-
Updated 2023-07-12: Hello, Guest! Welcome back, and be sure to check out this follow-up post about our outage a week or so ago.
540MB MO in Fujitsu 640MB DynaMO?
- Thread starter trag
- Start date
MrFahrenheit
Well-known member
Having just done a bunch of research on this topic (because I just purchased my first MO drive) I have found that (at least with Fujitsu) they seem to be fully backwards compatible all the way down to 128mb disks. Now I could be wrong but that’s what I found.
I do hope this is right, because I just purchased a bunch of varying sizes of media for three different drives I just acquired (230mb, 1300mb, 2300mb).
Thank you, MrFahrenheit. For some reason your post prompted me to do a little searching, I should have done at the beginning. I don't know why I didn't think of it before. I guess it never occurred to me that Fujitsu might still have the manual on line.
Anyway, the Fujitsu Dynamo MO manual is still on their site, and specifically lists 540MB disks as supported.
https://www.fujitsu.com/downloads/COMP/fcpa/mo/discontinued/dynamo-640se_user-guide.pdf
Anyway, the Fujitsu Dynamo MO manual is still on their site, and specifically lists 540MB disks as supported.
https://www.fujitsu.com/downloads/COMP/fcpa/mo/discontinued/dynamo-640se_user-guide.pdf
MrFahrenheit
Well-known member
You’re welcome. It’s unbelievable that they would keep their support documents up for devices as old as these. I wish they had their Mac driver up there as well but I haven’t been able to find it. Hoping one of the drives I bought has a Fujitsu Mac driver.
MrFahrenheit
Well-known member
I have a 2300SF coming. Not sure if it’s got a driver disc or not. The pictures weren’t clear.
I have a 1300SF coming that has no driver. I would expect the 2300 and 1300 should share the same driver. Also a MCM3130AP (IDE version of the Fujitsu 1.3GB) is on its way. I want to put this internal to my Dual G4 where the Zip goes.
I managed to find a copy of Fujitsu 2.3.8 driver I believe. I’ll have to see if it works when I get the drives. OS X should work natively from what I’ve found. Fujitsu is awesome in that I’ve found the manual PDFs and specifications on their site and possibly the drivers too.
I have an Olympus 230 brand new sealed so I should be fine with that one.
Can you confirm what driver you use on your 640mb ?
ArmorAlley
Well-known member
I have a Fujitsu DynaMO 1300 FE (firewire edition) complete with box, manuals and floppy & CD. Let me know if you want images of them. I plugged it into my mac mini G4 and it was recognised automatically.
MrFahrenheit
Well-known member
Thank you @ArmorAlley. I want to be able to use my drives with 68k and early PowerPC Macs and so I need the drivers for System 7+. I did find a driver on Fujitsu website but I’m not sure if it works. Would you be able to image the disks you have and upload them? The driver on Fujitsu is an extension (MDF 2.3.8 I think) and an app that erases the disks.
olePigeon
Well-known member
@MrFahrenheit This is the driver I use: http://bitcider.com/content/f/Fujitsu Magneto Optical Software 2.3.8/MDF_2.3.8.image.bin
I seem to recall someone even tested it on System 6.
I seem to recall someone even tested it on System 6.
MrFahrenheit
Well-known member
I posted an image of the CDROM that came with the external SCSI 640MB DynaMO drive here: https://www.prismnet.com/~trag/Mac_Drivers/
The disk is imaged using Apple Disk Copy 6.3.3. I think Anarchie must have added the .bin. So it looks like you might need software to de-binhex it and then Disk Copy to mount the image. When it's all uncompressed, it's only about 50MB.
MrFahrenheit
Well-known member
Awesome!!
I’ll download on my G4, unstuff it, and copy over using my Zip drives.
Thanks so much !
MrFahrenheit
Well-known member
I bought a Fujitsu 2300 SCSI (2.3GB) and would you believe they use the exact same version on the cd accompanying that drive? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a new version of a drive ship with a driver that hadn’t changed in years prior. I guess their hardware remained generally unchanged enough to be able to do that. Boggles my mind.
That is surprising. I think software didn't churn as much in the past as it does now.
olePigeon
Well-known member
Technically you could use it without the driver if you don't mind restarting the computer every time you want to change discs.
Something I found interesting is that the Fujitsu drive has a jumper setting to mimic a HDD. It disables the eject button, and the drive reports as a HDD instead of a Removable Media drive. I suspect a feature that was popular with multimedia kiosks when they moved away from Laserdiscs and CD-ROMs.
Something I found interesting is that the Fujitsu drive has a jumper setting to mimic a HDD. It disables the eject button, and the drive reports as a HDD instead of a Removable Media drive. I suspect a feature that was popular with multimedia kiosks when they moved away from Laserdiscs and CD-ROMs.
olePigeon
Well-known member
Forgot to mention that I have a small collection of MO drives that I've been retrofitting in my other Macs. The following video is pretty old, but it's one of my favorites. I installed a 230MB MO drive in my LC along with a 2.5" drive hidden in the middle. That way my LC was utilizing both floppy drive locations, but still had a HDD. It's a bit hard to push in because it's not auto-inject like a floppy, but it's still useable.
I suspect something similar could be done with a Macintosh SE. Floppy on top or bottom, with the MO drive in the other slot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CvgkJrH9Sc
I suspect something similar could be done with a Macintosh SE. Floppy on top or bottom, with the MO drive in the other slot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CvgkJrH9Sc
Last edited by a moderator:
olePigeon
Well-known member
Also, I forgot that I had made some icons if you want to use them with your disks:
https://68kmla.org/forums/topic/49581-mo-disk-icons/?tab=comments#comment-521024
https://68kmla.org/forums/topic/49581-mo-disk-icons/?tab=comments#comment-521024
MrFahrenheit
Well-known member
Hi All,
I recently managed to score a couple of MO drives for relatively cheap money.
In Japan (where I’m currently based), the format was very popular, so it’s indeed easy to find drives and blank media.
One drive has already arrived, the second one is on the way, both SCSI units from Fujitsu. I had no experience with MO drives (except with the father of them all, the one in the NeXT Computer…), so I trusted the vendor that was showing the disk mounted on a Mac desktop.
The first drive arrived in really excellent conditions, I would say “as new”.
And in fact, when I connect it to my SE / 30, everything works fine. I can even boot from the external disk.
So, everything cool, except for the eject function.
Both hardware and software eject work, but if I take out the disk, the eject mechanism is not remaining opened, but it folds over and inserting another disk becomes impossible. So, the only way is to mechanically operate the emergency eject and lift the frame until it’s possible to slide in a disk. There must be something wrong.
As I have seen already a mention to this issue in this thread, I would like to know if there’s any workaround (specific configuration for the dip switches?) I should be aware of, before I even consider checking if it’s a mechanical failure of some kind due to the age of the drive (Rubber parts? Worn out gears?).
Thanks in advance for any advice!
I recently managed to score a couple of MO drives for relatively cheap money.
In Japan (where I’m currently based), the format was very popular, so it’s indeed easy to find drives and blank media.
One drive has already arrived, the second one is on the way, both SCSI units from Fujitsu. I had no experience with MO drives (except with the father of them all, the one in the NeXT Computer…), so I trusted the vendor that was showing the disk mounted on a Mac desktop.
The first drive arrived in really excellent conditions, I would say “as new”.
And in fact, when I connect it to my SE / 30, everything works fine. I can even boot from the external disk.
So, everything cool, except for the eject function.
Both hardware and software eject work, but if I take out the disk, the eject mechanism is not remaining opened, but it folds over and inserting another disk becomes impossible. So, the only way is to mechanically operate the emergency eject and lift the frame until it’s possible to slide in a disk. There must be something wrong.
As I have seen already a mention to this issue in this thread, I would like to know if there’s any workaround (specific configuration for the dip switches?) I should be aware of, before I even consider checking if it’s a mechanical failure of some kind due to the age of the drive (Rubber parts? Worn out gears?).
Thanks in advance for any advice!
