Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!WPI.BITNET!DSEAH
From: DSEAH@WPI.BITNET
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Mixed Bag
Message-ID: <8803311709.AA26032@wpi.local>
Date: 31 Mar 88 17:09:32 GMT
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 33

Someone mentioned that they kept their Supersonic Digitizer in Slot 2,
and had to swap back and forth to use it.  I have one of those, but
only use the stereo output a lot because the digitizer is so &@#@#^!
to get at without having a cable running out and broadcasting noise
all over the radio.  You can stick it in slot 3 without turning off the
80 col firmware because I think it only need power, not i/o, through
the slot.  I haven't tried it, but I think the 80 col firmware doesn't
make any difference when you are running the digitizing software
under ProDOS 16, so you can turn it off in times of need.

And about formatting track-by-track on a 3.5" disk:  The fast 16 sector
copiers like Locksmith 6.0 Fast Backup, Copy II Plus, and Diversi-
Copy read in a track-image without post-nibbling the data.  That is,
it just leaves the track in raw, funny-looking 6 bit disk bytes.
This way, the FORMATTING of the track is also preserved.  Then the
copier just writes the raw track data back to the disk, making sure that
the track end doesn't write over the beginning.  This is very fast,
because you don't have to mess with decoding, buffers, ANDs, ORs, or
buts.  However it takes up more memory.  This should be theoretically
possible on a 3.5" disk drive, because the track formatting is
almost exactly the same as on a 5.25" disk.  It is also the same
as the Macintosh format with the exception of 12 ID bytes of some kind.
In fact, Copy II Plus 8.1 Sector Copy appears to use this technique.
No preformatting of the disk.  Using one drive and 1.25Meg of memory,
it took 30 seconds more time to use Diversi-Copy (with Diversi Cache
on) to backup my DPaint art disk than it did with Copy II Plus with
one swap of the disk.  I would like to find out how to program the
3.5" drive directly as you could with the 5.25" drives from assembly
language, but Apples reference manuals seem foggy on this.  Can anyone
help?

And Fans.  I probably have to get one soon, but I don't want to pay $40
for a Real, Noisy-as-hell Apple Original.  What specs do the Apple //gs
fan have to meet?