TRS-80 Diskette to DMK Conversion – Applesauce

Applesauce

What Is It:

The Applesauce Floppy Drive Controller is a stand-alone box which acts as a middleman in reading TRS-80 disks. It can read hard sectored disks as well as Apple II, Apple III, Apple Lisa, Apple Macintosh, Atari 8-Bit, Atari ST, Commodore 1541, Commodore Amiga, Heathkit/Zenith, IBM PC, North Star, TI-99/4, and Victor 9000.


Hardware:

On the hardware side, there are 3 drive connections on the unit: a 20-pin Apple Disk II-compatible, a DB-19 for Apple compatible 5.25″ and 3.5″ drives, and a Shugart-compatible 34-pin port for 5.25″ and 3.5″ PC drives. At the other end is a USB A connector for plugging into your computer. All of the popular drives used for imaging should be good to go: TEAC FD-55B (5.25 360K), TEAD FD-55GFR (5.25 1.2M), Panasonic JU-475 (5.25 1.2M), Sony MPF920 (3.5 1.44M), etc. Applesauce will test the drive jumper settings when you set up a profile for your drive.

The Applesauce unit provides +12V, +5V, and -12V power for the floppy drive so that no separate power supply is needed and it watches the power consumption of the drive (checks 20,000 times per second) to detect electrical shorts or other unusual conditions and can shut off the power to the drive within milliseconds in order to minimize damage to your equipment.


Front

Back

Software:

On the software side, the Applesauce Client Software controls the Applesauce hardware and is also a standalone disk image analysis/repair/conversion tool. The software currently only supports macOS 10.11 or better. Runs natively on 64-bit Intel and M1 Macintosh computers. You can download v1.71 of the software here or from the Applesauce Software Download Page.

One of the things the client can do is convert between disk formats, such as A2R, KryoFlux, SCP, DiscFerret, etc to DMK. The HxC conversion program does NOT do this reliably, so this software would be recommended even if you do not own the Applesauce hardware.


What if I have a PC?

You can run the Applesauce Client Software in VMWare once you have run VMware Unlocker; a program which patches VMWare to permit the installation of Mac operating systems.

Steps:

  1. Buy, Download, and/or Install
    • VMWare
    • VMwareUnlocker v3.0.4 or later. I’m not including links because they will likely be bad.
    • An ISO of macOS v10.12. I’m not including links because they will likely be bad.
    • VMWare Tools DARWIN. I’m not including links because they will likely be bad.
  2. Run VMWare
  3. Choose FILE -> New Virtual Machine
  4. Choose CUSTOM (advanced) and click NEXT
  5. Choose Workstation 16.2.x (or whatever you are offered) and click NEXT
  6. Choose “I WILL INSTALL THE OPERATING SYSTEM LATER” and click NEXT
  7. Choose the newly added “APPLE MC OS X” and then macOS 11 in the pulldown. Then click NEXT
  8. Verify you are happy with the name and file location and click NEXT
  9. Choose 1 processor and 4 cores per processor and click NEXT
  10. Select a memory size (not less than 4GB) and click NEXT
  11. Select USE NETWORK ADDRSS TRANSLATION and click NEXT
  12. Select LSI LOGIC and click NEXT
  13. Select SATA and click NEXT
  14. Click CREATE A NEW VIRTUAL DISK and click NEXT
  15. Choose 80GB and STORE VIRTUAL DISK AS A SINGLE FILE and click NEXT
  16. Verify you are happy with the name and click NEXT
  17. Click on CUSTOMIZE HARDWARE
  18. Click on PROCESSORS on the left and some check boxes will appear on the right. Click all 3 check boxes
  19. Click on NEW CD/DVD on the left and USE ISO IMAGE FILE on the right. Select the macOS 10.12 image you downloaded.
  20. Click CLOSE
  21. Click FINISH
  22. Right click on mac OS in the library and choose OPEN VM DIRECTORY
  23. Open the macos 11.vmx file in a text editor
  24. Add the following and save the file:
    smbios.reflectHost = “TRUE”
    hw.model = “MacBookPro14,3”
    board-id = “Mac-551B86E5744E2388”
    smc.version = “0”
  25. Click POWER ON THIS VIRTUAL MACHINE
  26. After you answer a few questions you will be told you don’t have enough space
  27. Go to UTILITIES -> DISK UTILITY
  28. Select the VMWare Drive and click ERASE and then click ENTER. When that’s done, exit the Disk Utility and you will now see an available hard drive. Pick that drive.
  29. When its down installing, choose all your options, and then shut down.
  30. Mount the DARWIN.ISO into the drive.
  31. Start the VM again.
  32. Run DARWIN
  33. Start the VM again.

More information: