Macintosh Plus RAM disk and some questions

[petey293]

Hey all! I'm looking at picking up a Macintosh Plus (RAM upgraded to 4Mb), and have absolutely no experience with these older machines. Just wanted to ask a couple questions to those that are familiar with them:

I won't have an external disk drive to go with it (may go the scsi2sd or Floppy Emu route in the future) and I was wondering about the machine's usability in this state. It sounds like lots of programs would still be able to fit on the startup disk with System 4, but I was wondering if there was a way to use the entire disk. Somebody recommended taking a look at a RAM disk program, but I'm not familiar with how they work.

I'm hoping I would be able to boot with a startup disk in the internal drive, then create the ram disk and move the contents of the startup disk into it, at which point I would be able to eject the startup disk and use another disk in the internal drive. Would you then have to reboot from the RAM disk? Or does the system automatically switch over?

Is this possible with one of these programs? I suppose I'd have to move the RAM disk program onto the startup disk, I'm hoping an 800k disk would have enough room left over to hold it. I've got a Performa 577 that I'm hoping will be able to write the 800k disks. Is it correct that these newer 68k machines can also write the 800k disks in addition to the 1.44Mb?

Thank you for the assistance!

 

[Realitystorm]

I am thinking of making some 800k disk images for my site.  My plan is to include a ram disk extension setup as 800k (assuming a 2MB or more ram).  https://www.savagetaylor.com/downloads/downloads-macintosh/

Once the system boots, you can copy your system and finder files from the disk and to the ram disk, then then "bless" the copy of Finder on the RAM disk by double-clicking its icon while holding Command-Option.

After you do that you'll be able to switch disks since Finder will be running of the RAM disk.

I'll have to play a bit to see if I can get this working on down to a 1MB machine, a 512Ke disk might be possible too.  Possibly a 400k with even older versions.

Your Performa should be able to write 800k disks.