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Apple FileWare / Twiggy Backup Disks with UniFile & DuoFile Drivers and ???

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compu_85:
If you have a Lisa 1, you should be able to archive them with Basic Lisa Utility!

-J

ried:
Thank you, all. I think we have a solution at hand. More to come.

ried:
Good news: Thanks to sigma7, we have 100% complete images of most disks, including the entire 6-part backup dated 5/19/83. I do not know how he accomplished this, or how to extract individual files from the .dc42 backup disk images he created, but hopefully someone else in the community does. I would imagine that someone needs to write all 6 of the images to actual Twiggy disks and then run a restore program of some kind (onto a ProFile?).

Looking at the list of files contained in the backup, I suspect it was created on an Apple /// using a UniFile or DuoFile drive. That would explain all of the Apple /// software, SOSfiles, etc.

https://imgur.com/a/apple-lisa-fileware-twiggy-backup-disks-mrcVaRo

What does everyone else think? Were these backups made on an Apple /// with a Twiggy drive attached? Or on a Lisa?

stepleton:
It's hard to say for certain without the disk images themselves. With those in hand, it should not be too hard to determine whether the filesystem is from Lisa OS or the Monitor or whether it's an Apple /// filesystem (from SOS I suppose).

The first thing I'd try naively would be to boot the Workshop or the Monitor on my Lisa 1 and try to mount physical copies of the disks.

There is a chance that the disks are from Apple /// Pascal and so use a P-system sort of filesystem. The Monitor uses a similar filesystem, though I haven't investigated how compatible they are. But if it's a P-system filesystem, then there are some utilities for modern computers that may be able to make sense of it.

If we do hypothesise a mutually-compatible filesystem (i.e. something that could be read by both /// and Lisa), then a next step would be to look for signs of byte order inside the files. The /// is a little-endian machine, while the Lisa is a big-endian computer.

But there's one final consideration:

The file listing appears to show a hierarchical directory structure with / as the directory separator. With the exception of the Unixes, no Lisa operating system to my knowledge supported hierarchical filesystems until version 3.0 of the Lisa OS (PDF page 3). Furthermore, this OS used - as the directory separator.

But SOS on the Apple 3 had a hierarchical filesystem with / as the separator. (PDF pages 40-41)

So I think these are properly Apple /// disks with SOS filesystems. There are probably access tools for modern computers out there --- you wouldn't need to use vintage hardware. But if there aren't, the PDF linked just above appears to have quite detailed information about the SOS filesystem, enough that I'd be optimistic about pulling files from these disk images with some Python code and a rainy weekend.

sigma7:
Disk images uploaded to the files section:

Justins Twiggies 2024

They may be deleted once they appear on BitSavers (thanks Al!) to save our limited space/traffic.

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