New user here. Did some homework on Apple slots/drives and I know drive booting is complicated.
I have a IIc with 3.5" UniDisk. ROM is "3" and I successfully booted off the 3.5" media (Appleworks). I only have this one bootable floppy, and zero 5.25 floppies. To remedy, I bought the Floppy Emu kit, with IIc drive switcher. :-)
My #1 Goal is to boot off 5.25 disk images. I'm not able to get this to work in any combination I've tried.
- I can however (1) boot off the "hard disk image", so the hardware is OK.
- I can also boot off "UniDisk Mode" using (2) the standard straight-thru DB19 connector, or (3) the "IIc switcher" when it is in straight-thru mode (which indicates I wired the IIc switcher correctlty)
My Tests to boot off 5.25 Disk Images:
My understanding is this requires "IIc switcher", in "X" mode.
- Plugging Floppy Emu (5.25 mode) directly to the IIc switcher and into the back of the IIc port, select a 5.25"image", and power on... I get the "Apple //c" screen but no other text. Doesn't seem like the OS tried the Emu, and which remains on Track 0.
- Images tried: Archon, Blazing Paddles, Border Zone (both variants), Castle Wolfenstein, Choplifter, Frogger... also The Print Shop, and a few random utility images
It looks like my //c won't even "try" booting an external 5.25 image, which I thought the //c Switcher was meant to resolve?
The one thing I haven't tried is connecting the Floppy Emu directly to the ribbon cable port inside the case. However I understood the //c switcher was created to avoid that scenario right?
Any suggestions?
I presume you installed the internal "tap" device between the motherboard and internal floppy drive, and connected its wiring pigtail to the external floppy switcher board?
If your "#1 Goal is to boot off 5.25 disk images," can you not boot off the //c internal drive?
Yes, correct. The IIc switcher is two parts: I installed the internal piece, the pigtail. I confirmed that is wired correct with a couple of Boot tests off the UniDisk (it can still boot when directy plugged into the back, and it can boot when plugged into the Floppy Emu's regular (non-switching) DB-19 dongle.
Could you rephrase this? The IIc's internal drive is a physical 5.25" floppy, and I do not have (or want) floppies.
Has anyone here, with a IIc and ROM 3, used Floppy Emu to boot a 5.25 image?
If so which image and where did you get it?
This would really help because I suspect there's more I can do in terms of process-of-elimination.
I highly doubt there is anything special about ROM3 that prevents the Floppy Emu from working. As long as everything is connected properly, it just sees it as any other Disk ][ drive. If the Apple isn't even saying "Check Disk Drive" at the bottom of the screen, then I believe it is not properly seeing the "drive" at all. I can replicate the behavior by unplugging the FE from my ROM 255 //c and having the switcher set to the cross over position. I do not get the "Check Disk Drive" message, and it just hangs saying Apple // at the top. If it can detect the drive but no disk, then it will present the "Check Disk Drive" message.
I know you can argue by process of your other tests you eliminated the switcher as being some kind of issue. But you could take the switcher out, disconnect/remove the internal drive, and plug the FE directly into the motherboard and test that way. In fact, if your goal is to never use own a 5 1/4 floppy, then why even bother with the switcher?
Also, make sure the connectors are fully seated, especially if you have the drive knocker. I have a IIgs as well, so I move my FE between it and the //c frequently. On more than one occasion it appears to power on but not work, and in every case it was because of of the connectors somehow worked its way out just enough on the drive knocker board from being frequently moved. And not to mention, you can always reach out to Steve the FE creator and run the situation past him. Hes a good guy and responds pretty quickly to emails.
And to note, most of the Asimov images work fine. But you will inevitably run across some that don't. Usually the Apple will drop to monitor though shortly after power on with those images. The bulk of them all work fine though.
OK, this is a fair point to press. I actually don't know what my true use case is since I'm new, and I'm assuming I need 5.25 images because that's the format so many games seem to be packaged in (which could also mean: I don't know where the cracked, SmartPort-friendly stuff is).
I've let the occasional (rare) need for 3.5 UniDisk complicate the issue. :-)
I'll bypass either/both dongles, plug the ribbon inside, and establish whether "internal 5.25 images" work. Hopefully SmartPort does also, but if not I'll have to leave the case loose until I resolve how to use this most of the time.
Thanks for the explanations about what the disk error stages signify in terms of init progress.
If you upgrade to the 4X ROM, you can boot from external devices:
https://github.com/mgcaret/rom4x
I did this, and I updated my //c+ to the 5X.
As for good cracs, I suggest the 4AM Collection on Archive.org:
https://archive.org/details/apple_ii_library_4am
These are alll clean cracks that will work with a simple CII+ bit copy.
As for 'SmartPort' devices... What devices do you own that are compatible with the //c LIRON controller? If you actually own an original 3.5 UniDisk (not the same as the later 800K drive for the //gs, and never, ever plug one of those into a //c!!!), there are hacked versions of DOS 3.3 that support using that drive for 400K media--the maxium that DOS 3.3 can access, so you can compile a games compilation on volumes formatted and prepared for that haced DOS.
Any larger volume requires ProDOS (or PASCAL). You can attempt to transfer *B files to ProDOS volumes, but PASCAL volumes can only run USCD PASCAL software.