Apple II Applications Csa2 FAQs-on-Ground file: CSA2APPLICS.TXT rev010 The Csa2 (comp.sys.apple2) usenet newsgroup Frequently Asked Questions files are compiled by the Ground Apple II site, 1997, 1998. ftp://ground.ecn.uiowa.edu/2/apple2/Faqs http://ground.ecn.uiowa.edu/2/apple2/Faqs for on-line perusing via Netscape, etc. ... http://www.grin.net/~cturley/A2.FAQs.and.INFO/CSA2.FAQs/ ftp://apple.cabi.net/pub/applegs/FAQs.and.INFO/A2.Csa2.FAQs/ The Csa2 FAQs may be freely distributed. Note: To correctly view tables and diagrams on a super-res display, use a mono-spaced Font such as CoPilot or PCMononspaced. ____________________________ 001- What Operating System environments does the GS support? 002- What GS programs are there for viewing/converting graphics? 003- What's up with IIgs emulation on the Mac? 004- What is a good file copier program for the IIgs? 005- Where can I find PEEKs & POKEs and monitor routine info? 006- Where/how can I get new Levels for Wolfenstein-3D/gs? 007- Can I do Reverse Speech on my IIgs? 008- Is it possible to run PaintWorks from hard disk? 009- How can I read a single ProDOS block into memory under BASIC? 010- Is there an Apple II program for ham radio CW code practice? 011- Can my GS do file sharing with a Mac's hard drive? 012- How can I use a Mac as a network server with my GS? 013- How can I set up an Appletalk network for 30 IIgs's 014- How can I capture a GS super-res screen to disk? 015- What programming languages are available for the Apple ][? 016- What's the difference between an Apple ][, a II, and a //? 017- How do I save a BASIC program in ASCII text form? 018- Where and how do I get System 6.0.1 from an ftp site? 019- Is a graphical user interface (GUI) available for 8-bit A2's? 020- Is there a manual somewhere on creating BASIC shape tables? 021- How can I get a Postscript file from a GS document? From: Rubywand 001- What Operating System environments does the GS support? The GS can support several. Some of the more popular OS environments include ... DOS 3.3- usually Beagle's Prontodos or some other speeded version of the original DOS 3.3. This is the 5.25" diskette-based disk operating system used for years on earlier Apple II's. It's commands are designed for use from BASIC programs or from the keyboard. Many old Apple II games and other wares are on 5.25" diskettes which boot DOS 3.3. ProDOS 8- e.g. ProDOS v2.0.3. This is a disk operating system which supports a variety of devices (e.g. 3.5" drives, hard drives, etc.) and allows sub-directories. Commands are very similar to DOS 3.3 and are designed for use in BASIC programs or from the keyboard. BASIC and 'system' programs can also utilize direct CALLs to well-defined ProDOS Machine Language Interface routines. Apple Pascal- This is an early 1980's implementation of USCD Pascal which can run on 40-column and 80-column Apple II's. GS/OS- Originally called "ProDOS 16", today's installed GS/OS will usually be System 5.04 or System 6.0.1. System 5.04 is appropriate for 1MB or smaller non-hard disk GS's. System 6.0.1 is recommended for larger memory GS's with a hard disk. GS/OS is the desktop, Windows-like environment utilizing super-res displays. Both ProDOS 8 programs and 'GS Applications' (i.e. wares that need GS/OS to run) can be started from the desktop. The program which runs the desktop is usually called the "Finder". ____________________________ From: Dan DeMaggio and Rubywand 002- What GS programs are there for viewing/converting graphics? The Graphics Exchange converts between many formats of graphics. 816 Paint's File Utilities work well for converting hires or double-hires pics to GS super-res. Prizm v1.0 Converts .GIFs, Amiga IFFs, Raw Files, and some other types to Greyscale (very fast), 16 colors, 256 colors, and 3200 colors! SuperConvert (now at version 4) loads all GS formats, plus GIFS and other non-GS specific formats and saves in all GS formats including Finder Icon files. It has more dithering options than most of the other programs, but you may have to play with it to find the best one. Platinum Paint is a commercial program that can import all GS formats plus MacPaint. It can only save in SHR and Apple Preferred. Version 2.0 can make Animations too! ShowPic 6 is a shareware NDA that can display most GS formats. You can also save the resulting graphic as a IIgs SHR painting. SuperPac is a commercial program which can create/display SuperPac format compressed pics and pic pieces Dream Grafix supports all 3200 color picture types and also 16 color and 256 color pictures. This is a very impressive commercial paint program. Convert 3200 will handle several popular PC and Mac formats in up to 256 colors. Jpeg.Viewer can be used to view JPEG images in black & white. ____________________________ From: Rubywand 003- What's up with IIgs emulation on the Mac? At present, there are three major GS-on-Mac emulators. Most of the info presented below comes from ... http://www.emulation.net/apple2/index.html Bernie ][ The Rescue >> Bernie ][ The Rescue (formerly Fast Eddie) is the most promising source of Apple IIgs emulation. Bernie ][ The Rescue is a third-party product delivering completely accurate IIgs emulation via a low-level emulator implementation ("emulating metal"). It's fast, stable and runs almost every Apple IIgs software program effortlessly. It's also very useful as an Apple II emulator, since the IIgs was backwards compatible with the older Apple II series. Bernie ][ the Rescue is also the only IIgs emulator which can run Wolfenstein 3D .... << ref. Andre Horstmann and Henrik Gudat, authors of Bernie ][ The Rescue http://www.magnet.ch/emutech/Bernie/index.html XGS-Mac >> XGS is a port of a Unix-based Apple IIgs emulator, which is free and in the public domain. It includes tools for conversion of DSK and DiskCopy disk images, and should work well with most Apple IIgs applications. XGS has definitely improved from its first incarnation. Ensoniq support works suprisingly well in a number of titles, and the disk image conversion process has been made much easier. The GS Finder boots up very well under XGS, although not quite as quickly as Bernie (which has been tuned for PowerPC, unlike XGS, a more portable application). << ref. Joshua M. Thompson, author of XGS and Michael Bytnar, who ported XGS to Macintosh. http://www.jurai.org/~funaho/emulators/XGS/ http://classicgaming.com/xgsdos/ http://www.cen.uiuc.edu/~m-bytnar/XGS-Mac/ GUS >> Gus is an Apple IIgs emulator for Power Macintoshes. It is an Apple project that many feel is a great Apple IIgs emulation package. Currently, Apple is giving away copies of Gus to schools who will sign a non-disclosure agreement. << http://www.apple.com/ (good luck!) Since Bernie appears to be the current GS-on-Mac front-runner, here is some additional information from the F.E.Systems EmuTech web site: >> Bernie is the result of a major engineering effort. Optimized for Power Macintosh. computers, Bernie combines compatibility and speed in an easy-to-use package. This unique software-only emulator coexists with MacOS. and runs virtually any Apple II and 16-bit Apple IIGS software. In both the MacOS. and Apple II world, Bernie is a reliable tool that gets your job done - on the Mac but still using your favorite software: AppleWorks. Classic, AppleWorks. GS, GraphicWriter as well as hundreds of other applications, games and tools. .... Bernie's core module is a speedy 65816 emulator running at speeds far beyond that of a stock Apple IIgs (approx. 6 Mhz on 601/66Mhz machines, well beyond 25Mhz on high-end Macs). Bernie is distributed as shareware. For a fee of $25, you can register your copy and acquire a license for forthcoming versions 1.x for the Macintosh. << ____________________________ From: Mitchell Spector 004- I'd like to have a program for my //gs that can perhaps do more reliable file copies than Finder does, especially in the case of a damaged floppy. Any suggestions? I would recommend either ZZCopy or Photonix II, both are freeware and do a very quick and reliable job at duplicating 3.5 floppies (the former even works with 400K MFS and 800K HFS Macintosh disks). Either of the two programs work around damaged sectors on disks. ____________________________ From: kburtch@pts.mot.com and David Empson 005- I'd like to do some 'serious' Apple II programming. Where can I find a information about soft switches (i.e. "PEEKs & POKEs"), monitor routines, and standard names used for these? Most of the names (assembler "equate" names) are listed in pairs, and the comment on the first one often represents what the second actually does, but refers to with what function the softswitch pair are associated. SOFTSWITCHES KEYBOARD = $C000 ;keyboard data (latched) (Read) Bit 7 is set to indicate a keypress is waiting, with the ASCII code in bits 6-0. CLR80STORE = $C000 ;use 80-column memory mapping (Write) SET80STORE = $C001 ; (WR-only) CLRAUXRD = $C002 ;read from auxilliary 48K (WR-only) SETAUXRD = $C003 ; (WR-only) CLRAUXWR = $C004 ;write to auxilliary 48K (WR-only) SETAUXWR = $C005 ; (WR-only) CLRCXROM = $C006 ;use external slot ROM (WR-only) SETCXROM = $C007 ; (WR-only) CLRAUXZP = $C008 ;use aux ZP, stack, & LC (WR-only) SETAUXZP = $C009 ; (WR-only) CLRC3ROM = $C00A ;use external slot C3 ROM (WR-only) SETC3ROM = $C00B ; (WR-only) CLR80VID = $C00C ;use 80-column display mode (WR-only) SET80VID = $C00D ; (WR-only) CLRALTCH = $C00E ;use alt character set ROM (WR-only) SETALTCH = $C00F ; (WR-only) STROBE = $C010 ;clear bit 7 of keyboard data ($C000) If read, it also provides an "any key down" flag in bit 7, with the keycode in the remaining bits. (These features only apply to the IIe and later machines.) Bit seven of these "RD..." locations is 1 if the condition is true RDLCBNK2 = $C011 ;reading from LC bank $Dx 2 RDLCRAM = $C012 ;reading from LC RAM RDRAMRD = $C013 ;reading from auxilliary 48K RDRAMWR = $C014 ;writing to auxilliary 48K RDCXROM = $C015 ;using external slot ROM RDAUXZP = $C016 ;using auxilliary ZP, stack, & LC RDC3ROM = $C017 ;using external slot C3 ROM RD80COL = $C018 ;using 80-column memory mapping RDVBLBAR = $C019 ;not VBL (VBL signal low) RDTEXT = $C01A ;using text mode RDMIXED = $C01B ;using mixed mode RDPAGE2 = $C01C ;using text/graphics page2 RDHIRES = $C01D ;using Hi-res graphics mode RDALTCH = $C01E ;using alternate character set ROM RD80VID = $C01F ;using 80-column display mode TAPEOUT = $C020 ;toggle the cassette output. SPEAKER = $C030 ;toggle speaker diaphragm STROBE = $C040 ;generate .5 uS low pulse @ Game pin 5 If read, you get one half-microsecond low pulse on the Game I/O STROBE pin; if write, you get two pulses. (IIe and ][+ only, not available on the IIgs). CLRTEXT = $C050 ;display graphics SETTEXT = $C051 ;display text CLRMIXED = $C052 ;enable full graphics SETMIXED = $C053 ;enable graphics/text mixed mode PAGE1 = $C054 ;select text/graphics page1 PAGE2 = $C055 ;select text/graphics page2 See IIe, IIc, IIgs manual for details on how these switches affect 80-col bank selection. CLRHIRES = $C056 ;select Lo-res SETHIRES = $C057 ;select Hi-res SETAN0 = $C058 ;Set annunciator-0 output to 0 CLRAN0 = $C059 ;Set annunciator-0 output to 1 SETAN1 = $C05A ;Set annunciator-1 output to 0 CLRAN1 = $C05B ;Set annunciator-1 output to 1 SETAN2 = $C05C ;Set annunciator-2 output to 0 CLRAN2 = $C05D ;Set annunciator-2 output to 1 SETAN3 = $C05E ;Set annunciator-3 output to 0 CLRAN3 = $C05F ;Set annunciator-3 output to 1 Note: "0" is near 0V, "1" is near 5V. SETDHIRES = $C05E ;if IOUDIS Set, turn on double-hires CLRDHIRES = $C05F ;if IOUDIS Set, turn off double-hires TAPEIN = $C060 ;bit 7 = data from cassette (read) OPNAPPLE = $C061 ;open apple (command) key data (read) CLSAPPLE = $C062 ;closed apple (option) key data (read) These are actually the first two game switch inputs (SW0 and SW1), which are borrowed by the Open Apple and Closed Apple keys. Bit 7 is set in these locations if the game switch or corresponding key is pressed. SW2 = $C063 ;game input SW2 (read) This input has an option to be connected to the shift key on the keyboard. (See info on the 'shift key mod'.) PADDLE0 = $C064 ;bit 7 = status of pdl-0 timer (read) PADDLE1 = $C065 ;bit 7 = status of pdl-1 timer (read) PADDLE2 = $C066 ;bit 7 = status of pdl-2 timer (read) PADDLE3 = $C067 ;bit 7 = status of pdl-3 timer (read) PDLTRIG = $C070 ;trigger paddles Read this to start paddle countdown, then time the period until $C064-$C067 bit 7 becomes set to determine the paddle position. This takes up to three milliseconds if the paddle is at its maximum extreme (reading of 255 via the standard firmware routine). SETIOUDIS = $C07E ;enable DHIRES & disable $C058-5F (W) CLRIOUDIS = $C07E ;disable DHIRES & enable $C058-5F (W) For WR-enable LC RAM, the softswitch REQUIRES two successive reads $C080 ;RD LC RAM bank2, WR-protect LC RAM ROMIN = $C081 ;RD ROM, WR-enable LC RAM $C082 ;RD ROM, WR-protect LC RAM LCBANK2 = $C083 ;RD LC RAM bank2, WR-enable LC RAM $C088 ;RD LC RAM bank1, WR-protect LC RAM $C089 ;RD ROM, WR-enable LC RAM $C08A ;RD ROM, WR-protect LC RAM LCBANK1 = $C08B ;RD LC RAM bank1, WR-enable LC RAM $C084-$C087 are echoes of $C080-$C083 $C08C-$C08F are echoes of $C088-$C08B Bank 1 and Bank 2 here are the 4K banks at $D000-$DFFF. The remaining area from $E000-$FFFF is the same for both sets of switches. CLRC8ROM = $CFFF ;disable Slot card C8 ROM Reading any location from $Cn00-$CnFF (where n is the Slot) will enable the $C800-$CFFF area for that card, if the card supports this feature. Reading $CFFF disables this area for all cards. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Example: To enable double Hi-res graphics, the following code will accomplish this: STA SETHIRES STA SETAN3 STA CLRMIXED STA CLRTEXT JSR $C300 ---------------------------- From: Rubywand You can find listings of Apple II soft switches and popular monitor routines in a manual for your computer-- e.g. the Apple II Reference Manual (for II and II+), the IIe Technical Reference Manual, the Apple IIgs Firmware Reference Manual, etc.. An excellent guide to many PEEKs & POKEs and monitor routines is the famous "Peeks, Pokes, and Pointers" poster from Beagle Bros (early 1980's). A fairly exhaustive guide to important memory locations in the Apple II is What's Where in the Apple II: An Atlas to the Apple Computer by William Luebbert (1981). With very few exceptions, soft switches, monitor routines, and important vectors have remained stable since early Apple II models. So, although an old chart or listing may be missing some which are available on a newer Apple II, the ones shown will almost always work. ____________________________ From: Dan Masterson 006- Where/how can I get new Levels for Wolfenstein-3D/gs? You can find a whole bunch of levels at Sheppy's site. They are Mac levels that you'll have to run through the converter, but they are in Apple II friendly ShrinkIt format rather than Stuffit. --------------------------- From: Rubywand A good place to look for the new Mac-to-GS converter utility is ftp://ftp.sheppyware.net/pub/apple_iigs/ . The new converter utility is shareware named WolfCvt101.bxy. The same folder contains a Wolf scenarios folder. It has a few ready-to-play Levels. ____________________________ From: Rubywand 007- Can I do Reverse Speech on my IIgs? Yes. Sound Studio and Sound Shop are two utilities which allow loading and reversing sound samples. (ref. David John Oates; http://www.reversespeech.com/) ----------------------------- 008- Is it possible to run PaintWorks from hard disk? Will it load files from an HFS partition? The Kzin Warrior published a block edit patch version in Computist #73 which lets you do this, at least on a ROM-01 GS. Using ProSel's Zap utility (also called "Block Warden") you search for $C9 08 00 D0 CE on the PaintWorks Gold diskette or a copy. (I found these bytes in Block $3D5 starting at byte $1DF.) Change the 08 to 7F and save the change. Copy Paintworks.Gold and the PaintTools folder (with its contents) to a folder on your hard disk. The Patch allows you to to start PWG under System 6 and use most PWG features. However, some Palette selection options will bomb the program. A few tests showed PWG will load files from an HFS partition. ---------------------------- 009- How can I read a single ProDOS block into memory using Applesoft BASIC? After booting ProDOS, you can do a CALL-151 to enter the monitor and type in ... 300: 4C 09 03 03 60 00 20 00 00 20 00 BF 80 03 03 85 FF 60 Do a CTRL-C to get back to the Applesoft prompt and enter ... BSAVE PROZAP.BIN,A$300,L$20 The routine does a ProDOS Machine Language Interface CALL which reads the block into $2000-$21FF. It saves the Error# in $FF. 300: 4C 09 03 start 303: 03 3 parms in this parms block 304: 60 unit # DSSS0000 Drv 1 (D=0) Slot 6 (SSS=110) 305: 00 20 buffer start 307: 00 00 block # Low, High ex: block 256 is 307: 00 01 309: 20 00 BF JSR to do MLI command 30C: 80 command (80 for READ BLOCK; 81 for WRITE BLOCK) 30D: 03 03 loc of parms block 30F: 85 FF save error # (00= no error) 311: 60 exit A BASIC program could use the routine by POKE-ing the block # into $307,$308 (775 and 776 in decimal) and doing a CALL768. The MLI command code is POKEd into $30C (780). If a PEEK at address $FF (255) gives a result of zero, there is no error. 100 LOMEM: 8704 105 REM Sets start of var space above $2000-$21FF buffer 110 TEXT: HOME: PRINT CHR$(4)"BLOAD PROZAP.BIN" 115 B= 2 120 REM Sets block to read/write (block 2) 125 C= 128 130 REM Sets MLI READ command ($80); MLI WRITE is 129 ($81) 135 BH= INT(B/256): BL= INT (B-256*BH) 140 POKE 775,BL: POKE 776,BH 145 REM POKEs block to read/write 150 POKE 780, C 155 REM POKEs MLI command 160 CALL 768 165 REM Does the block read/write 170 PRINT "BLOCK ";B 175 E= PEEK(255) 180 REM E= error number 185 IF E<1 THEN 195 190 PRINT "ERROR ";E;"!";CHR$(7) 195 END After running the program for a BLOCK READ, the block contents should be at $2000-21FF. ____________________________ From: Joseph M Barbey 010- Is there an Apple II program for amatuer radio CW code practice? I have a such a program at home. It's called QSO Kid. It requires a IIgs, and from what little I've used it, it seems like a really good program. ____________________________ From: Gabriel Morales 011- Can I can use a Mac's hard drive with AppleTalk to do File Sharing just like it was a drive directly connected to the GS? You can. Be aware however that some software may not like to be used over an AppleTalk system. This is more likely to be an issue for ProDOS-8 programs. The main problem under ProDOS-8 is with programs that insist on referring to devices by unit number (or slot and drive). Network volumes do not have a unit number. Another issue is with filenames. GS/OS programs which assume ProDOS naming conventions will have problems with AppleShare or HFS volumes. ProDOS-8 programs have more problems: unless the file server hard drive or shared folder (and all relevant subfolders and files) are named using ProDOS-8 naming restrictions, then the files in question cannot be accessed by ProDOS-8 programs on an Apple II client. A third issue (with both GS/OS and ProDOS-8) is with programs that bypass the file system calls and try to do block-level access to the volume. This is not permitted for file server volumes. (Examples: Copy II+, many functions in Prosel.) One caveat: transmission is slow. Assuming an otherwise unused network, you get about the speed of a 3.5" floppy. ____________________________ From: O Aaland 012- How can I use a Mac as a network server with my GS? In order to use the Mac as a server with a useable system folder you will have to have AppleShare version 3 running on the Mac. It sounds like you are wanting to use a local boot disk on the GS and then log on to the Mac to use tha Mac hard drive. This will work with file sharing active on the Mac. The disk you need to make for the GS is a Network: Local Startup and not a Network: Server Startup disk. When booting from this disk you will be able to log on to the Mac and will be left in the program launcher. There is not enough room on a 800k disk for the finder along with the network files. I believe that you will also need to add the HSF FST to your statup boot disk also because it is not put there in the default install. Check in the drivers folder to be sure. On the Mac set up a folder for the GS to use and turn on file sharing. On the GS, from the launcher get into the finder on your system disk and then copy the finder to the new folder on the Mac. Now you should be able to reboot the GS and after logging on the Mac, from the launcher, run the finder on the Mac hard drive. You will now return to the Mac hard drive when you quit your GS applications. You can put both applications and data files on the Mac and run them from there just like it was a drive attached to the GS. The speed in about the same as running from a 3 1/2 floppy, maybe a little faster. You are limited in what you can put in your system because of the 800k disk but having the finder on the Mac really helps. If you can find a copy of AppleShare version 3 then you can boot directly from the Mac without any disk on the GS and the system size can be whatever the memory in the GS can handle. ____________________________ From: David Empson 013- How can I set up an Appletalk network for 30 IIgs's using a donated LCII as a server? So far, I can get just 10 IIgs's connected. I assume you are using System 7.x File Sharing on the server? If so, you've just discovered one of its inherent limits. Changing computers will make no difference. To be able to have more than ten clients, you will have to run the full AppleShare server software. If you use AppleShare version 3.0, the IIgses can even boot over the network and won't require a local boot disk. If you use AppleShare 4.0 or later, you lose the network boot capability, but in theory the Apple IIgses should still be able to use the server (I've never used anything later than 3.0). You probably cannot run AppleShare 2.x on an LC III, because it only runs under Mac System 6.x. Apart from the number of users, the full AppleShare server adds many useful features, such as administration tools, potentially acting as a print server, and faster performance. It ties up more resources on the machine than File Sharing. AppleShare is commercial, but you might be able to get hold of a cheap copy of version 3 from somewhere. As far as the multiple server option goes: that should work fine. If you have no need to communicate over the network between the servers, it would be a good idea to break the network up into separate segments (server and its block of clients). This will reduce confusion for the users (seeing more than one server), and will improve network performance. In particular, note that LocalTalk is only intended to support a maximum of 32 devices per network segment. If you want 30ish or more computers on the same network, you should be using a router (which physically separates the network segments). ____________________________ From: Rubywand 014- How can I capture a GS super-res screen to disk? For super-res game screens and many other graphics displays an ancient Classic Desk Accessory (CDA) known as "EA Screen Saver", "SDUMP.EA", etc. works well. The CDA (named "ScrnCapEA.CDA") and a Text info file have been uploaded to popular Apple II ftp sites. Look for a .SHK file named "ScrnCap.SHK" or "ScrnCapEA.CDA.shk". ScrnCapEA.CDA lets you capture game, etc. 320 or 640 mode graphic screens as standard type $C1 GS unpacked Screen files which can be loaded by Platinum Paint and many other GS utilities. To use the CDA to capture a screen, you must be able to access the Desk Accessories menu via the usual OpenApple-Control-Escape keypress. Supertimer mentioned Clipit. This is a very nice capture New Desk Accessory (NDA) which lets you grab a part or all of many super-res displays, including desktop displays. The grabbed display is saved to the Clipboard. You can get the pic from the Clipboard onto a Platinum Paint work screen by going to Platinum Paint and doing a Paste. A limitation of Clipit and similar NDA's is that you must be able to get to the 'Apple' menu or some NDA activation list or, if there is one, activate a 'Hot Key'. Also, these NDA's generally limit your grab to the Clipboard. Usually, this means you end up with just one pic per game, etc. session. Games and other programs which shut off access to interrupts will, often, be a problem. You will usually not be able to get to the Desk Accessories menu and any screen capture 'Hot Key' keypresses will be ignored. Usually, the 'Apple Menu' is not available, so screen capture NDA's you use via the menu will not be available, either. Sometimes, these programs include a built-in screen save feature; otherwise, capturing a screen will take special measures. One way to capture most otherwise un-grabbable super-res screens is via a ProDOS-8 super-res utility which can save the super-res screen. The utility must be one which does not, itself, change the super-res screen upon startup (e.g. Nibble's SuperPac or a save/disp program you write yourself). Make sure your Startup Slot is set to Slot 5. Start the game, etc. as usual. At some point insert a bootable ProDOS-8 diskette with the super-res disp/save utility into Slot 5, Drive 1. When you see the display you want to grab (and you are sure no Disk writes are occuring) do an OpenApple-CTRL-Reset boot, start the disp/save program and save the screen. Obviously, a disadvantage of this approach is that you get kicked out of whatever game, etc. you are running at the time of the boot. ---------------------------- From: TWS You can get the ScreenPrint NDA, and save the screen to a file, or print it out. ---------------------------- From: Mitchell Spector In addition to several CDA's and NDA's, you might want to try Ninjaforce's PicRipper program (useful for games and demos that lock out interrupts, rendering any desk accessories useless). It can grab Super-Hi-Res images still in memory and save them to disk. It is available at: http://www.ninjaforce.home.ml.org . ---------------------------- From: Boris Guenter Try the SHR Capture CDA which allows you to enter the Control Panel and save as many screen pictures as you want. For programs which disable the Control Panel, you will need PicRipper2 or Antic's PicSaver, however. Most of the screen capture programs mentioned here can be downloaded from Uni-kl.de at ... ftp://ftp.uni-kl.de/pub/apple2/gs/graphics/screensavers or ftp://ftp.uni-kl.de/pub/apple2/gs/graphics/misc . ____________________________ From: Rubywand 015- What programming languages are available for the Apple ][? Quite a few, including Apple Integer BASIC, Applesoft BASIC, MD BASIC, ..., the BASIC-like MacroSoft from MicroSparc, a beta version of Apple's GS BASIC, and the new (1998) Byte Works GS BASIC! Users who want to speed up their AppleSoft programs can use a BASIC compiler such as TASC or Einstein. Other Apple II languages are Apple Fortran, USCD Pascal, Orca (ByteWorks) Pascal, Terrapin Logo, Apple Logo, two Logos from ByteWorks, Isys Forth, Master Forth, (and many other Forths), Modula2, Aztec C, Orca/C, ... . Hyperstudio and HyperCard let you create stacks. To the above you can add several assemblers including Merlin, Orca/M, an assembler from Ninja Force, and the MicroSparc Assembler. You can find more languages information at Larry Virden's page: http://www.purl.org/NET/lvirden/Misc/apple2-languages.txt . For lessons to help learn BASIC programming check ... http://www.iglou.com/qwerty/kb/dlfiles.html#53 . For Orca manuals and to order the Orca languages contact Byte Works: 505-898-8183; http://hypermall.com/byteworks/bwad.html . ---------------------------- 016- What's the difference between an Apple ][, a II, and a //? None. ][, II, and // can be used pretty much interchangably for any model of Apple II computer, although, practically speaking, there are a few usages which may provoke a correction. "][" is the original Apple II symbol. It appears on all early II's and II+'s as well as on the Disk ][ drive. It is, easily, the most attractive and distinctive II symbol; but, it is also associated with _old_ Apple II 's. So, "][e", "][c", etc. are very likely to be viewed as grossly incorrect by many users. Conversely, the "//" usage is often associated with newer e and c models. "//+" would be as much an error as "][c". The plain "II" symbol is the one most widely accepted as 'correct', or, at least, 'okay', for all Apple II models. The, generally, preferred designations are ... Apple ][, or Apple II (i.e. for pre-II+ models) Apple ][+ or Apple II+ Apple //e or Apple IIe Apple //c or Apple IIc Apple IIc+ Apple IIgs or GS Just "A2" is fairly common when referring to series-wide products or concerns as in "Old, out-of-print A2 wares should be preserved and archived for easy access by every user". ____________________________ From: David Cross 017- How do I save a BASIC program in ASCII text form? The following line added to the front of your Applesoft BASIC program will save it in a Text file named "LISTFILE". It works in DOS 3.3 or ProDOS. 1 HOME:PRINT CHR$(4)"OPEN LISTFILE": PRINT CHR$(4)"WRITE LISTFILE": POKE 33,33: LIST 2,: PRINT CHR$(4)"CLOSE": END POKE 33,33 causes the text display routine to not insert any unneccessary spacing into your BASIC program listing, which cleans up the text file output nicely. ____________________________ From: Rubywand 018- Where and how do I get System 6.0.1 from an ftp site? You can download the System 6.0.1 disks from Apple at ... ftp://ftp.apple.com/dts/aii/sys.soft/gs.system.6.0.1/ The disks are in the from of binscii (.bsc) files of ShrinkIt disk archive files which include a Binary II header (i.e. binscii-ed .bxy files). As a test, I downloaded sysdisk.bsc, transferred it to the GS via NUll-modem, and converted it to diskette form. All of the files Validated as Okay. Since Apple maintains each disk in binscii-ed .bxy form, the conversion process takes two steps. First, you need to run binscii on the .bsc file. I used Jawaid Bazyar's GSCII Plus NDA to un-binscii sysdisk.bsc. This produced sysdisk.bxy, a Shrinked disk archive with a Binary II header. Next, GS-ShrinkIt was used to unShrink sysdisk.bxy to an 800k 'diskette'-- I used an empty 800k /RAM5 RAM disk for the target diskette because things go faster than with an actual diakette. This produced the System 6.0.1 System.Disk. (From here I could have done a whole-disk copy to get the System.Disk from RAM disk onto an actual 800k diskette.) The above procedure should work fine for the other .bsc disk files in the set. ____________________________ From: Paul Schultz 019- Is a graphical user interface (GUI) available for 8-bit Apple II's? For the 128k Enhanced //e and //c series, the ones which come to mind are GEOS, Quark's Catalyst, and MouseDesk (aka Apple II Desktop). GEOS was probably the most popular of the three although it never reached the popularity it gained on the C64 platform. The downside with GEOS is that it isn't ProDOS compatible. So, you are stuck with only using the GEOS compatible programs (GeoPublish, GeoCalc, GeoWrite,....) Catalyst and MouseDesk are both very similar. They provide a ProDOS compatible version of the familiar Apple desktop GUI. MouseDesk was purchased by Apple and renamed Apple II Desktop. This was included in the original System Disk which shipped with the Apple IIgs. While shipped with the 16bit IIgs, A2 Desktop is an 8 bit program which works very well with my IIc+. I assume it would work with your IIe :-) ____________________________ From: Rubywand 020- Is there a manual somewhere on creating Applesoft BASIC shape tables? Go to Charles Hartley's Apple II BASIC info and Software site at ... http://www.iglou.com/qwerty/kb/dlfiles.html#53 He has one or two lessons on using hires graphics; and, you can download some software for creating shape tables. ____________________________ From: Sandy 021- How can I get a Postscript file from a GS document? To get a Postscript file from any GS document, press OpenApple-F when clicking "Ok" in the LaserWriter driver. This'll kick out a Postscript file in your */system/drivers folder.