Path: news1.icaen!news.uiowa.edu!NewsNG.Chicago.Qual.Net!207.206.0.71!streamer1.cleveland.iagnet.net!marge.eaglequest.com!nntp.abs.net!newsfeed.wli.net!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!newsfeed.concentric.net!global-news-master From: Mike Kent Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2 Subject: Re: Another IIgs newbie Date: 20 Jan 1999 23:27:00 PST Organization: Concentric Internet Services Lines: 106 Message-ID: <786ks4$e6q@chronicle.concentric.net> References: <7804cb$8v8$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: mariner.concentric.net User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980226 (UNIX) (SunOS/4.1.3_U1 (sun4m)) Xref: news1.icaen comp.sys.apple2:144344 dcaddy@kearney.net wrote: > It is a WOZ Limited Edition (but I have no idea what that tells me). It came > with a 3-1/2" floppy, a 5-1/4" floppy, and an AppleColor RGB monitor. It also > came with some 3-1/2" disks including the original Apple System Disk & System > Tools (Version 4.0). If I remember right, the Woz Limitied Editions were all ROM 00 machines, but most of these have since been upgraded to ROM 01 machines (Apple did it for free for quite a few years). If yours has been upgraded you'll be able to run all the latest software. If not, you won't. If you can boot the System Disk 4.0 and reach the Finder successfully, you shouldn't have any compatibility problems with other software (at least not related to your ROM). > I am specifically interested in figuring out how to obtain more software. I > saw the reference to the ground.ecn.uiowa.edu site but with only the > directory structure found there am not sure where to start or what I want. > I am also interested in knowing how my Macs can interact with the IIgs. Can I > format IIgs disks in my Mac? Is that the ProDOS option??? Can I download IIgs > software to a IIgs formatted disk in my Mac and then stick it in the IIgs to > run? Yes, you can format disks on your Mac for the IIgs. The thing to remember is that the GS can only read 800K floppies, not the 1.44 Meg floppies that have been the standard in the Mac world for about ten years. A trick I used when I used to move software from the Mac to the GS is to place a piece of Scotch tape over the second hole on the 3.5" disk while formatting it and writing to it on the Mac. You can take it off once you move it on the GS. The GS won't care, it'll just be an 800K disk to it either way. Probably the easiest method is to use the Mac to download software from the internet, write it to a 800K *ProDOS* disk, and carry it over to the GS. You'll need to start with some file utility software for the GS so that you can decode the software you download. Next you'll want to upgrade the OS to System Disk 6.0.1 -- it's a major upgrade from 4.0 Try these steps in the following order: 1) Get BinSCII -- the standard Apple II binary <-> text converter. a) Get binscii.exe from http://ground.ecn.uiowa.edu/apple2/apple8/Pgms/ b) Edit the text in a Mac text editor to remove the extraneous text (remove the obvious when you look at it in the editor). Save it as a text file named binscii.exe on a ProDOS 800K floppy. c) Boot System 4.0 on the GS and run Basic.System from the Finder. d) Swap disks and type "Exec binscii.exe" (no quotes). The installer program should save an SYS file named BINSCII to your ProDOS disk. e) You can delete the binscii.exe file by dragging its icon to the trash in the Finder. 2) Download shrinkit34.bsc from the same directory. ShrinkIt is the standard archiving / compression program for the Apple II (like StuffIt for the Mac). No need to edit this file in a text editor. Just save it to the 800K ProDOS disk. a) Execute BinSCII by double-clicking its icon from the Finder on the GS. b) Select the U)npack option and type-in shrinkit34.bsc. You should then have an SYS file named ShrinkIt on your disk. Q)uit back to Finder. 3) Downlaod ShrinkIt GS (GS version of ShrinkIt which can handle forked files, StuffIt archives, and Unix compress files) from http://ground.ecn.uiowa.edu/apple2/apple16/Comm/Utils/Shrinkitgs.v11/ a) Run all of the files through BinSCII. b) If the resulting files have a .shk extension or an SHK filetype, run them through SrhinkIt. If they're .SEA files (self-extracting archives), just double-click on their icons from the GS Finder and let them do their magic. Double-click on the resulting GSHK icon to run it. (I'm not sure anymore if GSHK will run on System 4.0. You may need to download System 6.0.1 first.) 4) Get System 6.01 from ftp://ftp.apple.com/dts/aii/sys.soft/gs.system.6.0.1/ a) Run through BinSCII and GS ShrinkIt (if you can) or ShrinkIt (if you can't run GSHK). b) Start with System.Disk and try to boot it first. Once you have SystemDisk 6.0.1, use it as your startup disk, and put the System Disk 4.0 and System Tools 4.0 away for safekeeping. c) Next download SystemTools1 and SystemTools2. Then get the rest. They're well worth the disk space. Especially be sure to check out SynthLab. Well, that's probably way more info than you expected, but it should get you going. When you get that far, let us know. You'll probably want to get some basic utilities next and then for ages 10-12 I'd recommend HyperCard and HyperStudio. There are also word processors, databases, spreadsheets, communications programs, financial programs, music editors, MIDI programs, paint programs, animators, graphing programs, math formula solvers, fractal generators, ray tracers, and, of course, games. You shouldn't run out of things to do for a long, long time. Good luck, Mike