800K/400K Superdrive Access up to OS X 10.2.8?

[Mac128]

Trying to compile a system compatibility matrix for floppy media. Technically speaking the beige PowerMac G3 series are the only Macs supported by OS X with a built-in Superdrive and officially dropped support for those machines with 10.2.8. I know from this Apple TIL that the OS X Server released in March 1999 will read 400K & 800K disks, but not write to them.

The question is whether these G3 Macs with Superdrives will read 800K (and 400K) disks under the OS X Public Beta, and OS X 10.0 through 10.2.8. Another thread seems to confirm that Panther definitely ends support for the Superdrive, which makes sense since Apple dropped support for the last Macs that supported them. But the thread also seems to indicate that Disk Utilities under 10.0 – 10.2.8 will format 800K disks, which suggests it can at least read if not write to them (i.e. can it make disk images of them?). Of course it says nothing about 400K disks. Also, if these versions of OS X support the Superdrives on these Macs, it would be interesting to see if it supports the Superdrives under the PowerPC processor upgrade hacks to run OS X as well.

Since OS 8 dropped support for the 400K disks, it would be interesting to know if OS X added back that support if only temporarily. In particular, is there anybody with the OS X Server software that can verify the TIL article? This may be the origin of MFSLives.

 

[Charlieman]

Technically, Mac OS did not drop support for 400KB disks with Mac OS 7.6.x. With System 7.5.x, a lot of floppy disk handling shifted from the core OS to PC Exchange, or whatever it was called that day. So when you insert your 400KB disk into a Mac running OS 8.1, it is being rejected by PC Exchange, not core OS.

I found some hand written notes about 400KB disk handling a few days ago, so I'll post them over the weekend.