[Blindapple] new member and reading archives

[Jayson Smith]

Hi,

Jeff, welcome to the list! As far as extracting .gz files, yes, 7Zip can 
do it. If you have the Gzip program from I think it's Gnu Binutils, that 
will do it, too. The syntax for Gzip is gzip -d filename. The .gz file 
will be deleted and replaced with the decompressed copy. For 7Zip, you 
do 7z x filename. In this case, the .gz file will not be deleted.

Blake, as for putting Textalker on ProDOS disks, it's more difficult 
than DOS 3.3, and in many cases may not even be possible depending on 
how the program works. Before doing any of the following, make a backup 
of the disk image in question.

The Textalker files you need are called Textalker and PT.OBJ. You can 
find them on the Speaking Speller ProDOS (spellerp.dsk) file within the 
Messapple package.

How you proceed from there depends on the disk. The ProDOS startup 
sequence is different from DOS 3.3. When a ProDOS disk boots, the 
bootloader in block 0 of the disk loads a file called ProDOS. This is 
the operating system kernel. Once ProDOS is loaded, it runs a specific 
file on the disk. This file is whatever is the first file in the main 
directory that ends in .System. On a ProDOS disk that boots into 
Applesoft, this will very likely be Basic.System. In fact, Basic.System 
must be run in order to use Applesoft from within ProDOS. Many ProDOS 
disks, though, have the main program as the .System file, and don't use 
Applesoft at all.

If Basic.System is loaded, it looks for a Basic program called Startup 
and runs it. This is like the Hello program DOS 3.3 runs at startup. If 
you have a BASIC disk with ProDos, Basic.System, and Startup, add a 
command like the following as early as possible in the Startup program:
0 PRINT CHR$(4),"BRUNTEXTALKER"
In this example, 0 represents the line number. Then save Startup and try 
the disk. Don't be surprised if it still won't talk. Depending on what 
the Startup program does, it could end up running some other application.

If the disk does not use Applesoft, you're probably out of luck unless 
the program has some way to load Textalker, which most don't. A notable 
exception is the Davex command shell. If Davex finds the PT.OBJ file in 
its directory when it loads, it will install Textalker.

Hope this helps.

Jayson

On 7/3/2017 2:45 PM, Blake Roberts wrote:
> Hello Jeff,
>
> Welcome to the Blind-Apple list.
>
> I also created a batch file for launching a disk image. I find a batch file
> to be more convenient than typing the command at a dos prompt every time I
> want to use the emulator.
>
>   
>
> You might be able to extract a .tz file using the free 7-zip utility. It can
> open/extract many compressionformats.
>
> http://www.7-zip.org <http://www.7-zip.org/>
>
>   
>
> Disk images can be found online from various sites. For example:
>
> ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/images/
>
> and
>
> http://apple2online.com/index.php?p=1_33_Games-Library
>
> These disks probably won't boot up talking. However, it is possible to add
> TexTalker and the necessary Hello program from a talking disk onto a
> non-talking disk using a utility called CiderPress. I have not yet figured
> out what TexTalker/startup files need to be copied between ProDos disks to
> make ProDos disks talk.
>
> Blake
>
>   
>
>   
>
> From: BlindApple [mailto:blindapple-bounces at bluegrasspals.com] On Behalf Of
> Jeff Weiss
> Sent: Monday, July 03, 2017 2:06 PM
> To: blindapple at bluegrasspals.com
> Subject: [Blindapple] new member and reading archives
>
>   
>
> Hello,
>
> My name is Jeff Weiss and I just joined the blind apple list.
>
> I used to publish a disk magazine for blind Apple users originally called
>
> Apple Talk.
>
> Due to a problem with licensing Dos for the magazine, I later changed the
> name to
>
> A-Talk.
>
> First, how do I read the archives?  I downloaded some files that end with
> .gz.  I guess this is some type of zip file, but where can I get the program
> to unzip the files?
>
>   
>
> My next question is how do most of you boot your apple disks on the pc?  I
> have started launching mine with batch files, which makes the process much
> easier than typing out the entire launch commands.
>
>   
>
> Also, I think Jason said that there are additional disk images available.
> Are they available for download, or directly from Jason?
>
>   
>
> That's enough for now, and I look forward to comments from other list
> members.
>
> Jeff Weiss
>
>   
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> BlindApple mailing list
> BlindApple at bluegrasspals.com
> http://jaybird.no-ip.info/mailman/listinfo/blindapple


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