Macintosh, Lisa, and IIGS Dealer and Developer Floppy Disk trove

[David Cook]

I know what I'm going to do this winter if I get snowed in and lose internet access. I just received a box of ~750 floppy disks circa 1984-1987.



A couple of Apple tour disks. Looks like the IIcx one hasn't been uploaded yet.


Below, Silver Surfer is the 4D database before Apple cancelled their distribution of it. Maybe a newer version of Consulair C that hasn't been uploaded.



Pre-release Apple II Desktop v1.0B6? A small pile of IIgs stuff.


Lisa stuff


Most of the disks are hand labeled. But, these are nice official Lisa disks.


I'm not sure what I'm going to do next, other than get them out of my wife's kitchen before she gets upset. They need to warm up before I try to read or copy them.

Do people prefer .img format or just the files copied into a StuffIt archive? For .img, any particular version of Disk Copy that I should use?
Anything you see in the photos above that I should go after first?
I don't have a GS or Lisa -- so, not sure what to do there.

- David

 

[cheesestraws]

I'm highly intrigued by the "Mac build disk" in the first photo

 

[David Cook]

I'm highly intrigued by the "Mac build disk" in the first photo

The nearby disks are all Lisa. If it isn't in Mac format, it looks like I need DART to archive it.

Aside: The Lisa officially-labeled disks came with a business card.

 

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

Wow!

Including @MrFahrenheit for expert advice on creating image files.

 

[bigmessowires]

DiskCopy4.2 can make accurate images of Lisa disks on a Mac. You just need something that will preserve the tag bytes in each sector, which it does.

How about firing up that IIgs sales demo?

 

[cheesestraws]

The other advantage of diskcopy 4.2 is that the floppy emu can use it for people who want to play on real hardware

 

[MrFahrenheit]

Personally, I would use at least 3 different tools to read and archive them, so that it makes everyone happy. Some people say use this some say use that. Why not use all 3?

First, LOCK ALL DISKS!!! Inserting an unlocked disk could either ruin it, or write files to it that will alter it from being original.

DiskCopy 4.2 is a great way to initially preserve them.

Second, make an uncompressed image using DiskCopy 6.3.3.

Lastly, my preferred tool, Apple had a utility they used internally at the same time that DiskCopy 4.2 and DiskCopy 6 was being used by the public. That took us DART. You want version 1.5.3. Save them using that method as well.

Be sure to place the disk images are for the same set in a folder and then compress that folder with StuffIt 5.5. If you use older versions or later versions you could run into compatibility issue or loss of data when uploading.

I would make a single folder for the group of disk, and inside a sub folder for each of DiskCopy 4.2, DART 1.5.3, and DiskCopy 6.3.3 images. You could also copy the disk imaging program used inside each of those so that the end user just unstuffs the archive and is ready to go.

Others will suggest different methods they feel is superior to my methods. Like flux imaging or applesauce etc. I don’t have those tools or anything and have never tried them. If you have access to one it might be a better method, providing the files can be read and written back using a regular Apple disk drive by your average user.

 

[Andy]

With a pile that large it might be worth looking into the Applesauce https://applesaucefdc.com/ Not only to get flux images, but also for a faster workflow. Sadly they're still out of stock due to supply chain issues, but the developer hopes to have more early next year. It might be worth asking on their discord if there's someone near you that you can borrow from. There's a good community of preservers around it.

Oh yes, also the applesauce software allows for deserializing Lisa floppies. You might be able to use it on disk images made elsewhere too. Worth downloading the client software and taking a peek around.

 

[fri0701]

This is super cool! I hope you're able to dump them all and archive them somewhere.

Oh yes, also the applesauce software allows for deserializing Lisa floppies. You might be able to use it on disk images made elsewhere too. Worth downloading the client software and taking a peek around.

If you do deserialize any Lisa software you find, it would be good to save a version before deserialization as well. You can inspect the image and determine the serial number of the Lisa the software is bound to, which might be interesting.

 

[olePigeon]

What a treasure trove. I find it extremely therapeutic to archive floppy disks. And I love it when the disks are unique or rare.

 

[stepleton]

+1 to saving disk images prior to deserialisation.

Pace @MrFahrenheit , I would recommend NOT using DART or especially not Disk Copy 6.x for Lisa disks. Disk Copy 4.2 is the way to go for Lisa disks:

- DART stores critical data in the resource fork. For DC42, all the info you need is in the data fork. Storing the disk images on an OS besides MacOS? It's a chance to make a data-losing mistake. DC42 meanwhile is a relatively straightforward format that you can digest with a Python script in a pinch. Of course, if you're doing both DC42 and DART, there's not really much harm there.

- Much more importantly: Disk Copy 6 erases essential data on Lisa diskettes! Lisa 400k disks have 524-byte blocks: 512 data bytes and 12 additional "tag bytes". Mac HD floppies didn't make use of the tag bytes if I recall correctly, so Disk Copy 6 simply stopped storing them in any of its disk images. Unfortunately the Lisa OS uses those tag bytes for essential filesystem metadata. No tag bytes: disk image is unusable. Disk Copy 6 will trick you into thinking into you've archived your Lisa disks when you haven't --- the images are literally useless, so it's better not to use it at all.

Even Apple messed this up: one of their service CDs with disk images for most of its 32-bit systems at the time had Disk Copy 6 images of Lisa Office System 3.1 I believe. All worthless, since the tag bytes were obliterated.

Back to DART: I'm not aware of anything a DART disk image stores that a DC42 disk image doesn't.

But if you can get your hands on a flux imager: that's another method of choice. I have an Applesauce and the software for it (and the support for the software) is top notch.

Re: packing disk copy 4.2 disk images for the web? from Ray Arachelian on 2007-04-23 (lisalist1)

https://lisafaq.sunder.net/lisafaq-hw-media-floppy_dc42.html (see first "Caution" remark)

 

[MrFahrenheit]

+1 to saving disk images prior to deserialisation.

Pace @MrFahrenheit , I would recommend NOT using DART or especially not Disk Copy 6.x for Lisa disks. Disk Copy 4.2 is the way to go for Lisa disks:

- DART stores critical data in the resource fork. For DC42, all the info you need is in the data fork. Storing the disk images on an OS besides MacOS? It's a chance to make a data-losing mistake. DC42 meanwhile is a relatively straightforward format that you can digest with a Python script in a pinch. Of course, if you're doing both DC42 and DART, there's not really much harm there.

- Much more importantly: Disk Copy 6 erases essential data on Lisa diskettes! Lisa 400k disks have 524-byte blocks: 512 data bytes and 12 additional "tag bytes". Mac HD floppies didn't make use of the tag bytes if I recall correctly, so Disk Copy 6 simply stopped storing them in any of its disk images. Unfortunately the Lisa OS uses those tag bytes for essential filesystem metadata. No tag bytes: disk image is unusable. Disk Copy 6 will trick you into thinking into you've archived your Lisa disks when you haven't --- the images are literally useless, so it's better not to use it at all.

Even Apple messed this up: one of their service CDs with disk images for most of its 32-bit systems at the time had Disk Copy 6 images of Lisa Office System 3.1 I believe. All worthless, since the tag bytes were obliterated.

Back to DART: I'm not aware of anything a DART disk image stores that a DC42 disk image doesn't.

But if you can get your hands on a flux imager: that's another method of choice. I have an Applesauce and the software for it (and the support for the software) is top notch.

Re: packing disk copy 4.2 disk images for the web? from Ray Arachelian on 2007-04-23 (lisalist1)

https://lisafaq.sunder.net/lisafaq-hw-media-floppy_dc42.html (see first "Caution" remark)

I was not aware of the DC 6 issue regarding Lisa disks, but this is why I suggested using all 3 tools and locking the disks.

I guess the suggestion would be lock the disks, use DARR 1.5.3 and DC 4.2.

The stuffing of the images prevents the damage to resource forks when moved. Not sure about the necessity of concern there.

 

[stepleton]

I certainly don't disagree with locking the disks.

The stuffing of the images prevents the damage to resource forks when moved. Not sure about the necessity of concern there.

The philosophy I'm arguing from is one that minimises the opportunity for mistakes.

If you have DC42, DART, and DC6 images lying around, then the day could come down the road when someone decides to pare down the collection. "There are like three copies of the files here, and I don't know what the difference is, but Disk Copy 6 looks newer and it seems to work, so I went with that??" This hypothetical person's attempt to check with System 7.5 HD floppy images did not reveal the problem. Remember, even Apple messed this up --- should we assume that a hobbyist curating their own floppy image collection will do better?

Disk Copy 6 for Lisa disks: not even once! Don't give yourself any chance to make the same mistake Apple did. Even if you're using other formats alongside it, making a DC6 image is setting up a short pathway to data loss that simply doesn't need to be there.

That leaves DART and DC42. What mistakes can you make with a DART image? The same ones people have been making with resource forks since the 1980s. These days knowledge of resource forks is getting rarer and rarer, virtually all software made today has no capability for dealing with them, and I think we have to keep future noobs in mind. It just takes one copy of an unstuffed image to strip off the resource fork, a risk that simply does not exist for DC42.

There is no reason I can think of for DART images if we have working DC42 images, at least for Lisa disks. They are widely used in systems on many platforms, there's nothing DART images store that DC42 images don't AFAIK, the DC42 format is well-known and documented in many places, and (with some of that documentation as a prompt) ChatGPT could probably write code to read the images if you don't feel like doing that yourself.

 

[LaPorta]

My suggestion:

1. Lock as above.
2. Buy an AppleSauce as suggested, as well as disk sector sensor to install in your external SuperDrive (you do have one, right? ).
3. Make all disks into .a2r images, which preserves even the flux differences in the disk. Basically the most accurate image you can get of any disk. It will also image and store any proprietary copy protection schemes that utilize things like purposely placed bad blocks to prevent copying, etc. That could be dealt with later. The more important thing is that once the image is an .a2r, you can turn it into a DC42 .img easily right in the AppleSauce program...so no loss of anything.

 

[bigmessowires]

Applesauce and the Floppy Emu also both support MOOF format, which is a bit-level disk image of a 3.5 inch 400K or 800K floppy. This is a new format designed by Applesauce's creator, and that's only been around for a couple of years. At the bit level it doesn't matter if the disk is Macintosh or Lisa or serialized or copy-protected, or contains bad blocks, or other crazy schemes. MOOF may be a little easier to digest than raw flux transitions for most software.

 

[LaPorta]

Sure, that makes sense, too. I always like to see the .a2rs for museum-quality stuff (as well as being able to reproduce copy-protected disks once the scheme is found out). Either one you can turn into DC42 with the AppleSauce software..

...or you can just send me the whole horde of disks and I'll do it

 

[calvinchu1999]

I know what I'm going to do this winter if I get snowed in and lose internet access. I just received a box of ~750 floppy disks circa 1984-1987.

View attachment 66053

A couple of Apple tour disks. Looks like the IIcx one hasn't been uploaded yet.
View attachment 66054

Below, Silver Surfer is the 4D database before Apple cancelled their distribution of it. Maybe a newer version of Consulair C that hasn't been uploaded.

View attachment 66055

Pre-release Apple II Desktop v1.0B6? A small pile of IIgs stuff.
View attachment 66056

Lisa stuff
View attachment 66057
View attachment 66058
Most of the disks are hand labeled. But, these are nice official Lisa disks.
View attachment 66059

I'm not sure what I'm going to do next, other than get them out of my wife's kitchen before she gets upset. They need to warm up before I try to read or copy them.

Do people prefer .img format or just the files copied into a StuffIt archive? For .img, any particular version of Disk Copy that I should use?
Anything you see in the photos above that I should go after first?
I don't have a GS or Lisa -- so, not sure what to do there.

- David

this is really cool!

 

[David Cook]

I'm highly intrigued by the "Mac build disk" in the first photo

This disk is part of a set of developer tools and sample code. I've attached the 20 or so related disks that I've found so far. The "Sup" disks appear to be Lisa disks.

How about firing up that IIgs sales demo?

I don't have a GS, but attached below are the disks for you to try! Let me know if they copied okay.

DiskCopy 4.2 is a great way to initially preserve them.

then compress that folder with StuffIt 5.5.

I've followed your advice. Disk Copy 4.2 and StuffIt 5.5.1 (I assume the '..1' is a bug fix). Let me know if these disks read cleanly before I image any more of them. I notice the 400K disks do not mount in System 8.1, at least under Basilisk II. Did the System stop supporting that format?

Disk Copy 6 for Lisa disks: not even once!

Very interesting. Thank you for the warning.

n your external SuperDrive (you do have one, right?

Uhh. No. : ( I am using the best drive in my collection, which happens to be an internal auto-inject 1440 in a Mac IIsi.

..or you can just send me the whole horde of disks and I'll do it

Be careful what you wish for... I'm already tired of the pile.

37 disks imaged perfectly
3 had disk errors but not in the files (so a file copy worked, but imaging did not)
4 had disk errors in critical files

37/44 = 84% good rate so far
I'll try the bad disks on another drive at some point

- David

 

[David Cook]

MacWorld 1998 Exhibition venders list and floor layout

 

[David Cook]

Here are the disks for MacTest and MegaRAM from around 1985. Might be useful for owners of the original Mac 128K and 512K -- particularly if they have 3rd party upgraded RAM.