Urg - Jan 1 is not a great day to start the challenge ;-) Having said that, I didnt have a big night - although being old(er) makes up for it - drink half as much to get twice the hang over... Anyway, got back from the beach a couple of hours ago and decided to avoid the Sun for a little bit and start my challenge.
So the first thing to do was install the software and create a prodos partition for my IIe card. To be honest, this work was all done prior to the challenge (a few months ago) as when I first got the card I did a bit of investigation into what I needed on the LC. So, I already had a 20MB prodos partition and the latest version of software for the card all installed. This was all done BTW with the help of my linintosh server as I have a PDS ethernet card in the LC which is very handy for transferring files. That however was as far as I got - the card never got installed and was put into the cupboard of forgotten things.
Fast forward to the present and the installation of the IIe card into the LC turned out to be a bit of an anti-climax. I was a bit nervous given some of the things I'd seen on the web about needing to remove the mobo to install the card. As it turns out, the physical install of my card was a snap (happily for me), the PDS ethernet card popped out and the IIe card popped straight in (I needed to angle it a bit to get it through the opening in the rear of the case, but it didnt seem to catch on anything and didnt require any undue pressure to seat in the PDS slot.
With the card physically installed, I booted up the LC - which started up fine. I then tentatively double clicked on the "IIe Startup" application on the Mac - low and behold my IIe booted up - A very moving moment
So again, an anti-climax - so far this is just too easy - its amazing for technology this old that it for one still works, and for another is so user friendly! On the other hand, I guess thats Apple for you.
So the next little while was spent playing around with the card - it automatically configures up the most usable hardware stuff for you, like a clock card, mouse card, RAM card, smart port etc - although I did have to consult the manual about how to switch back to the LC (ctrl-openapple-esc) - I kept trying "ctrl-enter" I have to say I really like this card - back in the day this would have been an excellent way of moving from the Apple II to the more modern Mac platform - in my opinion Apple did a good job enabling you to use the local floppy drive and hard drive as native devices whilst being able to attach 5.25 drives and a joystick as well! I've used a few emulators on the PC and I have to say that other than the lack of features around using disk images - for me this is better, perhaps there is a call for a modern Apple II on a card that works with the latest PCI based machines - but I guess thats a task for another retro challenge. For now however, I've hooked up my 5.25 drive, my old IIe joystick and am enjoying (and will continue to for a while) an authentic(ish) session with some of my old favorites - Castle Wolfenstein, Karateka, Bruce Lee etc... Even if my challenge goes no further, this has been worth the effort
So the first thing to do was install the software and create a prodos partition for my IIe card. To be honest, this work was all done prior to the challenge (a few months ago) as when I first got the card I did a bit of investigation into what I needed on the LC. So, I already had a 20MB prodos partition and the latest version of software for the card all installed. This was all done BTW with the help of my linintosh server as I have a PDS ethernet card in the LC which is very handy for transferring files. That however was as far as I got - the card never got installed and was put into the cupboard of forgotten things.
Fast forward to the present and the installation of the IIe card into the LC turned out to be a bit of an anti-climax. I was a bit nervous given some of the things I'd seen on the web about needing to remove the mobo to install the card. As it turns out, the physical install of my card was a snap (happily for me), the PDS ethernet card popped out and the IIe card popped straight in (I needed to angle it a bit to get it through the opening in the rear of the case, but it didnt seem to catch on anything and didnt require any undue pressure to seat in the PDS slot.
With the card physically installed, I booted up the LC - which started up fine. I then tentatively double clicked on the "IIe Startup" application on the Mac - low and behold my IIe booted up - A very moving moment
So again, an anti-climax - so far this is just too easy - its amazing for technology this old that it for one still works, and for another is so user friendly! On the other hand, I guess thats Apple for you.
So the next little while was spent playing around with the card - it automatically configures up the most usable hardware stuff for you, like a clock card, mouse card, RAM card, smart port etc - although I did have to consult the manual about how to switch back to the LC (ctrl-openapple-esc) - I kept trying "ctrl-enter"
I have to say I really like this card - back in the day this would have been an excellent way of moving from the Apple II to the more modern Mac platform - in my opinion Apple did a good job enabling you to use the local floppy drive and hard drive as native devices whilst being able to attach 5.25 drives and a joystick as well! I've used a few emulators on the PC and I have to say that other than the lack of features around using disk images - for me this is better, perhaps there is a call for a modern Apple II on a card that works with the latest PCI based machines - but I guess thats a task for another retro challenge. For now however, I've hooked up my 5.25 drive, my old IIe joystick and am enjoying (and will continue to for a while) an authentic(ish) session with some of my old favorites - Castle Wolfenstein, Karateka, Bruce Lee etc... Even if my challenge goes no further, this has been worth the effort