Booti – card by David Mutimer is nice small card (or two parted card) for Apple II. It is smartport/blockdevice card meaning you are able to use it as (ProDOS) HDD. It’s NOT a floppy emulator.
The support for Apple /// is based on Problock v0.0.4 beta by Robert Justice who also provided driver boot floppy images as well HDD images. See his github for more details (link at the end).
The card fits really nicely without any problems inside the Apple ///. Some cards like CFFA3000 and CFFA2 had their problems before. It’s very tiny card.
I installed the Booti – card to my “main” /// to see if would work in different scenarios and emulations (expect CP/M that i didn’t get around testing).
My setup:
-Softcard /// (#1)
-Titan /// plus (#2)
-Titan /// plus //e (#3)
-Booti (#4)
-Clock chip/batteries
-OnThree 512k RAM expansion
-Booti = Slot 4 + extention cable for USB – memory (get’s the USB – memory outside of the case, more convinient surely)
-Setup to Blockmode
Robert is offering these images at his github:
–selector.start_pb3.dsk – a Selector boot disk with the driver preloaded.
–sos_selector_hd.zip – a 16mb po file for use with the above disk
–bosboot_pb3.dsk – a bos boot disk with the driver preloaded
–bos_cffa_32.hd – MAME hd file for CFFA2 with /BOS & /HOME.
–bos.po.zip – a 16mb po file with BOS for use with BOOTI
Files needed:
-Setup the Booti with “bos.po”- a 16mb po file with BOS for use with BOOTI
-Boot floppy “bosboot_pb3.dsk” – a BOS-boot disk with the driver preloaded.
The driver works with according to Robert:
-CFFA v1.3 – The CF Card needs to be formatted for Apple2 mode. This means 32mb partitions which are problematic with SOS.
-CFFA v2 – Only tested with MAME emulation. The CF Card needs to be formatted for Apple2 mode. This means 32mb partitions which are problematic with SOS. . In MAME, if you use the option to mount a 16mb .2mg or .po image directly, then it works well.
-Booti – Tested with the card set to block mode
-CFFA3000 – Works ok booting Selector and sysutils, but will not work with BOS for some as yet undetermined reason
-Focus – Only tested with the MAME emulation
There is also cards like ClassicIDE that is basicly clone of the CFFA2.
Setup/regular Apple ///
-Boot with Apple II emulation (48k) floppy (built-in)
-Boot Apple II floppy > break
-Go to monitor > CALL -151
* 42:FF N CX0AG (where X=slot where booti card is installed)
-> Configuration menu
-> Choose the HDD image “bos.po” in this case
-Boot with boot floppy i.e. “bosboot_pb3.dsk” (make real floppy or use suitable emulator with adapter cable)
Setup with Titan cards installed:
-Boot with TITAN emulation floppy.
-Boot BOOTI firwmware update disk in //e mode
-BRUN FS (doesn’t work everytime for some reason)
-> Configuration menu
-> Choose HDD image
Or you can access the menu from monitor:
-Boot with TITAN emulation floppy.
-Start //e emulation > break
-Go to monitor > CALL -151
* 42:FF N CX0AG (where X=slot where the booti card is installed)
-> Configuration menu
-> Choose HDD image.
Apple /// mode:
I was able to boot the BOS-HDD image and load all software preinstalled to the image. This is really awesome solution compared to anything else! I am not fan of configuring partitions and formats to CF – cards..
Apple //e mode (Titan):
Under the Titan, Apple //e emumation i tested the recent brilliant collection of games, “Total Replay” and it worked as well! I just would need joystick installed to my emulation card in order to play the games.
What next?
Robert have shown videos where he is able to boot the HDD image *directly* from the USB-memory. He’s developing custom ROM for the /// that will allow him to do just that. That is what have been in dreams of Apple /// user’s since 1980. Direct boot from HDD. Nice!
LINKS:
https://github.com/robjustice/Problock3
https://github.com/robjustice/Problock3/releases
Apple /// forever!
FinApple 2020 (c)