About Apple II emulator and saving to drive

[estephan500]

Hello Olimex -- Your last 2 answers have helped me much.  (If I keep bothering you with questions, and if I learn enough, I would be happy to help you write a few tutorials/documentations for your site.)

My goal is to write and work with applesoft programs (and maybe eventually my own binary/machine language programs) in the Apple II emulators.

Thank you for showing me how to install these two emulators:
(A) apple2_800x600_400MHz.uf2
(B) apple2e-5.uf2

In the second emulator (B), I can't even get down to the Applesoft basic level...  It is stuck in the retro game pack.
QUESTION 1:  Do you know how to get out of that game pack in that emulator?

Over in the first emulator (A), if I write a BASIC program, then I can't "save" the program on the current "drive' as it says it is write protected.

QUESTION 2:  How can I use the connected USB memory stick as a drive to write to, for example to use the SAVE command to save programs? OR any other way to SAVE to any volume in the emulator?

If there are other documents I should look at that explain this stuff, let me know, and I can help write some if that would be helpful.

THANKS
Eric

[LubOlimex]

Not sure if the ones we published are the latest and if they have the USB memory stick option. Better check the info in the official repo for the Apple emulator here:

https://github.com/vsladkov/reload-emulator

[mscha]

I have almost the same question:
I have a neo6502 and a neo6502pc and want to develop programs in 6502 assembler.
For very small programs this is fine with built-in mini-assembler. But...
How can I store and load .asm files?
I have tried apple2e.uf2 and apple2e-5.uf2 together with a usb stick where I stored ProDos_2_4_3.po.
But I don't know how to use ProDos for my purposes. How do I use it properly?

I want to develop and test .asm files with 64tass on my computer and then copy the .bin files to the neos.

[Ralf]

You might want to google a tool that can read and write into apple2-disk-images.

[stingrayce1982@gmail.com]

Estiphan:  I think the question you asked is answered by Ralf in a reply to my question-

apple2_800x600_400MHZ.uf2 -> is pre-flashed on the Neo6502 at delivery, but does not support USB flash drive access
apple2e-5.uf2 -> works with Total Replay
apple2e.uf2 -> works with ProDOS_2_4_3.po

So you want to flash apple2e.uf2 to your NEO6502 and then use the ProDOS_2_4_3.po on your USB Key.  That worked for me and I am able to save and load files from BASIC.

One thing I found is that some of the USB Hubs I tried worked fine for the Keyboard alone but didn't work when I added the USB Key.  I found one that works via trial and error.  I probably own 25 of them and I think 3 worked OK.

[Ralf]

One thing I found is that some of the USB Hubs I tried worked fine for the Keyboard alone but didn't work when I added the USB Key.

The thing with the USB hubs is that, on one side, there is an issue with the hub's controller chip communicating with the board. However, on the other side, the Pi Pico does not supply much power out of its USB port, so I assume it is beneficial to use a powered USB hub.

[stingrayce1982@gmail.com]

I tried two powered hubs, one was a DLINK brand and the other was no-name.  Neither of them worked.

[Ralf]

Yeah, like I said, that's a known problem.
It has to do with the tinyUSB library used, which somehow only works with certain chipsets. It's been reported, though, so it might be fixed in the future.