Nibble/Half Track Send

The nibble/half track send function is still experimental, and so far has only been incorporated into the included DOS ADT client. See the ADT Compatibility page for more information.

Format Volumes (disks)

The ADTPro client has built-in disk formatting capabilities. ProDOS and SOS don't include an INIT or FORMAT command natively, so this is the place to get your media initially formatted. Note that formatting a disk does not make it bootable. Choosing F from the main menu brings up the volume selection screen:

From this screen, choose the volume (slot/drive) or device you want to format. When you make your choice, you will be asked for the new disk's name (ProDOS only), you will be asked for a confirmation, and once finished, will be given a chance to format another volume:

Note: The act of formatting a floppy or other drive does not make it bootable. When you get done formatting a disk, you might want to write an image to it that will ultimately make it bootable to ProDOS or SOS. This is different from the way DOS 3.3 and its variants worked, where the INIT command would make a disk bootable. In ProDOS and SOS, it's a whole different process.

SOS Note: If SOS feels a floppy disk drive is spinning too slowly or too quickly, it will fail to format the disk and will issue a message stating so. If the drive is found to be too slow, the message will read: "DRIVE TOO SLOW! ADJUST CLOCKWISE." If too fast, the messasge will read: "DRIVE TOO FAST! ADJUST ANTI-CLOCKWISE." This "adjustment" is referring to the small speed adjuster on the back-right side of the drive. It will take some disassembly of the Apple /// to get at that adjuster. Start by rotating it 1/8 turn in the suggested direction with a jewler's screwdriver; then retry formatting.

Note: The formatter in ADTPro version 1.0.0 produced erroneous 3-1/2" (800k) disks when formatted for the very first time. They would incorrectly report they had a capacity of zero blocks. This has been corrected in subsequent releases, but version 1.0.0 can still overcome this problem by formatting these disks a second time. They will then correctly report their capacity of 1600 blocks.

Change Working Directory

Whatever directory the host software starts in will be the "Current working directory" until changed to something else. Disk images will be read from and written to this directory. You can change the directory with the "C" key from the client:

You can enter any absolute or relative directory change from this screen. For example, changing to a full directory specification:

Directory

Hitting the "D" key from the main menu will ask for a directory listing of the host's current working directory. If the contents don't fit on one Apple screen, you can hit a key to see the next screenful of information, until the last screenful is shown. Hitting a key at that point will return you to the main menu.

Volume List

Hitting the "V" key from the main menu will bring up a list of all volumes that ProDOS or SOS can see:

The leftmost two columns will show you the slot and drive assignments of a particular volume. The Volume Name column will show you what ProDOS thinks it's called. It typically takes ProDOS a fair amount of time to scan for all volumes and names, so ADTPro caches this information. If you remove and insert different disks, or format disks, you may want to hit the 'R' key to re-scan for the latest names.

The "Blocks" column is the count of ProDOS blocks present on the disk. Each block contains 512 bytes of data. So, typical disk sizes are:

Some messages may appear in the "Volume name" column to indicate various situations: