Best Hard Disk Environment for Apple IIe?

Retronaut

New Tinkerer
May 11, 2025
23
13
3
Hey, I have two HD options for my Apple IIe, one is the Fast Apple SCSI card, which I could use with a BlueSCSI, and another option is a Booti. The SCSI card is destined for my IIgs, but either way, Im inexperienced with an Apple II and I am pondering what the best HD environment/setup is for a IIe?
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Obviously I can have the multiple Disks mountable via the Booti, but... I can keep these drives formatted with ProDOS and booting to BASIC, but that would be a pretty slow UX. I would be able to navigate using DOS, load files etc. But is there a better option?
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I know there is the Apple II Desktop, a mouse driven GUI. Problem is, I DO have an suitable Apple Mouse, but NOT the mouse card. I THINK I can use a joystick as a stand-in for this, but I would imagine thats pretty janky?
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There was also MouseText based UI, did anyone ever make a full desktop GUI using this? Again, I guess lack of mouse is an issue.
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Other than these, is there maybe a better text/menu based option, where I can list usual suspects? I do know about Total Replay and Instant Replay. So yes, I can mount those two as images, but I am wondering about other general use, for example, say I wanted to launch Ultima III and then AppleWorks..
 

thecloud

New Tinkerer
Oct 2, 2025
7
2
3
There's always A2osX, which is a recently developed Unix-like OS (layered on top of ProDOS) for the enhanced-ROM //e and the IIgs. It claims to be multi-user and multi-tasking. Navigation would be with `cd` and `ls`, like on a Unix/Linux system, and can be scripted. You say you're inexperienced with an Apple II but if you have experience with modern CLIs then this might be an option to check out.