==== DIX ====
A 10 years anniversary anthology of our demos - 30+ minutes of Apple II demos!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4ap...
Released at @demosplash.bsky.social
Requirements: IIe/IIc PAL 128k, Mockingboard, Unidisk drive
Download: fr3nch.t0uch.free.fr/DIX/DIX.html
#demoscene #appleII
A 10 years anniversary anthology of our demos - 30+ minutes of Apple II demos!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4ap...
Released at @demosplash.bsky.social
Requirements: IIe/IIc PAL 128k, Mockingboard, Unidisk drive
Download: fr3nch.t0uch.free.fr/DIX/DIX.html
#demoscene #appleII
DIX - Complete Anthology
YouTube video by French Touch
www.youtube.com
November 16, 2024 at 11:10 PM
==== DIX ====
A 10 years anniversary anthology of our demos - 30+ minutes of Apple II demos!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4ap...
Released at @demosplash.bsky.social
Requirements: IIe/IIc PAL 128k, Mockingboard, Unidisk drive
Download: fr3nch.t0uch.free.fr/DIX/DIX.html
#demoscene #appleII
A 10 years anniversary anthology of our demos - 30+ minutes of Apple II demos!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4ap...
Released at @demosplash.bsky.social
Requirements: IIe/IIc PAL 128k, Mockingboard, Unidisk drive
Download: fr3nch.t0uch.free.fr/DIX/DIX.html
#demoscene #appleII
IO controller i think is for a unidisk drive. I think. It should go in slot 6. Try control + reset since its trying to find a disk drive that I assume you don't have
September 28, 2025 at 1:28 AM
IO controller i think is for a unidisk drive. I think. It should go in slot 6. Try control + reset since its trying to find a disk drive that I assume you don't have
Formatting.
It's pretty solid implementation to be honest. The floppy disks are daisy chained and the OS detects all legacy Disk II drives + the Unidisk drive. It's not as easy as it sounds because they're handled completely differently : Unidisk uses the Smartport protocol, which is a kind of…
It's pretty solid implementation to be honest. The floppy disks are daisy chained and the OS detects all legacy Disk II drives + the Unidisk drive. It's not as easy as it sounds because they're handled completely differently : Unidisk uses the Smartport protocol, which is a kind of…
June 5, 2024 at 11:05 PM
Formatting.
It's pretty solid implementation to be honest. The floppy disks are daisy chained and the OS detects all legacy Disk II drives + the Unidisk drive. It's not as easy as it sounds because they're handled completely differently : Unidisk uses the Smartport protocol, which is a kind of…
It's pretty solid implementation to be honest. The floppy disks are daisy chained and the OS detects all legacy Disk II drives + the Unidisk drive. It's not as easy as it sounds because they're handled completely differently : Unidisk uses the Smartport protocol, which is a kind of…
July 21, 2024 at 10:44 PM
The Unidisk also have a controller board based on a full 6502 architecture with its own RAM. That's because the 8-bits Apple II are not fast enough to control the floppy disk and they don't have floppy controllers, so it's taken care by this board.
As a result the drive appears as a high level…
As a result the drive appears as a high level…
June 5, 2024 at 10:57 PM
The Unidisk also have a controller board based on a full 6502 architecture with its own RAM. That's because the 8-bits Apple II are not fast enough to control the floppy disk and they don't have floppy controllers, so it's taken care by this board.
As a result the drive appears as a high level…
As a result the drive appears as a high level…
My first Apple II demo, Latecomer, loads through ProDOS so it works seamlessly on Unidisk!
I also tried low level access. It's far easier than legacy drives because the smartport firmware takes "high-level" calls 💕
peertube.fenarinarsa.com/w/c1SNt3r6WU...
#appleII #retrocomputing #demoscene
I also tried low level access. It's far easier than legacy drives because the smartport firmware takes "high-level" calls 💕
peertube.fenarinarsa.com/w/c1SNt3r6WU...
#appleII #retrocomputing #demoscene
Apple II Unidisk 3.5 - Latecomer
Running my demo \
peertube.fenarinarsa.com
June 5, 2024 at 10:38 PM
My first Apple II demo, Latecomer, loads through ProDOS so it works seamlessly on Unidisk!
I also tried low level access. It's far easier than legacy drives because the smartport firmware takes "high-level" calls 💕
peertube.fenarinarsa.com/w/c1SNt3r6WU...
#appleII #retrocomputing #demoscene
I also tried low level access. It's far easier than legacy drives because the smartport firmware takes "high-level" calls 💕
peertube.fenarinarsa.com/w/c1SNt3r6WU...
#appleII #retrocomputing #demoscene
I received spare gears and could fix this Unidisk drive!
I'm so happy to have found this drive, that was really something I wanted to test.
But I needed a software that supports it... fortunately I have a copy of MouseDesk 2!
.../
#appleII #retrocomputing
I'm so happy to have found this drive, that was really something I wanted to test.
But I needed a software that supports it... fortunately I have a copy of MouseDesk 2!
.../
#appleII #retrocomputing
June 5, 2024 at 10:27 PM
I received spare gears and could fix this Unidisk drive!
I'm so happy to have found this drive, that was really something I wanted to test.
But I needed a software that supports it... fortunately I have a copy of MouseDesk 2!
.../
#appleII #retrocomputing
I'm so happy to have found this drive, that was really something I wanted to test.
But I needed a software that supports it... fortunately I have a copy of MouseDesk 2!
.../
#appleII #retrocomputing
I just bought this Apple II UniDisk 3.5” interface card. It comes in a rather squashed box. This card was designed to add 3.5” UniDisk floppy drives to an Apple II, but it also acts as a SmartPort interface, which lets you run hard disk images from a FloppyEmu or connect a FujiNet device.
August 8, 2023 at 10:48 PM
I just bought this Apple II UniDisk 3.5” interface card. It comes in a rather squashed box. This card was designed to add 3.5” UniDisk floppy drives to an Apple II, but it also acts as a SmartPort interface, which lets you run hard disk images from a FloppyEmu or connect a FujiNet device.
Recent acquisition, another rare prototype for the Apple IIc - dual Unidisk drive.
#Apple #Prototype #retrocomputing
#Apple #Prototype #retrocomputing
May 22, 2023 at 1:34 PM
Recent acquisition, another rare prototype for the Apple IIc - dual Unidisk drive.
#Apple #Prototype #retrocomputing
#Apple #Prototype #retrocomputing
My first Apple II demo, Latecomer, loads through ProDOS so it works seamlessly on Unidisk!
I also tried low level access. It's far easier than legacy drives because the firmware takes "high-level" calls 💕
The issue is that you can't really do advanced tricks because all the read and write logic…
I also tried low level access. It's far easier than legacy drives because the firmware takes "high-level" calls 💕
The issue is that you can't really do advanced tricks because all the read and write logic…
Original post on shelter.moe
shelter.moe
June 5, 2024 at 11:08 PM
My first Apple II demo, Latecomer, loads through ProDOS so it works seamlessly on Unidisk!
I also tried low level access. It's far easier than legacy drives because the firmware takes "high-level" calls 💕
The issue is that you can't really do advanced tricks because all the read and write logic…
I also tried low level access. It's far easier than legacy drives because the firmware takes "high-level" calls 💕
The issue is that you can't really do advanced tricks because all the read and write logic…
Trying to fix a Unidisk drive I just got. The loading mechanism was completely stuck. The famous faulty eject gear seemed fine but broke as soon as I touched it... I don't have any spare, so I need to find one before going any further.
#retrocomputing #appleII
#retrocomputing #appleII
May 7, 2024 at 10:16 PM
Trying to fix a Unidisk drive I just got. The loading mechanism was completely stuck. The famous faulty eject gear seemed fine but broke as soon as I touched it... I don't have any spare, so I need to find one before going any further.
#retrocomputing #appleII
#retrocomputing #appleII
Slowing learning more about on-disk protections for 3.5-inch (800K) disks. In the Apple II world, the Unidisk 3.5 drive was the "official" drive for 8-bit machines for a while, so a lot of 8-bit software on 800K disks targeted that drive's unique properties for copy protection.
November 8, 2024 at 3:45 AM
Slowing learning more about on-disk protections for 3.5-inch (800K) disks. In the Apple II world, the Unidisk 3.5 drive was the "official" drive for 8-bit machines for a while, so a lot of 8-bit software on 800K disks targeted that drive's unique properties for copy protection.
Got this Unidisk drive a few weeks ago. Unfortunately I couldn't insert a floppy disk, so I opened it, did a full maintenance and changed the infamous shitty gear that broke as soon as I touched it.
#appleii #retrocomputing
#appleii #retrocomputing
June 5, 2024 at 10:51 PM
Got this Unidisk drive a few weeks ago. Unfortunately I couldn't insert a floppy disk, so I opened it, did a full maintenance and changed the infamous shitty gear that broke as soon as I touched it.
#appleii #retrocomputing
#appleii #retrocomputing
And yeah there were third party desktop apps for the 8-bits Apple II, based on ProDOS. So full support for block devices, which means HDD, ramdisk and this Unidisk drive. To be honest it's really slow but it works very well and as expected!
The Unidisk is detected in slot 5,1 and format went…
The Unidisk is detected in slot 5,1 and format went…
June 5, 2024 at 11:00 PM
And yeah there were third party desktop apps for the 8-bits Apple II, based on ProDOS. So full support for block devices, which means HDD, ramdisk and this Unidisk drive. To be honest it's really slow but it works very well and as expected!
The Unidisk is detected in slot 5,1 and format went…
The Unidisk is detected in slot 5,1 and format went…
The Apple 3.5" Unidisk did contain a whole computer. (6502 based) It was released in 1985 so Apple used SMD parts internally to make it small. This drive only works on Apple II machines like the IIc or another machine with a Smartport controller.
downloads.reactivemicro.com/Documentatio...
downloads.reactivemicro.com/Documentatio...
downloads.reactivemicro.com
February 5, 2025 at 7:58 PM
The Apple 3.5" Unidisk did contain a whole computer. (6502 based) It was released in 1985 so Apple used SMD parts internally to make it small. This drive only works on Apple II machines like the IIc or another machine with a Smartport controller.
downloads.reactivemicro.com/Documentatio...
downloads.reactivemicro.com/Documentatio...
So, in the short-lived era when developers were
(a) still writing software for 8-bit Apple II,
(b) still copy protecting it, and
(c) releasing it on 800K disks,
they wrote their copy protection twice, once for A9M0106-drive-on-a-IIgs, and once for Unidisk-3.5-drive-anywhere.
(a) still writing software for 8-bit Apple II,
(b) still copy protecting it, and
(c) releasing it on 800K disks,
they wrote their copy protection twice, once for A9M0106-drive-on-a-IIgs, and once for Unidisk-3.5-drive-anywhere.
November 8, 2024 at 4:16 AM
So, in the short-lived era when developers were
(a) still writing software for 8-bit Apple II,
(b) still copy protecting it, and
(c) releasing it on 800K disks,
they wrote their copy protection twice, once for A9M0106-drive-on-a-IIgs, and once for Unidisk-3.5-drive-anywhere.
(a) still writing software for 8-bit Apple II,
(b) still copy protecting it, and
(c) releasing it on 800K disks,
they wrote their copy protection twice, once for A9M0106-drive-on-a-IIgs, and once for Unidisk-3.5-drive-anywhere.
The Apple II family was a pioneer! This deep dive celebrates its storage history: From the revolutionary Disk II system and the birth of micro-hard disks, through the essential UniDisk 5.25 era, all the way up to the high-density drives of the IIe and IIGS
youtu.be/lq0O5LTbNiY
youtu.be/lq0O5LTbNiY
Apple II Storage: The ULTIMATE Timeline Deep-Dive (From Disk II to SuperDrive!)
YouTube video by Retronaut
youtu.be
November 16, 2025 at 5:22 PM
The Apple II family was a pioneer! This deep dive celebrates its storage history: From the revolutionary Disk II system and the birth of micro-hard disks, through the essential UniDisk 5.25 era, all the way up to the high-density drives of the IIe and IIGS
youtu.be/lq0O5LTbNiY
youtu.be/lq0O5LTbNiY
Checking the motorized ejection mechanism. The Unidisk is based around a standard Mac floppy drive from 1984.
https://peertube.fenarinarsa.com/w/6fk6DsFW9mw7yvm1NgTQKW
#appleii #retrocomputing
https://peertube.fenarinarsa.com/w/6fk6DsFW9mw7yvm1NgTQKW
#appleii #retrocomputing
June 5, 2024 at 10:52 PM
Checking the motorized ejection mechanism. The Unidisk is based around a standard Mac floppy drive from 1984.
https://peertube.fenarinarsa.com/w/6fk6DsFW9mw7yvm1NgTQKW
#appleii #retrocomputing
https://peertube.fenarinarsa.com/w/6fk6DsFW9mw7yvm1NgTQKW
#appleii #retrocomputing
ALT: Black-and-white photo of a woman holding a “unidisk” which is described in the post text as follows: “The Unidisc for UNIVAC computers.
(1966)
The size of the disk is 14 inches (36 cm)
A capacity is 1 MB on each side.”
(1966)
The size of the disk is 14 inches (36 cm)
A capacity is 1 MB on each side.”
December 14, 2023 at 3:05 AM
ALT: Black-and-white photo of a woman holding a “unidisk” which is described in the post text as follows: “The Unidisc for UNIVAC computers.
(1966)
The size of the disk is 14 inches (36 cm)
A capacity is 1 MB on each side.”
(1966)
The size of the disk is 14 inches (36 cm)
A capacity is 1 MB on each side.”
Okay, interesting, thanks! I'll try that once I get the key caps cleaned and back on the machine. I don't have a Unidisk for this machine but I have one for my IIGS. Can I use that to test it?
September 28, 2025 at 1:37 AM
Okay, interesting, thanks! I'll try that once I get the key caps cleaned and back on the machine. I don't have a Unidisk for this machine but I have one for my IIGS. Can I use that to test it?
But whither copy protection? Developers could upload code to the Unidisk 3.5 drive to get direct access to the bits on an 800K disk. The A9M0106 didn't allow this, but the IIgs had a new controller ("IWM") that—with much dark sorcery—allowed direct access to disk bits as well.
November 8, 2024 at 4:08 AM
But whither copy protection? Developers could upload code to the Unidisk 3.5 drive to get direct access to the bits on an 800K disk. The A9M0106 didn't allow this, but the IIgs had a new controller ("IWM") that—with much dark sorcery—allowed direct access to disk bits as well.
This brochure is from around 1986-87, given that it mentions the IIgs but doesn't feature the Platinum IIe.
By then all IIe systems came with 128K and 80 column support. (Extended 80 column card). Also the UniDisk 3.5 was available by then so you could use 3.5" floppy disks.
By then all IIe systems came with 128K and 80 column support. (Extended 80 column card). Also the UniDisk 3.5 was available by then so you could use 3.5" floppy disks.
March 29, 2024 at 2:36 PM
This brochure is from around 1986-87, given that it mentions the IIgs but doesn't feature the Platinum IIe.
By then all IIe systems came with 128K and 80 column support. (Extended 80 column card). Also the UniDisk 3.5 was available by then so you could use 3.5" floppy disks.
By then all IIe systems came with 128K and 80 column support. (Extended 80 column card). Also the UniDisk 3.5 was available by then so you could use 3.5" floppy disks.
And yeah there were third party desktop apps for the 8-bits Apple II, based on ProDOS. So full support for block devices, which means HDD, ramdisk and this Unidisk drive.
It's detected in slot 5,1 and format went smoothly.
Automatic ejection is also handled by MouseDesk.
#appleII #retrocomputing
It's detected in slot 5,1 and format went smoothly.
Automatic ejection is also handled by MouseDesk.
#appleII #retrocomputing
June 5, 2024 at 10:32 PM
And yeah there were third party desktop apps for the 8-bits Apple II, based on ProDOS. So full support for block devices, which means HDD, ramdisk and this Unidisk drive.
It's detected in slot 5,1 and format went smoothly.
Automatic ejection is also handled by MouseDesk.
#appleII #retrocomputing
It's detected in slot 5,1 and format went smoothly.
Automatic ejection is also handled by MouseDesk.
#appleII #retrocomputing
I'm super rusty on Apple II stuff myself but the 5.25" Unidisk will work with the I/O Controller card from what I understand.
September 28, 2025 at 3:01 AM
I'm super rusty on Apple II stuff myself but the 5.25" Unidisk will work with the I/O Controller card from what I understand.
Ooooh the 128K variant with 80 column text and double hires graphics. But 2 Unidisk drives instead of a single Duodisk?
February 17, 2024 at 4:37 AM
Ooooh the 128K variant with 80 column text and double hires graphics. But 2 Unidisk drives instead of a single Duodisk?