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Macintosh Plus 1MB Won't boot Help/Guidance?

RubyRoo

RubyRoo

Active member
Hiya everyone! I recently (As in a few moments before writing this post) Just joined the forums. This SEEMED to be the proper section to post this thread but if it isn't i give my biggest apologies!

When i was 14-15(Born in 03) I purchased a 1mb Macintosh Plus setup from a local pawn shop. It didn't come with a boot disk which i didn't know it needed because i was totally jaded. But i thought it was the coolest thing ever. Since it's been in my possession I've tried to learn to make boot disks using emulators or virtual machines and i just don't get it. The few times i've successfully done it the disk would never boot on the real hardware. likewise i had another Macintosh Community member who was local make a disk which also did not work. I considered purchasing a disk online but i must admit to complete ignorance on what i have to buy. I was kind of hoping on some guidance for the most user-friendly setup for a mac plus. Preferably ones where i can just write stuff onto disks from my desktop and have it work on it.

If i sound ignorant or like an idiot please let me know. I kind of just want to get this thing working
 
C

cheesestraws

Well-known member
Welcome to the forum! How far does your Mac get booting? Do you get to the flashing question mark? It's entirely possible that your floppy drive is somehow knackered - they're full of moving parts, after all.
 
RubyRoo

RubyRoo

Active member
So it boots to the floppy disk icon that wants you to insert the system disk. So i insert a disk that 'should' have the files on it and the disk drive will spin it around for a bit. and spit it out. the floppy disk icon on the screen will blink X.
I took the disk drive out of the macintosh itself and have the IDE cable stuck outside so i could watch the mechanism to make sure it worked.
 
Phipli

Phipli

Well-known member
If you have the funds available, it might be more fun / useful to use a SCSI SD card adapter. You can plug one into the 25 pin connector on the back and it acts as a hard disk. This gives you way more room for software and files than a floppy would.

I almost never use floppy disks, they are less reliable sadly :)

Would that be of interest?
 
RubyRoo

RubyRoo

Active member
Well it depends how much it costs. It sounds alot more useful. And i'm not exactly broke as i repair Pinball/Arcade machines as a job/hobby. But i'm not really interested in paying $300 for a adapter y'know?
 
Phipli

Phipli

Well-known member
RubyRoo said:
Well it depends how much it costs. It sounds alot more useful. And i'm not exactly broke as i repair Pinball/Arcade machines as a job/hobby. But i'm not really interested in paying $300 for a adapter y'know?
Click to expand...
Sure. There are a load of options, I think in the 60USD region (I'm not in the Americas and they effectively cost more for me due to shipping / tax etc).

Keep in mind...

If you want to power one straight from the machine, you need to do the "diode mod" - if you repair arcade/pinball machines I suspect you will be fine at that.

How's your soldering? If you don't mind surface mount, the cheapest option is to make your own.

These look good and have an amazing feature set :


SillyTinySCSI - Smallest SCSI emulator! (ZuluSCSI OSHW)

As mentioned in the ZuluSCSI Pico thread, this is a firmware-compatible derivative of @rabbitholecomputing's ZuluSCSI OSHW with the goal of making the smallest SCSI emulator. It omits the Initiator and switchable termination of the full ZuluSCSI devices, but is otherwise feature-complete...
68kmla.org 68kmla.org

Design is here :
github.com

GitHub - ZigZagJoe/SillyTinySCSI

Contribute to ZigZagJoe/SillyTinySCSI development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com github.com

Otherwise there are other boards available such as the multiple types of ZuluSCSI, the MacSD and BlueSCSI V2 (don't get a BlueSCSI V1 because they are a terrible design electrically).
 
Phipli

Phipli

Well-known member
RubyRoo said:
Would something like this work? https://decromancer.ca/scsi2sd/#zuluscsi
I don't mind external power i don't really want to modify the mac itself if i don't have to. Kind of just looking for the easiest/basic setup with as little wiring needed as possible.
Click to expand...
The one called "ZuluSCSI Mini RP2040" would be perfect, and I believe can be powered by USB from a charger. It plugs straight in to the back of the computer.

Most of the others on that page, you'd need cable adapters.
 
Phipli

Phipli

Well-known member
RubyRoo said:
View attachment 68809Aww man so expensive
Click to expand...
Right, I just confirmed that the mini one that zigzagjoe designed can actually be powered through the raspberry pi Pico's USB port.

SillyTinySCSI - Smallest SCSI emulator! (ZuluSCSI OSHW)

As mentioned in the ZuluSCSI Pico thread, this is a firmware-compatible derivative of @rabbitholecomputing's ZuluSCSI OSHW with the goal of making the smallest SCSI emulator. It omits the Initiator and switchable termination of the full ZuluSCSI devices, but is otherwise feature-complete...
68kmla.org 68kmla.org

I recommend enquiring regarding shipping here :


It is still a ZuluSCSI.
 
Phipli

Phipli

Well-known member
Going to have to vanish - it's 1am here.

Good luck. Others about will be able to give guidance, otherwise I'll be about tomorrow.
 
Mk.558

Mk.558

Well-known member
With a Macintosh Plus, the SCSI port is your only realistic option when it comes to expansion options. It's also quite likely you don't have a second FDD, so the SCSI option you saw mentioned above is a superior option. So it may be a bit expensive, but of all the items you can come up with today, it's by far the best. Think about this: We didn't have this kind of stuff 10 years ago.

If, for some reason that is not an option, then you'll have to make do with a single FDD (assuming you only have one) and some kind of bridge box that can write 800KiB floppies. Let's assume you have 4MiB of memory, which even today is so cheap I won't even count it as an expense, the only way you're going to be using that thing is with a 1MiB-ish RAM disk that holds the OS and maybe a few minor programs, which frees up the floppy drive. As you'll (likely) only have 1 floppy drive, I can guarantee that the experience will be "less than favorable".

The single best disk I can recommend is a System 2.01 NAD, which was specifically designed for this scenario.
 
RubyRoo

RubyRoo

Active member
Aww! I know realistically it's smart to buy the SCSI but floppy disks would've been cool. Zig Ended up getting back to me so gonna funnel him over some money (or try to anyways) And will have him send me one of his fancy gizmo's
 
RubyRoo

RubyRoo

Active member
So something i forgot to ask earlier and was curious was if this was normal operation for the mac plus?
When the screen turns on and it loads into the floppy disk icon screen (with the question mark waiting for a boot disk) The rest of the screen is black and there is what looks like a white dot that is scanning from the top of the screen to the bottom.

View attachment 421600036_7107763279342903_6952008148451796614_n.mp4
The icon is just because i don't have a disk. but the rest of the black screen and the white dot. is that cause for concern? won't know until the SCSI arrives?
 
68kPlus

68kPlus

Well-known member
RubyRoo said:
So something i forgot to ask earlier and was curious was if this was normal operation for the mac plus?
When the screen turns on and it loads into the floppy disk icon screen (with the question mark waiting for a boot disk) The rest of the screen is black and there is what looks like a white dot that is scanning from the top of the screen to the bottom.

View attachment 68822
The icon is just because i don't have a disk. but the rest of the black screen and the white dot. is that cause for concern? won't know until the SCSI arrives?
Click to expand...
Yeah that doesn't look right. I've never seen anything like that to be honest.
 
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