Note: This text was written in January but I moved it from my Z88 to
the SDF just now. But nothing have improved since it was written.
I have an Apple IIe. Two of them, actually. One is an European model
(Italian) and the other is the genuine US one. Only the US one works
properly. The Italian thing has some keyboard issues which I have not
resolved (I replaced the keyboard chip, re-seated things and so but it
did not helped). But it this the newer one, with more current
add-ons.
So I am trying to make the US model more usable. I have put the dual
floppy card here and connected a SD floppy emulator (the second port
can be used for the 5.25" floppy drive which I have, too). Then I
installed the Uthernet II card. But an Ethernet card requires some
software. And where to place the software? I already have a SCSI2SD
external card (I use it with my SGI Indigos) so the A2SCSI seemed to be
the obvious choice. So I have got it (it arrived yesterday).
The card requires a configuration utility (the Apple II SCSI Drive
Utilities disk). I got one but it refused to boot. So I have to play
with disk image formats (my SD floppy emulator recognises only two
formats). Well,it didn't worked, too. The only working approach was to
boot from another device (fortunately, I have a ROM add-on card with
the ProDOS) and to run the utility. But at the end I have found that
the poor IIe hangs on boot when the SCSI card is present. In this case
it does not boot at all and some strange symbols are shown on screen.
But after CTRL+Reset it starts the BASIC prompt as usual. I cannot
understand this. I will try to re-seat the card or to put it to
different slot. Hopefully it will work...