I've done quite a bit of Googling and I *think* I've figured the situation out, maybe, but perhaps someone here could help me confirm if I've got it right.
My recently acquired Fat Mac (512k, no 'e') has the normal 400k drive internally, and also came with an 800k external drive. Said drive is a model M0131, the one with no eject button or passthrough connector. The drive seems to work fine when the machine is booted from a System 3.2/Finder 5.3/HD-20 init disk in the internal drive, but I found that the Mac won't boot from the external drive (I remember thinking that Macs were supposedly bootable from either drive), and in fact I've gotten a couple "Sad Macs" that seem to be associated with having a disk in the drive at all at boot time. The machine only came with the System disk so until yesterday that's all I knew. Now I have MacWrite and MacPaint, generated on a Plus via DiskCopy 4.2. Said floppies have System 2.0, Finder 4.1 on them and boot the 512k on the internal drive, but the external drive doesn't appear to work properly. (If I insert a disk I get a "System Error" crash.)
Further digging suggests that in order for that model 800k drive to work *requires* the HD-20 init be present on the system disk booted in the internal drive and that this mechanism isn't bootable on the 512k. Is that indeed true? (Wikipedia's article about Apple floppy drives states with regard to the later "A9M0106" model: "But, unlike the Macintosh 800K External Drive, the Apple 3.5" Drive can be used natively with the 64K ROM stock Macintosh 128K & 512K without the HD20 INIT, but only with 400K MFS formatted disks.") If so that's sort of a bummer. Can someone confirm that the later model drive actually works seamlessly as a 400k drive with a 128k or 512k? (Or, conversely, that the problems I'm seeing aren't unique to something wrong with my system?) I might need to add the later model drive to my mental swap meet shopping list.
On the flip side I could always mostly work around the problem by just transferring software to the later version System disk I guess, but the "HD-20 Startup" disk I have only has a few K free on it. (IE, it has less space free on it than a 2.0/4.1 floppy *with MacPaint or MacWrite* on it.) I haven't had the chance to experiment yet, but is it possible to:
A: Copy the "System" folder to formatted 800k disk
B: Copy the desired application(s) to said disk
C: Boot from the HD-20 startup, insert the 800k disk in the external drive, and then remove the HD-20 startup so I can use a 400k data disk?
(And D: Are there things I can strip out of a 3.2/5.3 System folder to make it smaller?)
Also relating to the 512k: I finally got my Ethernet->Localtalk bridge bridging with the Mac Plus. Of course that has me itching to see if the 512k can join the Netatalk fun. I have a 9 pin to 3 pin "Localtalk Wiring" dongle for the 512k, but the Ethernet bridge and the dongle for the Plus is PhoneNet. I've tried looking up a schematic for DIY-ing a PhoneNet connector and the few leads always redirect to a schematic for "CapNet". By any chance has anyone here actually cooked up a "CapNet" connector and successfully used it on a network mixed with commercial PhoneNet devices with any success? (Or is there a simple way to connect the existing LocalTalk dongle I have to the Phonenet segment? I've seen hints that adapters for that existed.)
Mucho thanks, and sorry for being such a noob when it comes to this truly ancient hardware.
My recently acquired Fat Mac (512k, no 'e') has the normal 400k drive internally, and also came with an 800k external drive. Said drive is a model M0131, the one with no eject button or passthrough connector. The drive seems to work fine when the machine is booted from a System 3.2/Finder 5.3/HD-20 init disk in the internal drive, but I found that the Mac won't boot from the external drive (I remember thinking that Macs were supposedly bootable from either drive), and in fact I've gotten a couple "Sad Macs" that seem to be associated with having a disk in the drive at all at boot time. The machine only came with the System disk so until yesterday that's all I knew. Now I have MacWrite and MacPaint, generated on a Plus via DiskCopy 4.2. Said floppies have System 2.0, Finder 4.1 on them and boot the 512k on the internal drive, but the external drive doesn't appear to work properly. (If I insert a disk I get a "System Error" crash.)
Further digging suggests that in order for that model 800k drive to work *requires* the HD-20 init be present on the system disk booted in the internal drive and that this mechanism isn't bootable on the 512k. Is that indeed true? (Wikipedia's article about Apple floppy drives states with regard to the later "A9M0106" model: "But, unlike the Macintosh 800K External Drive, the Apple 3.5" Drive can be used natively with the 64K ROM stock Macintosh 128K & 512K without the HD20 INIT, but only with 400K MFS formatted disks.") If so that's sort of a bummer. Can someone confirm that the later model drive actually works seamlessly as a 400k drive with a 128k or 512k? (Or, conversely, that the problems I'm seeing aren't unique to something wrong with my system?) I might need to add the later model drive to my mental swap meet shopping list.
On the flip side I could always mostly work around the problem by just transferring software to the later version System disk I guess, but the "HD-20 Startup" disk I have only has a few K free on it. (IE, it has less space free on it than a 2.0/4.1 floppy *with MacPaint or MacWrite* on it.) I haven't had the chance to experiment yet, but is it possible to:
A: Copy the "System" folder to formatted 800k disk
B: Copy the desired application(s) to said disk
C: Boot from the HD-20 startup, insert the 800k disk in the external drive, and then remove the HD-20 startup so I can use a 400k data disk?
(And D: Are there things I can strip out of a 3.2/5.3 System folder to make it smaller?)
Also relating to the 512k: I finally got my Ethernet->Localtalk bridge bridging with the Mac Plus. Of course that has me itching to see if the 512k can join the Netatalk fun. I have a 9 pin to 3 pin "Localtalk Wiring" dongle for the 512k, but the Ethernet bridge and the dongle for the Plus is PhoneNet. I've tried looking up a schematic for DIY-ing a PhoneNet connector and the few leads always redirect to a schematic for "CapNet". By any chance has anyone here actually cooked up a "CapNet" connector and successfully used it on a network mixed with commercial PhoneNet devices with any success? (Or is there a simple way to connect the existing LocalTalk dongle I have to the Phonenet segment? I've seen hints that adapters for that existed.)
Mucho thanks, and sorry for being such a noob when it comes to this truly ancient hardware.