Creating Floppies on eMac running OS 9

[TheMacGuy]

I was very happy to find out my eMac (original model) had a complete install of Mac OS 9 ready to be set up by me! I was very excited. Anyways, to the point of this thread...

I purchased a Newton Connection Utilities CD from eBay thinking that it would work with OS X 10.2 on my eMac. When I received it today, it wouldn't load. So I did a little digging. In System Preferences and saw in the Startup Disk area "Mac OS 9.2.2". I tried booting it with success! After setup (which was filmed), I tried installing the program again, NO LUCK. So I decided to dig around the internet again, and found Disk Copy has a "Create a Floppy" option. Which would be perfect because my PowerBook 5300cs running 7.6.1 has a floppy drive! I took out 4 new floppies from my small stock pile, plugged in my floppy drive, then formatted them for Mac OS Standard. I drug the Installer for the Newton software off the disk, went to Disk Copy and click "Utilities" in the menu bar. "Create a Floppy" was gray scaled and wouldn't work. I'm guessing because there is no internal floppy drive? But when I connected my external Floppy drive and put in a floppy, it mounted with a floppy image. Is there a way to create multiple floppies with the Newton Connection Utilities installer on them? I say multiple because the program is over 3.5 MB and standard floppies are only 1.44 MB.

Thanks.

[Mithrandir]

If you can find a copy of it, a program called "Compact Pro" excels at splitting large files into smaller parts that can fit on floppies. Just make sure that Compact Pro is installed on both computers, the one that is making the floppies, and the one that will be reading them. I use Compact Pro 1.5.2 on a regular basis to transfer larger files to my floppy only macs and it works great for me. I'm pretty sure that I cannot post any links due to copyright, but if you search around I am sure you will find a copy somewhere. Best of Luck.

[Mk.558]

I'm a bit confused on what you are intending to do. If I understand the concept correctly, you are attempting to install the Newton Software that came on a CD via floppy disks.

The Installer, like the Installer used to install Mac OS, requires that the installation folder be named exactly as it is supposed to be. Say you packed the Installer for AppleShare Client 3.7.4 in a folder named "ACS 3.7.4" for cases where reinstallation is required. It won't work, because the Installer is looking for a disk (or folder, sometimes) named "AppleShare Client".

The "Make A Floppy..." menu item will always be greyed out on machines that did not come with internal FDDs. EG. iMac, iBook, PowerMac G4, .... That selection is for writing disk images from the hard drive to a floppy disk. Since you're just copying software, just use Compact Pro to split it into 1.3MB sections and copy it all over, then decompress it. Alternatively....network it. There's a handy link in my sig which explains all this content and more.

[mcdermd]

Yea, as Mk said, when networked, you'll be able to mount the CD that is in the eMac on the 5300 or the floppy that is in the 5300 on the eMac.

[TheMacGuy]

Sadly, I don't have an Internet Card for my PowerBook. Anyway, I think I found a work around, let me know if you think this would work.

A friend is willing to sell me their PowerBook G3 Wallstreet with a CD/DVD drive and floppy drive expansion bay accessories. If I take the disk with the NCU 1.0 Installer (actual name of the program on the disk), put the installer on the PB G3 HDD via the disk drive, take out the disk drive put in the floppy drive, then use disk copy to make a set of floppies. Will this work? It sound like networking them is a pain.

[Mk.558]

The concept of networking your computers together is probably the best thing you could do to them, software-wise. If you only have an eMac for "older Macs", then head to eBay or ask around here (Or LEM Swap) for a LocalTalk to Ethernet bridge. I have a Farallon iPrint, there are others here with stuff like various Asanté models. It's all not that hard. Here I found some for you -- two for 10 dollars and shipping? sounds like a deal to me.

Disk Copy ...doesn't make floppies like that. It can make disk images, write disk images, mount, convert some, verify, and not much else. I prefer ShrinkWrap because it can do all that and has a batch floppy mode. It also does not have the option "Make A Floppy..." blurred out -- it can still write disk images to a floppy on a Mac that didn't come with a built in drive. It also can create images with custom sizes, 800Ks, 400Ks, I think it supports PC images (not sure), and more.

What you are saying is to split the installation directory into multiple floppies and recombine them. I'd still look strongly at networking -- according to my results, a floppy writes at about 8 or 9KB/sec, and LocalTalk is about 3 times faster than that. Better is Ethernet, but...yeah. You also don't have to deal with the basic properties of floppies that we all know too well -- sudden failures, slow copying and reading, interrupting the CPU (8.something and later let you copy in the background, but...it's still interrupted by user processes).

Here is the section where I discuss disk images, and I talk about LocalTalk here. It really is not that difficult.

[mcdermd]

Won't a 3COM Etherlink III ethernet card work in the 5300's PC Card slot? Those are dirt cheap - I bet you can find one for under $5.

In fact, ClassicHasClass maintains a page with the extension you need for the 3COM card: http://www.floodgap.com/retrotech/mac/enet3c589/