Great news for owners of the Apple II Liron disk controller card: the latest Floppy Emu disk emulator firmware adds Liron support. This means that for the first time, it’s now possible to emulate 32 MB hard disks on an Apple II+ or IIe with the Floppy Emu!
The Liron is a “smart” disk controller for the II+ and IIe, using the same Smartport protocol as the Apple IIc, IIc+, and IIgs. It was originally designed to work with the Unidisk 3.5 inch floppy drive, but other Liron-compatible third-party external hard drives were later developed. With this new firmware, the Floppy Emu is able to emulate one of these hard drives, bringing an exciting new capability to the II+ and IIe.
Smartport emulation with the Liron card works nearly identically to the IIc, IIc+, and IIgs, as described in section 10.4 of the Floppy Emu manual. Connect the Emu to the Liron card, use the Emu’s menus to select Smartport mode, and populate your SD card with up to four disk images. These will appear as four virtual hard drives connected to your II+ or IIe.
Depending on your Apple II model and its version of the autostart ROM, the Liron-connected disk may or may not automatically boot when the power is turned on. If you have an older model that doesn’t autostart the Liron, type PR#7 to get things started (or PR#N if your Liron card is in slot N).
This is new firmware, so your help with testing is appreciated. If you tried the new firmware and it worked fine, please let me know. If it didn’t work, definitely let me know. Try it in Smartport mode with the Liron of course, but also try it with the built-in Smartport of your IIc, IIc+, or IIgs to verify it still works there too, and doesn’t interfere with other types of drives that are also present in the daisy chain.
Download the new firmware here:
Floppy Emu Model A – apple-II-0.1T-F16
Floppy Emu Model B – apple-II-0.1T-F18-modelB