-Speed SCSI controllers to operate a
> CD-ROM instead?

In a IIe, ISTR the RamFAST being a good bit quicker. Even with DMA disabled
so an accelerator can be used, it was faster.

> And on a side-note, what is the best way to create a bootable
> ProDOS CD for Total Replay? Anything on the Windows side,
> or will I have better luck using software on my beige G3 Mac?

You could just burn a hard-disk image (with partition table) to a CD. If
you don't have such an image to burn, you could (if I remember right) use
something like CiderPress to populate a ProDOS filesystem image with files,
and then prepend a partition table. As long as the first partition has a
file named PRODOS, it'll boot.

To create a partition table, I knocked together a little tool a while back:

https://alfter.us/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/prodos-parttbl-gen.tar.gz

It's on this page:

https://alfter.us/computers/apple-ii/software/

It'll create a partition table with whatever combination of ProDOS and HFS
partitions you want. Concatenate the filesystem images after the partition
table, then burn the file. I used it to make a bootable System 6.0.1 CD a
while back.

_/_
/ v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
(IIGS( https://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
\_^_/ >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

--
_/_
/ v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
(IIGS( https://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
\_^_/ >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us wrote:

>Mitchell Spector <mitch2gs@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> So, I have a pair of RamFAST Rev C SCSI boards, but the ROM
>> firmware isn't the latest. One has version 2.01 (in both U15/U16)
>> while the other has 3.01e *but* 2.01 in U16. Will this combination
>> work, and support removable storage? (it's been so long I cannot
>> remember the specific differences between ROM revisions).
>
>I'm not sure what firmware version I have, but I can't even get a CD-ROM
>drive working with it in a IIGS, let alone a IIe. I ended up swapping in an
>Apple DMA SCSI card, which does work.

I've had an Apple CD300e Plus not only operating on my IIGS with the
RamFAST, but able to play audio CD's as well! From memory I think you
requires at least ROM 3.00L or higher to use removable media devices.

Speaking of the RamFAST-C firmware, I found images of the U16
ROM. It's only 8K large (versus 32K for the main U15 ROM), but what's
its function AND the final version of it?

>> I'm almost a bit hesitant to use a RamFAST in a IIe, but I'm
>> guessing its fast ProDOS-8 performance should be comparable to
>> what I've experienced with my IIGS's. If not, would I be better off
>> using one of my Apple High-Speed SCSI controllers to operate a
>> CD-ROM instead?
>
>In a IIe, ISTR the RamFAST being a good bit quicker. Even with DMA disabled
>so an accelerator can be used, it was faster.

Definitely! Total Replay boots up instantly, and I can rapidly cycle
through the various game listings (it literally feels like it's running off a
RAM Disk; rather like the Apple II equivalent of modern day SSD).
At some point I'll see if I can't dig up an old SCSI hardisk to connect
to the Apple IIe to make things even speedier.

I tried an Apple High-Speed SCSI a few years back, and I remember
it seemed incredibly slow by contrast (even a long pause for just the
ProDOS-8 version splash screen to appear!).

>> And on a side-note, what is the best way to create a bootable
>> ProDOS CD for Total Replay? Anything on the Windows side,
>> or will I have better luck using software on my beige G3 Mac?
>
>You could just burn a hard-disk image (with partition table) to a CD. If
>you don't have such an image to burn, you could (if I remember right) use
>something like CiderPress to populate a ProDOS filesystem image with files,
>and then prepend a partition table. As long as the first partition has a
>file named PRODOS, it'll boot.
>
>To create a partition table, I knocked together a little tool a while back:
>[snip]

Thanks! I'll check that out. Meantime I'll try using Toast on my biege G3
Mac, I remember using it to burn bootable ProDOS CD-ROM some years
ago, and why I ended up hanging on to the machine. It has a Zip drive
too, so I should be able to create a bootable CD version of the Zip cart.

At this point a CD-ROM disc on the Apple IIe would be counter
productive compared to the faster (r/w) Zip disk. Or SCSI hardisk,
but it'd be fun to try just to see if it can't be done. I'm quite sure it
will work, after seeing the RamFAST attempt to boot a GS/OS
CD-ROM on the IIe.

Mitchell Spector

One minor thing to note is that Total Replay does not use ProDOS in any form.
We use a custom bootsector to locate and load our system file within the ProDOS file-system.
The use of the ProDOS file-system allows us to maintain compatibility with external ProDOS media (or to be launched via someone running ProDOS first).
So, to make a CD that can boot Total Replay directly, you'd need a way to copy our boot sector rather than the usual ProDOS one.
Otherwise, you can put the regular ProDOS boot-sector on there, and your ProDOS system file, so that ProDOS boots first.

On Friday, June 17, 2022 at 12:10:37 PM UTC-7, qkumba wrote:
> The use of the ProDOS file-system allows us to maintain compatibility with external ProDOS media (or to be launched via someone running ProDOS first).

One minor compatibility point: the GS/OS lower-case flags are stored in the version/min_version fields in the directory entry, but not for the redundant filename entry in the directory header. Whatever is creating the Total Replay images is sticking nonzero values into the header's min_version field, which could potentially break something. (CiderPress stores version=5, min_version=0 to mimic GS/OS.)

This appears to be the case in TR v4.0.1 and v5.0. Of course, if you haven't seen something break by now, it's probably fine. :-)

cf. http://www.1000bit.it/support/manuali/apple/technotes/gsos/tn.gsos.08.html

Ah, that's Cadius. We ask it to create the folders for us. I wonder if it's uninitialised something being written out. I will check on this.

PEBKAC. I missed the "-C" switch to clear the bits when running Cadius.

On Friday, June 24, 2022 at 5:51:17 PM UTC-7, qkumba wrote:
> Ah, that's Cadius. We ask it to create the folders for us. I wonder if it's uninitialised something being written out. I will check on this.

Looking at the source, Prodos_Create.c line 460 appears to be intentionally setting the field to name_case. BuildProdosCase() always uses a nonzero value, even when all letters are upper-case ($8000). Changing the SetWordValue argument to 0x0005 should fix it (not tested).

In article <f20f7bf4-b26d-4357-9981-99831aae5ed9n@googlegroups.com>,
fadden <thefadden@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Friday, June 17, 2022 at 12:10:37 PM UTC-7, qkumba wrote:
>> The use of the ProDOS file-system allows us to maintain compatibility
>with external ProDOS media (or to be launched via someone running ProDOS
>first).
>
>One minor compatibility point: the GS/OS lower-case flags are stored in
>the version/min_version fields in the directory entry, but not for the
>redundant filename entry in the directory header. Whatever is creating
>the Total Replay images is sticking nonzero values into the header's
>min_version field, which could potentially break something. (CiderPress
>stores version=5, min_version=0 to mimic GS/OS.)
>
>This appears to be the case in TR v4.0.1 and v5.0. Of course, if you
>haven't seen something break by now, it's probably fine. :-)
>
>cf. http://www.1000bit.it/support/manuali/apple/technotes/gsos/tn.gsos.08.html

In my opinion, that technote is a bit unclear on how this should work.

There are 3 different file "entries" that matter: volume header (first entry
on block $0002), subdirectory header (first entry of the first block of
a subdirectory), and all other file entries.

This email will use nomenclature that does not match the documentation: ignore
the first 4 bytes of any directory block, and consider each entry to be $27
bytes, this includes volume header and subdirectory headers.

Pre GS/OS 5: in all entries (volume header, subdir header, any other file
entry), offsets $1c and $1d are VERSION and MIN_VERSION. (The official
documentation considers the volume header and subdir header to start at
byte $000 and so VERSION and MIN_VERSION are at absolute offsets $20 and
$21).

Post GS/OS 5 (add lowercase flags):
For volume header, $16,$17 are the lower_case flags, and $1c
and $1d remain VERSION and MIN_VERSION
For normal file entries: $1c,$1d are the lower_case flags.
For subdirectory headers: It's not defined what to do.

I guess you've looked at GS/OS images, and subdirectory headers should not
change: $1c,$1d should be VERSION and MIN_VERSION, and there are no
lower_case flags, right (they DO NOT move to $16,$17 like the volume header)?

Kent

On Saturday, June 25, 2022 at 9:13:43 PM UTC-7, Kent Dickey wrote:
> In my opinion, that technote is a bit unclear on how this should work.

It was written from the perspective of explaining the fields whose value changed meaning. It was not explicit about the fields that didn't change, but I suppose if you're writing the technote as a sort of "diff" it might not feel necessary to do so. It would have been useful for them to call this out.

ProDOS 8 documentation is generally pretty vague about the directory header area, e.g. it tells you that directory headers store a redundant copy of the subdirectory name, access flags, and creation date, but doesn't mention that the latter two aren't updated when you call SetFileInfo. My guess is the lower-case flags would fall into the same "redundant but not updated" category, and somebody figured that if you weren't going to update them then you might as well not write them in the first place.

> I guess you've looked at GS/OS images, and subdirectory headers should not
> change: $1c,$1d should be VERSION and MIN_VERSION, and there are no
> lower_case flags, right (they DO NOT move to $16,$17 like the volume header)?

Correct. Also, ProDOS 8 puts various values in VERSION and leaves MIN_VERSION zero.

On a totally unrelated note, ProDOS 8 tech note #30 reveals something interesting. It suggests the following P8 BASIC.System command for creating a massively sparse file:

BSAVE SPARSE.FILE,A$300,L$1,B$FFFFFF

Of course, if you write 1 byte to $ffffff, you create a file whose EOF should be $1000000, which is impossible. However, the write succeeds and you can even read it back, because it's actually storing the last byte at the end of the block. The GS/OS FST doesn't seem to allow this.

In article <9997cf21-f786-4126-9f7d-4f3eb2b3eba9n@googlegroups.com>,
fadden <thefadden@gmail.com> wrote:
>On a totally unrelated note, ProDOS 8 tech note #30 reveals something
>interesting. It suggests the following P8 BASIC.System command for
>creating a massively sparse file:
>
> BSAVE SPARSE.FILE,A$300,L$1,B$FFFFFF
>
>Of course, if you write 1 byte to $ffffff, you create a file whose EOF
>should be $1000000, which is impossible. However, the write succeeds
>and you can even read it back, because it's actually storing the last
>byte at the end of the block. The GS/OS FST doesn't seem to allow this.

I changed the subject.

This is very interesting. It's funny that the technote creates an illegal
file. I did a bunch of experiments with BSAVE and
BLOAD, and PRODOS 8 appears to treat files of length $ffff00 and higher as if
the length was infinite. That's very interesting.

If you create a small file:

BSAVE SMALL,A$300,l100

Then if you try to load more than the file size, ProDOS stops you:

BLOAD SMALL,A$2000,b50,l256

It will only load 50 bytes at $2000. The rest of memory at $2032-$2100 is
unchanged, even though I tried to load 256 bytes from the file.

But if you've created a file with a length >= $ffff00, then you can read
far beyond it:

BSAVE SPARSE2,A$300,L1,B$FFFFFE
BLOAD SPARSE2,A$2000,b$ffff00,l$4000

will happily write all 0's from $2100-$5fff.

And, I find I cannot quite predict what it will do if you try to write over
16MB:

BSAVE SPARSE0,A$300,l$50,b$fffff0

It creates a file of length $fffff0, but doesn't write the data in properly.
It seems to show up in the first block at offset $0f0. This may just be
how ProDOS handles file "overflow".

The "wraparound" may mean when you read past 16MB, ProDOS is just returning
the first few bytes of the file instead. I didn't figure this out.

I assume ProDOS is the issue, but I guess it could be BASIC.SYSTEM, since
I was just using BLOAD and BSAVE.

Kent

qkumba <peter.ferrie@gmail.com> wrote:

>One minor thing to note is that Total Replay does not use ProDOS
>in any form. We use a custom bootsector to locate and load our
>system file within the ProDOS file-system.The use of the ProDOS
>file-system allows us to maintain compatibility with external ProDOS
> media (or to be launched via someone running ProDOS first).
>So, to make a CD that can boot Total Replay directly, you'd need
>a way to copy our boot sector rather than the usual ProDOS one.
>Otherwise, you can put the regular ProDOS boot-sector on there,
>and your ProDOS system file, so that ProDOS boots first.

Interesting, did not know that! On a side note, I found an old
Quantum ProDrive LPS 105 in storage and installed that in an
external SCSI enclosure. I created 3 x 32 MB partitions and a
small 4 MB partition, and hooked it up to the Apple IIe with
RamFAST.

I just dragged all the Total Replay files onto the first partition
and to my surprise, it automatically boots up on the IIe and gets
directly to the Total Replay title screen/menu!

I'm actually impressed by the speed, it boots up instantly
once the RamFAST detects the drive, and I can zip right
through the game selection list holding down the left/right
arrow keys. Games load nearly instantly too--almost as
efficiently as Total Replay on my IIGS with RamFAST D.

I may eventually still try the CD-ROM option just to see
if it can't be done, but this hardisk solution is far better,
and a noticeable improvement over the Zip drive too!

I've actually had a pair of RamFAST Rev C boards
for over 20 years, but had little to no incentive to add
mass storage to my 8-bit II's. That is, until Total Replay!

Mitchell Spector

On 2022-06-27 05:56:23 +0000, Mitchell Spector said:

> qkumba <peter.ferrie@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> One minor thing to note is that Total Replay does not use ProDOS
>> in any form. We use a custom bootsector to locate and load our
>> system file within the ProDOS file-system.The use of the ProDOS
>> file-system allows us to maintain compatibility with external ProDOS
>> media (or to be launched via someone running ProDOS first).
>> So, to make a CD that can boot Total Replay directly, you'd need
>> a way to copy our boot sector rather than the usual ProDOS one.
>> Otherwise, you can put the regular ProDOS boot-sector on there,
>> and your ProDOS system file, so that ProDOS boots first.
>
> Interesting, did not know that! On a side note, I found an old
> Quantum ProDrive LPS 105 in storage and installed that in an
> external SCSI enclosure. I created 3 x 32 MB partitions and a
> small 4 MB partition, and hooked it up to the Apple IIe with
> RamFAST.
>
> I just dragged all the Total Replay files onto the first partition
> and to my surprise, it automatically boots up on the IIe and gets
> directly to the Total Replay title screen/menu!
>
> I'm actually impressed by the speed, it boots up instantly
> once the RamFAST detects the drive, and I can zip right
> through the game selection list holding down the left/right
> arrow keys. Games load nearly instantly too--almost as
> efficiently as Total Replay on my IIGS with RamFAST D.
>
> I may eventually still try the CD-ROM option just to see
> if it can't be done, but this hardisk solution is far better,
> and a noticeable improvement over the Zip drive too!
>
> I've actually had a pair of RamFAST Rev C boards
> for over 20 years, but had little to no incentive to add
> mass storage to my 8-bit II's. That is, until Total Replay!
>
> Mitchell Spector

Hopefully you'd still find my collections of 32meg volumes with mass
storage friendly IIGS specific software useful (available if you scroll
down towards the bottom of the homepage).

I've also started efforts to create a Total Replay GS, although its
final name will not be that.

We're currently tracking what currently doesn't work from mass storage
or specific versions of ProDOS 16 or GS/OS. If anyone can help hack
these programs, please look at:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19FCd3w-qTbxh5fbH6tgtLpsDUnFWcN6E6fSp0B3WjXU/edit?usp=sharing

Alex

On Thursday, June 16, 2022 at 8:18:49 AM UTC-7, sc...@alfter.diespammersdie.us wrote:
> To create a partition table, I knocked together a little tool a while back:
>
> https://alfter.us/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/prodos-parttbl-gen.tar.gz

Tip: add "#pragma pack (1)" to see why your ddPad count doesn't match the documentation.

CiderPress went ahead and declared the padding explicitly, subtracting one from ddPad to make it come out right. We're both wrong; it should be tightly packed.