Hi
Have Powerbook 180, Powerbook G3 and Apple //e with external 3.5 hard drive. I can format a 3.5 disk ProDOS on all 3 machines. But...

The disks are not interchangeable. That is, for example, the disk formatted on the G3 cannot be read by the Apple //e. Etc.

Why is this? I did something wrong? I am missing something?

Thanks

Loren Engrav

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engrav <lengrav@gmail.com> writes:

Hi
Have Powerbook 180, Powerbook G3 and Apple //e with external 3.5 hard drive. I can format
a 3.5 disk ProDOS on all 3 machines. But...

The disks are not interchangeable. That is, for example, the disk formatted on the G3
cannot be read by the Apple //e. Etc.

Why is this? I did something wrong? I am missing something?

Are the 3.5" disks in the Powerbooks 1.44M disks? That is, high-density
(HD) disks? Those are formatted using the MFM encoding while the 800K
Apple disks are formatted with GCR encoding, and also the 800K drives
change speed depending upon which track is being accessed.

Unless your Apple IIe has the 3.5" superdrive disk controller card that supports the Apple 3.5 FDHD drive, and you have a FDHD drive connected,
you cannot read the 1.44MB floppies on your Apple IIe.

Simple test. On your Powerbooks, format the disk and see how much free
space it reports on the disk. If it's more than 1.3 MB, it's a FDHD.

Try formatting on the Apple IIe. What is the free space there? If it's
just under 800k, it's using the GCR format encoding, and your drive
probably only supports double-density (800k GCR).

--
--
Jerry awanderin at gmail dot com

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Have Powerbook 180, Powerbook G3 and Apple //e with external 3.5 hard drive. I can format a 3.5 disk ProDOS on all 3 machines. But...
The disks are not interchangeable. That is, for example, the disk formatted on the G3 cannot be read by the Apple //e. Etc.
Why is this? I did something wrong? I am missing something?

On the Macs you need a control panel called "Dos compatibilty" to read Prodos formatted disks.

Having that check the disk size, 800 kb vs 1.6 Mb. Although the Macs should still be able to read 800 kb disks formatted by the IIe, the drivers on the Mac most likely try to read the disk too fast.

I find that installing "Bernie2theMac" on the Macs will read those 800 kb Prodos formatted disks perfectly. And in my view was still one of the best IIGS emulators ever written.

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In article <4c3663fa-4d3e-4715-9b11-b6df9e4bca9an@googlegroups.com>,
engrav <lengrav@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi
Have Powerbook 180, Powerbook G3 and Apple //e with external 3.5 hard
drive. I can format a 3.5 disk ProDOS on all 3 machines. But...

The disks are not interchangeable. That is, for example, the disk
formatted on the G3 cannot be read by the Apple //e. Etc.

Why is this? I did something wrong? I am missing something?

Thanks

Loren Engrav

There are many possible issues. One is that 3.5" drives that are capable
of using 1.44MB have smaller heads. These smaller heads write a smaller
track (in terms of width) even when writing to 800KB disks. They can then
read back those disks fine--but a true 800KB drive might not. True 800KB drives have a "wider" head that is confused by the data the 1.44MB drive
didn't write, and so cannot read data written by a 1.44MB drive. I never dealt with this much, but I remember it being easy to read 800KB Apple II disks
on a Mac, but harder to go the other way (I would try to use a really old
Mac which only had an 800KB drive). There may be some setting on the Mac
to make it write in a more compatible way to 800KB disks.

I also remember 1.44MB disks are generally not usable on an Apple II. I think a brand new disk would work, but once a true 1.44MB drive has written to it
in 1.44MB format, it's "infected" and an 800KB drive cannot overwrite it properly. I honestly don't remember the details, but there was definitely
some problem.

Kent

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On Sunday, February 6, 2022 at 9:31:15 AM UTC-8, Kent Dickey wrote:

There are many possible issues.

Kent

Hi. Thanks all. Problem still exists, not solved.

All disks are Imation HD. External drives on IIe are Applied Engineering HD. Controller card in IIe is a super drive card from Reactivemicro.

A question
1) Disks came IBM formatted. Can I format them to Apple stuff on the IIe, 180 and G3? Or are they IBM forever

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engrav <lengrav@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, February 6, 2022 at 9:31:15 AM UTC-8, Kent Dickey wrote:

There are many possible issues.

Kent

Hi. Thanks all. Problem still exists, not solved.

All disks are Imation HD. External drives on IIe are Applied Engineering
HD. Controller card in IIe is a super drive card from Reactivemicro.

A question
1) Disks came IBM formatted. Can I format them to Apple stuff on the
IIe, 180 and G3? Or are they IBM forever

Apple 800K drives are not compatible with HD disks because HD disks’
magnetic coating has a higher coercivity than original 3.5” disks. Because of their higher required write current, anything written by an 800K drive
to an HD disk will either be immediately unreadable or will become
unreadable in a relatively short time.

If you are using a FDHD drive, HD disks work fine, and, because its head is narrow, as Kent noted, you can simply reformat IBM-formatted HD disks as
ProDOS disks.

If you’re using an 800K drive, you’ll need to find non-HD disks, and they can be easily reformatted for ProDOS.

--
-michael - NadaNet 3.1 and AppleCrate II: http://michaeljmahon.com

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Apple 800K drives are not compatible with HD disks because HD disks’ magnetic coating has a higher coercivity than original 3.5” disks. Because of their higher required write current, anything written by an 800K drive
to an HD disk will either be immediately unreadable or will become unreadable in a relatively short time.

If you are using a FDHD drive, HD disks work fine, and, because its head is narrow, as Kent noted, you can simply reformat IBM-formatted HD disks as ProDOS disks.

If you’re using an 800K drive, you’ll need to find non-HD disks, and they
can be easily reformatted for ProDOS.

question here I'm probably repeating y'all but I bought these

https://www.ebay.com/itm/3-5-DISKETTES-PACK-OF-25-PREFORMATED-PRELABELED-2-HD-/173500914209?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0

I have a iigs with a unidisk 3.5. from what I kindof understand this combination just won't work? I really don't want to try to go buy some dsdd disks if there still might be a possibility that my disks I ordered will work. the reason that I don't know
if they work yet is I'm waiting on a serial to USB cable to use with adtpro and transfer some images that way. thanks.

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On Monday, February 7, 2022 at 1:30:11 PM UTC-8, Michael J. Mahon wrote:

@gmail.com> wrote:

All disks are Imation HD. External drives on IIe are Applied Engineering HD. Controller card in IIe is a super drive card from Reactivemicro.

A question
1) Disks came IBM formatted. Can I format them to Apple stuff on the
IIe, 180 and G3? Or are they IBM forever

Apple 800K drives are not compatible with HD disks because HD disks’ magnetic coating has a higher coercivity than original 3.5” disks. Because of their higher required write current, anything written by an 800K drive
to an HD disk will either be immediately unreadable or will become unreadable in a relatively short time.

If you are using a FDHD drive, HD disks work fine, and, because its head is narrow, as Kent noted, you can simply reformat IBM-formatted HD disks as ProDOS disks.

If you’re using an 800K drive, you’ll need to find non-HD disks, and they
can be easily reformatted for ProDOS.

--
-michael - NadaNet 3.1 and AppleCrate II: http://michaeljmahon.com

thank you
disks are Imation HD
drives are Applied Engineering HD
but still something is not working as formatting fails with "bad blocks" and cannot move disks between Powerbook 180 and PowerBook G3 and Apple IIe
have ordered some new Mac formatted disks, will see if that accomplishes anything
is not the card as I swapped that with another
is not the drive as I swapped that with another
I suppose could try another Apple IIe

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In article <472f1038-85d3-40d0-a7c0-3eeafe079ae4n@googlegroups.com>,
engrav <lengrav@gmail.com> wrote:

On Monday, February 7, 2022 at 1:30:11 PM UTC-8, Michael J. Mahon wrote:

@gmail.com> wrote:

All disks are Imation HD. External drives on IIe are Applied Engineering >> > HD. Controller card in IIe is a super drive card from Reactivemicro.

A question
1) Disks came IBM formatted. Can I format them to Apple stuff on the
IIe, 180 and G3? Or are they IBM forever

Apple 800K drives are not compatible with HD disks because HD disks’
magnetic coating has a higher coercivity than original 3.5” disks. Because >> of their higher required write current, anything written by an 800K drive
to an HD disk will either be immediately unreadable or will become
unreadable in a relatively short time.

If you are using a FDHD drive, HD disks work fine, and, because its head is >> narrow, as Kent noted, you can simply reformat IBM-formatted HD disks as
ProDOS disks.

If you’re using an 800K drive, you’ll need to find non-HD disks, and they
can be easily reformatted for ProDOS.

--
-michael - NadaNet 3.1 and AppleCrate II: http://michaeljmahon.com

thank you
disks are Imation HD
drives are Applied Engineering HD
but still something is not working as formatting fails with "bad blocks"
and cannot move disks between Powerbook 180 and PowerBook G3 and Apple
IIe
have ordered some new Mac formatted disks, will see if that accomplishes >anything
is not the card as I swapped that with another
is not the drive as I swapped that with another
I suppose could try another Apple IIe

The AE 3.5" HD drives for the Apple II are extremely rare. Using them may require special software (they are rare, I know almost nothing about them,
have certainly never used one). And you have two?

It's entirely possible both of the AE 3.5" HD drives for the Apple II that
you have do not work, especially if you just purchased them. All 3.5"
drives are fragile, and unknown/untested drives should be considered
broken.

You should work from "known good" equipment, and expand out. If this is all new purchased equipment of unknown quality, then debug can be very
difficult for you. I recommend getting some normal density 3.5" disks, preferrably known good and tested on other equipment, and go from there.

Kent

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thanks again

is not the card as I swapped that with another
is not the drive as I swapped that with another

I bought the two AEHD drives a thousand years ago

Today I did the drill with DD disks, then with HD disks. Same result. Cannot get files from Powerbook G3 to Apple IIe with 3.5" disks.

I might be chasing the wrong rabbit. Could be that even though G3 and IIe both read/write to 3.5" floppies; they don't read/write the same stuff. One speaks floppy3.5A and the other floppy3.5B.

Loren

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Loren,

I have both a IIgs with a 3.5" drive and a Beige PowerMac G3 with the
built-in Superdrive.

It's been a while, but it seems that as long as I formatted the disks on the IIgs that the Beige G3 would recognize and read/write to it.

But, if it's any 'consolation', I have several 3.5" drives on my Apple IIs
that won't read between them, probably because some are in need of
alignment.




Hugh Hood


in article d450aab7-1692-47b4-aee9-7009910c51dcn@googlegroups.com, engrav at lengrav@gmail.com wrote on 2/8/22 11:42 PM:

I might be chasing the wrong rabbit. Could be that even though G3 and IIe both read/write to 3.5" floppies; they don't read/write the same stuff. One speaks floppy3.5A and the other floppy3.5B.

Loren

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Kent Dickey <kegs@provalid.com> wrote:

There are many possible issues. One is that 3.5" drives that are capable
of using 1.44MB have smaller heads. These smaller heads write a smaller track (in terms of width) even when writing to 800KB disks.

3.5" DD and HD drives are both 80-track drives. Head width was an issue
with 5.25" drives, where SD and DD were 35- or 40-track and HD was 80-track. Sharing double-density disks between double- and high-density 5.25" drives could be troublesome.

(On x86 hardware, 5.25" DD disks could be formatted to 720K in a
high-density drive. It wasn't a widespread practice, but when I could get 5.25" DD disks for 10¢ each, they were the cheapest backup media for my BBS back in the day.)

The OP mentioned having a G3 PowerBook. ISTR there being some issues with
the floppy drives Apple was using around that time (the last ones before
they got rid of them altogether) being less reliable with GCR-formatted
disks. I don't recall having too many problems swapping disks between my
IIGS and a beige G3 I used to have, but that might've been a function of
having both machines networked and not needing to use sneakernet to begin
with. :)

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

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engrav wrote:

thanks again

is not the card as I swapped that with another
is not the drive as I swapped that with another

I bought the two AEHD drives a thousand years ago

Today I did the drill with DD disks, then with HD disks. Same result.
Cannot get files from Powerbook G3 to Apple IIe with 3.5" disks.

I might be chasing the wrong rabbit. Could be that even though G3 and IIe

both read/write to 3.5" floppies; they don't read/write the same stuff.
One speaks floppy3.5A and the other floppy3.5B.

Apple File Exchange will allow your Mac to work with ProDOS disks.

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On 2022-02-09 12:42 a.m., engrav wrote:

I bought the two AEHD drives a thousand years ago

To muddy the waters even further, I have an AE HD 3.5 drive that does
not work as a 1.44 MB drive. Apparently it can only do 800 KB and 1.6
MB GCR formats. There was an AE HD+ 3.5 drive that could do 800 KB and
1.6 MB GCR and 720 KB and 1.44 MB MFM formats with the appropriate
controller.

At least, that is my memory of it from long ago.

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scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us writes:

Kent Dickey <kegs@provalid.com> wrote:

There are many possible issues. One is that 3.5" drives that are capable
of using 1.44MB have smaller heads. These smaller heads write a smaller
track (in terms of width) even when writing to 800KB disks.

3.5" DD and HD drives are both 80-track drives. Head width was an issue
with 5.25" drives, where SD and DD were 35- or 40-track and HD was 80-track. Sharing double-density disks between double- and high-density 5.25" drives could be troublesome.

(On x86 hardware, 5.25" DD disks could be formatted to 720K in a
high-density drive. It wasn't a widespread practice, but when I could get 5.25" DD disks for 10¢ each, they were the cheapest backup media for my BBS back in the day.)

The OP mentioned having a G3 PowerBook. ISTR there being some issues with the floppy drives Apple was using around that time (the last ones before
they got rid of them altogether) being less reliable with GCR-formatted disks. I don't recall having too many problems swapping disks between my IIGS and a beige G3 I used to have, but that might've been a function of having both machines networked and not needing to use sneakernet to begin with. :)

Here's an article that may be interesting in understanding the
difference between Apple II and Mac 3.5" drives, although it's really
the difference between the Apple IIgs IWM controller and other machines: https://web.archive.org/web/20180704213457/http://dec8.info/Apple/Apple%20Floppy%20Notes/Mac%20vs.%20IIgs%20sectors.pdf

Summary: the IIgs writes sectors faster on 3.5" drives than any other
Apple machines, including the UniDisk 3.5.

--
--
Jerry jerry+a2 at jpen.ca

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On 2/10/22 17:20, Jeff Blakeney wrote:

On 2022-02-09 12:42 a.m., engrav wrote:

I bought the two AEHD drives a thousand years ago

To muddy the waters even further, I have an AE HD 3.5 drive that does not work
as a 1.44 MB drive.  Apparently it can only do 800 KB and 1.6 MB GCR formats.
There was an AE HD+ 3.5 drive that could do 800 KB and 1.6 MB GCR and 720 KB and 1.44 MB MFM formats with the appropriate controller.

At least, that is my memory of it from long ago.

The AEHD drive series is all over the map. Mine turns out to be a Superdrive clone. It will support 800k GCR and 1.44M MFM when plugged into an Apple Superdrive controller and operates as an 800k drive on a 2gs. The AE GSOS driver intended for the 1.6M GCR mode recognizes the hardware, but the drive won't actually work at either density with it loaded.

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With the driver mine will do 1.6mb when connected to the IIgs disk port but not when connected to a superdrive card

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think I am done working on this
now use these rules for this combo of Powerbook G3 (Wallstreet II), Apple IIe (1982), two AE drives labelled AEHD, AE controller card, reactivemicro controller card

1) G3 and Sys 9.2 have trouble with ProDOS so avoid the twosome
2) AE controller card does 800k; not 1.4mb so stop trying to make it do 1.4
3) AE drive labelled AEHD does 800k and 1.4mb when used with the reactivemicro controller card so use the reactivemicro card and park the AE card

with these rules things go as expected

addendum; things for fun of it
0) appears AE had 3 cards; AE, AEHD and AEHD+; I have AEHD
1) I guess Sys 9.2 was known to have ProDOS problems but Apple moved to OS X and never fixed 'em
2) wonder why AE never made a controller card for AEHD drive that does 1.4? Or is there a 1.4 AE controller card for AEHD drive and I missed it? Or did they just expect buyers to use the Apple Card?
3) But then I see AE sold AEHD in 1990 but Apple Super Card came out in 1991 so how could early adopters use the Apple Card?

Loren

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I've never seen the AE 3.5" controller. Can you post a picture of it somewhere please?

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On Sunday, February 27, 2022 at 10:06:12 AM UTC-8, waynej...@gmail.com wrote:

I've never seen the AE 3.5" controller. Can you post a picture of it somewhere please?

how do I attach an image to this thread?

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On Monday, February 28, 2022 at 10:56:17 AM UTC-8, engrav wrote:

On Sunday, February 27, 2022 at 10:06:12 AM UTC-8, waynej...@gmail.com wrote:

I've never seen the AE 3.5" controller. Can you post a picture of it somewhere please?

how do I attach an image to this thread?

I sent off list to Wayne

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engrav <lengrav@gmail.com> wrote:

how do I attach an image to this thread?

Upload to cloud drive (Flickr, google, one drive, Dropbox) and share the
link.

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On 2022-03-01 11:54:00 +0000, Andrew Roughan said:

engrav <lengrav@gmail.com> wrote:

how do I attach an image to this thread?

Upload to cloud drive (Flickr, google, one drive, Dropbox) and share the link.

Imgur.com and similar image hosting websites are easier and many don't
need an account / registration.

Wherever you host the image, remember to first crop or black out any
private information you don't want publicly seen.

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Loren Engrav was kind enough to send me a pic of his card.
I've uploaded it to my google drive https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KXKoewg84ivY0fGUPuupR6Xgc0atkvee/view?usp=sharing

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On 3/2/22 13:19, waynej...@gmail.com wrote:

Loren Engrav was kind enough to send me a pic of his card.
I've uploaded it to my google drive https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KXKoewg84ivY0fGUPuupR6Xgc0atkvee/view?usp=sharing

A Central Point UDC with custom AE firmware. Would love to get a copy of the EPROM contents.

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