Eric Rothfus is working on a floppy emulator for the Disk ][ interface. He already has something similar working on his TRS-80. This would be a device that would connect to the Disk ][ card and to a PC’s serial port, so that the PC would serve up a disk image so that the Apple II would think it was reading off a floppy disk. He is looking for people to test or help him out.This project could be of interest to people who want to use disk images on an Apple II without having to write a real disk each time.

This device has an RS-232 port on one side and a vintage-machine floppy connector on the other. The idea is that you download a floppy image to the “Semi-Virtual Diskette” (SVD) (on your PC) and then boot the Apple II, which thinks
the SVD is a real Disk ][ drive.

The SVD was originally created for the TRS-80 line, and has since been expanded to include the Heathkit H8/H89.

Now Eric is looking to tackle the Apple II, but wants to see if anyone is interested. If you think it would be useful, please let him know.
More importantly, if you could beta-test the device when it is ready for the Apple II, that would also be helpful.

Also, the driver software is PC-based, so he is looking for help getting a Mac version written. The user interface uses Tcl/Tk, but there are 2 programs written in C. Feel free to download the software off of the web site so you can see what it is like.

For more information, visit the SVD web site..