Cataloging my floppies...

[Anonymous Freak]

Okay, I have started the process of cataloging my floppy disk collection. I've just done the Apple 'System' disks, and am up to 163 unique disks, 334 including duplicates.

I have the following systems:

5.0, 6.0.1, 6.0.2, 6.0.3, 6.0.4, 6.0.5, 6.0.7 on HD, 6.0.8 on DD, 7.0 on HD, 7.0.1 on HD, 7.1 on both DD and HD, 7.1.1 Pro, 7.5. I also have two different versions of System 7 Tune-Up, System 7.5 Update 2.0, 7.5.5 Update, and the Disk Tools disks for 7.6 and 8.0.

Interestingly, one set of 7.5 says "Version 1.0" on the back, while three other sets say "Version 7.5" on the back. The "Disk 1" has different part numbers between the two variations, but disks 2+ have the same part number, in spite of the stated version difference.)

I also have the custom "Install Me First", Disk Tools, and sometimes an extra disk or two for the following systems (all otherwise use standard 7.1 disk sets other than the two or three custom disks

"Centris 610, 650, Quadra 800", "Centris 660AV, Quadra 840AV", "Quadra 610, 650", "Quadra 660AV, 840AV", LC III, "PowerBook 160 180", "PowerBook 160, 180, 165c, 180c", "PowerBook 160, 165, 180, 165c, 180c", "PowerBook Duo 210, 230", "PowerBook Duo Family", "PowerBook Duo" (this one can boot the 280c, while "Family" can not.)

I also have a "System Enablers" disk that is for 7.0-7.1.1 that includes pretty much every enabler for every machine that can run a system before 7.1.2.

I also have the same type of sets for 7.1.2 for the "Quadra 630, LC 630" and "PowerBook 520, 520c, 540, 540c" In spite of the fact that the Quadra/LC 630 is technically 7.1.2P and the PowerBooks are "just plain" 7.1.2, the "Goodies" and "Printing and Fonts" disks are identical between the two.

In addition, I have the Disk Tools for the following 7.5 machines:

"PowerBook 5300 series", "PowerBook 5300 and 190 series", "PowerBook 5300/2300/190 series plus PowerPC Upgrades", "PowerBook Duo 2300 series" ("series"? I thought there was only the 'c' model?), "PowerBook 1400 series"

Lastly, I have the "Your Apple Tour of..." "A Closer Look At..." and "Looking Inside..." disks for the:

IIc Plus, SE (two different versions,) II, IIx, SE/30, IIcx, IIci, Portable, Iisi, and IIfx. (Although the IIfx disk is blank, missing the original content! If anyone has this disk, I'd appreciate a disk image of it.)

Tomorrow I should get around to cataloging the hardware driver disks (printers, modems, monitors, etc,) as well as the 'application' disks (HyperCard, AppleShare.) Those are probably another 50-70 disks.

Oh, and I have 10 'complete' sets of System 7.1 (Install through Tidbits, not including Disk Tools.) 12 copies of 7.1 Printing, Fonts, and Tidbits. Plus one 800k disk copy. I also have 5 complete sets of 7.0.1, and 5 complete copies of System 5.0. I also have 10 "Your Apple Tour of the Macintosh SE" disks. Four of the newer 'rainbow logo' style disks, and six of the older 'black stripe' style disks.

Now when I have about a month of downtime, I may get around to creating disk images of them all.....

P.S., this thread is a (rather late) followup to my List of Apple CDs thread from last November.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Okay, finished the non-system floppies... (And found a few more System floppies, too. I now have 13 sets of 7.1.)

Total 253 unique disks, 452 individual floppies. The oldest are copyright 1985 "Printer Installation Disk" and "LaserWriter and LaserWriter Plus Fonts Disk". Both single sided. (I also have a 1987 MacTerminal single-sided disk.) Both the MacTerminal and the Printer Installation disk have System folders with System 3.2, Finder 5.3.

I also have two still shrink-wrapped copies of HyperCard, one shrink-wrapped "Special Features of your Macintosh IIsi" that contains a disk somewhere inside, and two shrink-wrapped boxes of AppleShare 4.0.2. The disks in the shrink-wrapped containers are *NOT* counted in my count above. This counts ONLY my actual Apple-labeled disks, not third-party software, or any "official copies". (I have two disks that have very plain computer-printed labels reading "SYSTEM DISK - 800k / SYSTEM 4.1 / FINDER 5.5 / ©APPLE, 1987", knowing the source that I got the disks from, these are likely disks that were given directly by Apple as updates.)

And while I still don't have a copy of the elusive System 6.0.6, I *DO* have a "Macintosh Basics" disk that includes System file 6.0.6, but no Finder.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Two more additions: I found an odd copy of "Macintosh PC Exchange" that is on what is definitely an Apple-printed label, but it's of a style I have never seen before. (After I image the disks, I'll have to scan the labels...)

And, I found two boxed copies of MacProject 1! One is complete 1.2, with the audio tape still shrink-wrapped, but missing the 800k disk; the other is missing the manuals, but is version 1.0. (1.0 has the 'logo-style' labels, with two 400k disks, one that is MacProject itself, the other is "A Guided Tour" that goes with the shrink-wrapped audio tape. 1.2 has the newer "black stripe" labels, and originally came with three disks; the same two above, plus one on an 800k disk. In all cases, the disks are bootable.)

New total 257 unique disks, 457 individual floppies. I also found a couple more sealed HyperCard packets which contain a disk.

In addition, I found my Claris disks. I have Claris-branded HyperCard, two copies of MacDraw II (different sub-versions,) two copies of MacDraw Pro (different sub-versions,) FileMaker Pro 2, MacPaint, ClarisDraw, and ClarisImpact.

Finally, I found my Microsoft disks. I have Word 4.0, 5.0, 5.1; Excel 3.0 and 4.0, PowerPoint 3.0, and "Office 4.2.1 for Macintosh and Power Macintosh". (This only includes the Macintosh disks. I have plenty more DOS and Windows disks.)

 

[Aoresteen]

And while I still don't have a copy of the elusive System 6.0.6, I *DO* have a "Macintosh Basics" disk that includes System file 6.0.6, but no Finder.

AF,

I have never been able to get a copy of 6.0.6. It's been on my hit list for years. If you ever run accross it I'd love a disk image of it!

This quite a collection of disks! Image them and burn them to a CD.

 

[pvolkmann]

Anonymous, would you be interested in selling a System7.1 set of 800K disks? I'll send back the floppies if you need them. Thanks.

 

[Scott Baret]

I'll be cataloging floppies myself soon. Schedules have been hectic this semester but as soon as I get some breathing room I will hopefully catalog my stuff.

There are a lot of disks in both variety and quantity. All of my software is on original disks and I have several sets for some programs. In the past I used to sell off extras that I may have gotten in a lot from someone but as I have acquired more Macs I have taken advantage of extra licenses. Even with old software I'm meticulous about one copy per computer.

I think I have at least 4 or 5 System 7.1s. I also have what I believe to be the largest collection of Print Shop software for multiple platforms on the planet.

I also save original boxes if I get them. I'm thinking of making a collage out of them or something. My favorite packaging has to be MacDraw II.

I also collect floppy disks from various companies. My favorite make to collect is 3M.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

I only have one copy of 7.1 on 800k floppies, so I'm not willing to sell my one set. But I could make a copy of them for you.

One thing to remember is that Apple includes a license for the original OS, and all free updates, WITH THE COMPUTER. You do not need a set of disks for the license to be valid. And for system software earlier than 7, all the updates were free, all you had to do was ask.

In addition, the versions Apple makes available on their web site are obviously free, and you do not need a set, since Apple freely offers those.

 

[pvolkmann]

Thanks, Anonymous. Would you make a set for me. I'll handle shipping if you want, and return the disks for your use.

The System 7.0X software on Apple's site were imaged using Diskcopy 6.0X, and this requires System 7 to run. Kind of a Catch-22. I tried working in Mini vMac emulator, but could get my Plus to recognize the image. I even tried eBay, but no luck.

Your help will be greatly appreciated. Tanks.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

And while I still don't have a copy of the elusive System 6.0.6, I *DO* have a "Macintosh Basics" disk that includes System file 6.0.6, but no Finder.

AF,

I have never been able to get a copy of 6.0.6. It's been on my hit list for years. If you ever run accross it I'd love a disk image of it!

This quite a collection of disks! Image them and burn them to a CD.

What's sad is that the 'computer kit' that contained the Mac Basics with 6.0.6 contained a set of 6.0.7 floppies that had "6.0.7" on a big green sticker slapped on the disks, and were in a folder that proclaimed the new 6.0.7. Under the stickers, it says 6.0.6!

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Thanks, Anonymous. Would you make a set for me. I'll handle shipping if you want, and return the disks for your use.
The System 7.0X software on Apple's site were imaged using Diskcopy 6.0X, and this requires System 7 to run. Kind of a Catch-22. I tried working in Mini vMac emulator, but could get my Plus to recognize the image. I even tried eBay, but no luck.

Your help will be greatly appreciated. Tanks.

I've got the set all ready. Give me a mailing address, and I'll get them on their way.

Oh, and Disk Copy 6.3.3 is perfectly happy to read and write disk images to and from any Mac floppy. I have successfully read and written a 400 KB MFS disk using 6.3.3 on a beige G3 running Mac OS 9.2.2. (Even though Mac OS 9 can't natively read 400K disks!) Disk Copy makes the image, then spits the disk out. If you try to MOUNT the resulting disk image in OS 9, it fails, though. But a disk written that way mounts just fine on my System 6 machine.

Of course, if all you have is the 128k and the Plus, that doesn't really help you.

 

[Blessed Cheesemaker]

Are you using any particular program to do the cataloging for you?

 

[Scott Baret]

I'm going to use FileMaker II, actually.

 

[pvolkmann]

Anonymous, I sent you a PM with address info. Thanks.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

heh. I just made a spreadsheet. (Excel 5 on Mac OS 7.1, to be precise. It's nice, Excel 5 files are fully two-way compatible with Excel 2008.)

pv, they'll be on their way sometime early next week. (Sorry, personal issues have cropped up.)

 

[Dan 7.1]

unfortunately it doesn't go much farther than that. a word document i type up in Word 1 on my 128k will not be read by any subsequent version of office. the oldest i have after 1 is office 4.2.1, and it just will not do it.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Yeah, Excel 5 is the cutoff. Excel 4 or earlier aren't forward-compatible.

Word is similar, I believe the cutoff there is 5.1. One of the big problems is that for many versions, the Mac versions used completely different file formats than the Windows versions. I believe they didn't truly become the same until Office '97/Windows and Office '98/Mac. Office:Mac has retained compatibility with SOME older Mac versions, but not all, just as Office:Windows has retained some compatibility with older Windows versions, but not all.

Even worse is Microsoft Works. Horribly incompatible with just about everything, and changes its own internal formats every few versions, with no backward compatibility.

 

[Scott Baret]

Even worse is Microsoft Works. Horribly incompatible with just about everything, and changes its own internal formats every few versions, with no backward compatibility.

When I was in middle and high school and was the school's in-house computer guy (for both faculty and students), I had a lot of people come to me and ask me why Word 2000 (what they had on the computers at school) wouldn't read what they did at home. Almost all of them were using Works. There were some pretty nasty looking TXT files created just so they could work on their stuff--albeit with all sorts of goofball characters in the middle of the documents.

I advised all of them to either type it in or at least save it in WordPad. That cleared up the problems.

Works was surprisingly easy to use--I have 2.0 for Windows--but it sure was a pain compatibility-wise.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Yeah, I have used Works in its various forms since version 2.0 for DOS; and the actual application is generally a perfectly good application. It is all compatibility issues.

 

[JRL]

AF, I would LOVE a PB 160 disk set, 7.5, and 7.1.1! Would you consider selling them?