8bit troubles
=============

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...