**Driv3rs.py** is a Python script written for Apple /// fans. The Apple /// was one of the first computers to introduce the concept of device drivers, small programs that allowed a user to interact with hardware on-board, internally installed, or attached to the computer externally. Over the course of the few years of the Apple ///'s existence, hardware manufacturers built devices and wrote device drivers to support those devices. However, the Apple /// simply didn't achieve as much prominence as the Apple II-series. Therefore, a lot of drivers remain either undiscovered or long-forgotten.
Driv3rs.py hopes to help that situation. Given an SOS.DRIVER file properly exported from an imaged Apple /// disk, Driv3rs.py can produce a Comma Separated Values (CSV) file. This CSV contains a whole host of information including device name, commentary, manufacturer, among many other potentially useful pieces of information.
When using an Apple ///, users would run a utility called the System Configuration Program (SCP) to install and uninstall drivers. Once the user chose all the needed drivers, the user would create a new bootable floppy disk. This disk contained the files necessary to boot Apple's Sophisticated Operating System (SOS) and the companion SOS.DRIVER file. From that driver file, all the needed drivers would load into memory upon boot.
Driv3rs.py works by opening the SOS.DRIVER file and then walks the Device Information Block (DIB) for every driver found within. The information gathered closely parallels the outlined DIB published in Apple's "Apple /// SOS Device Driver Writer's Guide." All information is eventually stored in the output CSV file.
(**Note:** If you choose the output name of a CSV file that already exists, Driv3rs.py will append the new SOS.DRIVER file's contents to the existing CSV file. This is handy if you're processing multiple SOS.DRIVER files.)
AppleCommander is a utility written in Java for Apple II users. It allows manipulation of many different types of Apple II-based imaged floppy disks, including disks formatted in DOS 3.2, 3.3 and ProDOS. Apple's Sophisticated Operating System (SOS) is ProDOS's predecessor. Therefore, AppleCommander ProDOS features can be used to easily export files from SOS disks.
Because AppleCommander is written in Java, you must have Java on your workstation in order to use it. AppleCommander's command-line functions work fine in Java 8. However, AppleCommander's GUI requires the 32-bit version of Java 6 which is very old at this date and is vulnerable to security issues. In short, we recommended using AppleCommander's command-line features in Java 8 rather than installing Java 6.