[Apple3-L] Can an Apple III Boot off an Apple Profile HD?

[Steve]

Jeff,

Thanks for the info. Very intriguing. From a historical standpoint, I  
find it incredibly interesting that the predecessors to the ///, the  
II/+, can boot off of hard drives, but yet the very expensive ///  
could not do this. What was Apple thinking? Yet another item to add  
to the list of undermining the success of this machine-especially  
considering how expensive it was at the time.

Thanks,

Steve

P.S. I'm the Detroit Area as well. So interesting to see that there  
is more than a few of us with a /// in town!


On Oct 1, 2007, at 9:41 AM, Jeff Marraccini wrote:

> Steve,
>
> None of the mass storage devices I have worked with (CFFA compact  
> flash adapter - my current mass storage choice for my ///'s <grin>,  
> Corvus hard drives, and First Class Peripherals Sider hard drive)  
> would boot the ///.  A boot floppy has to be used to bring up BOS  
> or SOS.  Once booted, the applications run off the flash memory or  
> hard drives, but booting still takes a minute or two off the floppy.
>
> The bootstrap code on the /// is very small but from what I have  
> been told it is highly dependent on the first floppy drive in  
> the ///, so it would need to be redirected elsewhere or rewritten.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jeff
>
> ___
> Jeff Marraccini
> Manager, Altair Systems
> Altair Engineering, Inc.
> http://www.altair.com/
> jeff at altair.com
> +1 (248) 614-2400 ext 294
>
> "The Computer is your Friend." -- Paranoia
> This email message is not a digital signature and its opinions are  
> my own.
>
>
> On Sep 30, 2007, at 1:29 PM, Steve wrote:
>
>> Dave,
>>
>> Thank You for the reply. This is what I had come to figure was the
>> case due to the lack of it being referenced anywhere. That would be a
>> nice addition to note in the Apple III FAQ.
>>
>> I am not sure if you know the answer to this, but it does appear that
>> the Apple II Profile controller card has a boot ROM and will boot
>> directly off the Profile. I am guessing that the Apple II interface
>> must have been made available after the Apple III Profile controller.
>>
>> Also, the Lisa boots directly from a Profile, correct?
>>
>> So, am I correct to conclude that the Profile was designed and made
>> originally available for the Apple III and then was made available to
>> Apple II customers, and finally Lisa customers?
>>
>> Here is another interesting question. Can other newer controllers
>> allow an Apple III to boot directly from an HD (ie http:// 
>> dreher.net/?
>> s=projects/CFforAppleII&c=projects/CFforAppleII/main.php) ?
>>
>> Thanks again,
>>
>> Steve
>>
>> On Sep 30, 2007, at 12:57 PM, Dave Ottalini wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > The short answer is - NO. The longer answer is that with BOS3 (and
>> > a couple of earlier programs), you would start with your .d1 drive
>> > but it immediately goes to the Profile and loads everything from
>> > there.
>> >
>> > The longer answer is that On 3 founder Bob Consorti's folks found a
>> > way to do this, but it was not something they ever cared to share
>> > because they didn't want to spend the time making it work on a
>> > commercial basis... our loss.
>> >
>> > Dave
>> >
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