Has anyone ever seen a cleaner SE?

[Dog Cow]

It's backwards compatible with 800k, but I think that SuperDrives will not work with 400k.

What? Have you actually tried using 400K disks in your SuperDrive?

I have. I have an SE/30 with a SuperDrive, and I have plenty of 400K MFS disks that work fine it it. I also have a Power Mac G3 with a SuperDrive, and I can read 400K disks A-OK with it too.

 

[Recaptcha]

Why on earth would you think that? Have you actually tried using 400K disks in your SuperDrive?

I have. I have an SE/30 with a SuperDrive, and I have plenty of 400K MFS disks that work fine it it. I also have a Power Mac G3 with a SuperDrive, and I can read 400K disks A-OK with it too.

I have the first batch of SuperDrives, and I HAVE tried 400ks. They DON’T work. I also have a nearly identical SuperDrive that DOES work, but the model numbers are different. 

My my first batch SuperDrive doesn’t work with 800k either. CCAdams says it’s a difference in models. 

 

[Gorgonops]

400K disks in your SuperDrive?

Re: this, yes, there's absolutely no reason why a drive that supports 800k wouldn't work with 400k disks. They're exactly the same physical format. Later versions of the MacOS gradually deprecated *support* for the 400k format (IE, it's read-only after, what, 7.6?), but yes, any machine with a SuperDrive should be okay to read/image 400k disks.

(I may be mis-remembering the details here, but my recollection is that you definitely should not connect a 400k *drive* to a machine with a SuperDrive controller, or vice-versa, because Apple re-used pin that used to supply the PWM signal for something else on SuperDrives and you can theoretically smoke something by doing so.)

I have the first batch of SuperDrives, and I HAVE tried 400ks. They DON’T work.

This is the first I've ever heard of this. Do you have a link where this is said in an authoritative manner? This would be a major problem if it's supposedly "first batch" SuperDrives that don't work, because at that point in time essentially every Mac disk in circulation would be 400/800k.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

.  .  .  Apple re-used pin that used to supply the PWM signal for something else on SuperDrives and you can theoretically smoke something by doing so.

More Magic Smoke loosely packed into products brought to you by the folks within the Infinite Loopiness! :lol:

 

[Cory5412]

(IE, it's read-only after, what, 7.6?),

You can write to 400k diskettes with up to 7.1. You can read from 400k diskettes with up to 7.6.1, per LEM. So, like, I'm a little suspicious of the claim that a Beige G3 will read a 400k diskette.

However, we all know what LEM wrote about the 6200, for literally twenty years, and continues to double-down on, so, there's a possibility this information is incorrect. (Especially since Dog Cow says they've done it.)

This would be a major problem if it's supposedly "first batch" SuperDrives that don't work, because at that point in time essentially every Mac disk in circulation would be 400/800k.

I, also, do not Apple, even 1989 "the beginning of the bad time" Apple, would have shipped a machine like this.

More Magic Smoke loosely packed into products brought to you by the folks within the Infinite Loopiness!

The manual would likely have provided a warning on this, especially for any Mac with an external diskette drive port.

In addition, I don't believe "a superdrive and an 800k drive" is a stock configuration in any Mac that supported dual floppies. By the time of the superdrive, I can't imagine why anybody would want that. I can't say whether or not 800k+SuperDrive would work, but I personally have never seen any situation or heard any anecdote about an FDHD/SuperDrive not working well with a 400k or 800k diskette. If those stories exist, they're buried in the one place I've never looked: usenet.

 

[Cory5412]

Yes, You could get the SuperDrive with two floppies, but wasn't it a bit uncommon? You never see them on eBay...

You know, I don't actually know. By 1989, I imagine that dual floppy diskette drives, even 1.44-meg ones, even with still-tiny system 6, was beginning to feel limited. The Mac LC (1990) was technically available dual-floppy, the second connector is on the motherboard and the second opening is on the case, but as far as I know, very very very few of those shipped dual floppy.

Classic Mac OS is relatively bad at i/o, so I actually imagine a triple-floppy system would be quite bad to use, day-to-day.

What I was trying to say was that apple used the Term SuperDrive from the later G3 iMac's internal drive up to the external burner for the MacBook Air and Mac Mini...

Sure, but all of them are DVD burners. They never used it for a CD burner or a CDRW/DVD-ROM or anything else. This seems to me the same as saying that the 1.44 megabyte diskette drive is fundamentally "multiple" products because it appears in different systems, and in different eras, Apple used different floppy drive part numbers from different manufacturers.

 

[Dog Cow]

You can write to 400k diskettes with up to 7.1. You can read from 400k diskettes with up to 7.6.1, per LEM. So, like, I'm a little suspicious of the claim that a Beige G3 will read a 400k diskette.

Try this:

1.) Launch Disk Copy on the Power Mac G3 running OS 9.

2.) Make a new disk image

I imaged dozens of old single-sided disks using a G3. It had a PCI USB card, so I'd copy all the .img files onto a USB flash drive, and away I went.

 

[Recaptcha]

Re: this, yes, there's absolutely no reason why a drive that supports 800k wouldn't work with 400k disks. They're exactly the same physical format. Later versions of the MacOS gradually deprecated *support* for the 400k format (IE, it's read-only after, what, 7.6?), but yes, any machine with a SuperDrive should be okay to read/image 400k disks.

(I may be mis-remembering the details here, but my recollection is that you definitely should not connect a 400k *drive* to a machine with a SuperDrive controller, or vice-versa, because Apple re-used pin that used to supply the PWM signal for something else on SuperDrives and you can theoretically smoke something by doing so.)

This is the first I've ever heard of this. Do you have a link where this is said in an authoritative manner? This would be a major problem if it's supposedly "first batch" SuperDrives that don't work, because at that point in time essentially every Mac disk in circulation would be 400/800k.

Ok, So I have two SuperDrives in my SE. One came with it, and the other I purchased separately.

They have different model numbers. One is a 11G, and the other is a 01G.

IView attachment IMG_0044.HEIC

I'm putting the machine back together now to re-test...

I'm really not lying here, guys.

 

[Cory5412]

Try this:

1.) Launch Disk Copy on the Power Mac G3 running OS 9.

2.) Make a new disk image

Do the diskettes mount in finder? Perhaps that's what LEM was writing about.

Good to know you can use a beige to image them.

 

[Recaptcha]

Ok, So I have two SuperDrives in my SE. One came with it, and the other I purchased separately.

They have different model numbers. One is a 11G, and the other is a 01G.

IView attachment 26942

I'm putting the machine back together now to re-test...

I'm really not lying here, guys.

OK, the 01G will not read 400k/800k disks at all. It will not boot from them, and you cannot use the finder in ANY system to get them to work.

The 01G was assembled in the USA, and if you compare the labels and serials, there are some definite differences. I told you, this is the first batch of Supers.

 

[Cory5412]

Out of curiosity, have you done all the usual cleaning and maintenance to both drives? Like I said, this seems like something someone would've written about somewhere before.

@Dog Cow - you've got a Mac-related Usenet archive up. Have you ever seen any posts about early FDHD/Superdisk mechanisms (either stock machines or upgrades, I'd presume both could have this error) having problems?

I haven't read much MacWorld before around 1991 or so - I don't know how much would've been in there by then. The best I could do on this front is take a couple 800k diskettes I have and know work in my Plus and pop them in, gosh, an SE/30 or IIsi I've got and see what happens.

 

[Recaptcha]

Out of curiosity, have you done all the usual cleaning and maintenance to both drives? Like I said, this seems like something someone would've written about somewhere before.

@Dog Cow - you've got a Mac-related Usenet archive up. Have you ever seen any posts about early FDHD/Superdisk mechanisms (either stock machines or upgrades, I'd presume both could have this error) having problems?

I haven't read much MacWorld before around 1991 or so - I don't know how much would've been in there by then. The best I could do on this front is take a couple 800k diskettes I have and know work in my Plus and pop them in, gosh, an SE/30 or IIsi I've got and see what happens.

I have cleaned and maintenance both, and I have also used only one or the other in a single drive setup... with the same results.

I will tell you this, if I pop an 800k/400k in the drive that won't read them, let finder kick it out, place it in the one that will work, and then place it back in the one that doesn't work, It will then read the disk just fine!

But this is only if the both drives are present! If you are using just the older drive that won't work, than it will never read a disk.

I believe this is a glitch with this particular drive. I am convinced of this, even if no one else is...

 

[Cory5412]

The fact that it can be made to be intermittent makes me that much more suspicious. I don't doubt that you're seeing this issue, but I do kind of doubt that it was a problem when this machine was new 30 years ago.

 

[Recaptcha]

The fact that it can be made to be intermittent makes me that much more suspicious. I don't doubt that you're seeing this issue, but I do kind of doubt that it was a problem when this machine was new 30 years ago.

It's not intermittent. It's like clockwork. Every single time you place the disk in the one drive, it will magically work on the drive that doesn't usually see 800k/400k. Every time, no exceptions.

The drive isn't bad, it has no read/write issues with 1.44 disks.

 

[Paralel]

The fact that it can be made to do it does indeed make it seem like a machine issue relative to the way the two drives behave in that SE. If it could never read them, regardless of what you do, that would be one thing. The fact that it can be made to do so indicates that it is indeed capable, but something isn't right and is preventing it from doing so.

So, due to some kind of issue, it doesn't WANT to, but it CAN indeed do so, making it the same as every other Superdrive in the universe.

 

[Recaptcha]

The fact that it can be made to do it does indeed make it seem like a machine issue relative to the way the two drives behave in that SE. If it could never read them, regardless of what you do, that would be one thing. The fact that it can be made to do so indicates that it is indeed capable, but something isn't right and is preventing it from doing so.

So, due to some kind of issue, it doesn't WANT to, but it CAN indeed do so, making it the same as every other Superdrive in the universe.

That I understand. I think that the drive itself is broken in some way though. Simply because of regardless what slot the good drive is in, it will always work the same.

 

[Paralel]

That I understand. I think that the drive itself is broken in some way though. Simply because of regardless what slot the good drive is in, it will always work the same.

I would say probably just something like a misalignment, so, not broken, just needs a little adjustment.

 

[Dog Cow]

Do the diskettes mount in finder? Perhaps that's what LEM was writing about.

I don't believe so. Yes, that's probably what LEM was writing about. The operating system won't mount them, but the drive is still capable of reading them.

 

[Cory5412]

Makes sense, given the Beige G3s use the same drives that were shipping the literal previous day in all the various sytstems with 7.6.1 and earlier on them.

 

[Dog Cow]

@Dog Cow - you've got a Mac-related Usenet archive up. Have you ever seen any posts about early FDHD/Superdisk mechanisms (either stock machines or upgrades, I'd presume both could have this error) having problems?

Sure. Searching comp.sys.mac for "SuperDrive" and "400K" brings up a couple posts. There are several mentioning the SuperDrive's capability of reading 400K, 800K, and HD disks.

FDHD problem?

SUMMARY! Everyone with an FDHD (SuperDrive)

Here's Apple's press release for the Mac SE FDHD in August 1989:

 The FDHD SuperDrive also reads 800k and 400k floppy disks, ensuring compatibility with other Macintosh systems.   In addition, FDHD SuperDrive enables users to exchange data files between Macintosh and Apple II, MS-DOS, and OS/2 based systems.