Macintosh Plus!!!

[Apostrophe]

Hi,

Just bought this as a Buy-It-Now on eBay for a total of $50.00.

The seller includes the keyboard, mouse, and even the owner's guide as well! So overall, I'd say, a great eBay deal for a great machine!

Macintosh Plus

I probably won't be looking to buy any other machines now; the best way to help these machines is to not have too many, or else they just sit there. I have a Centris 610 and a Macintosh 512k to fix up, and just recently my grandparents gave me a Windows ME laptop that they had no use for. Not to mention the PowerBook G4 also sitting in my room that my dad wants me to fix...I keep telling him that its OS has gotten corrupted, and it just needs a fresh copy of Mac OS 10.4, but of course he hasn't gotten it yet. So I'm literally overflowing with machines here.

And if anyone can offer me any spare 400k floppy drives they may have, internal or external, let me know.

A spare floppy drive or two would certainly come in handy now that I've got a couple of early floppy-driven Macs...

-Apostrophe

 

[Dog Cow]

Hi,And if anyone can offer me any spare 400k floppy drives they may have, internal or external, let me know.

A spare floppy drive or two would certainly come in handy now that I've got a couple of early floppy-driven Macs...

-Apostrophe

Save those for the 128k/512k machines. The Plus used 800k drives. Look for any Apple IIgs 3.5" drive. They all work. There was an 800k drive made just for the Macintosh, but it is not so common.

 

[Apostrophe]

Thanks Dog Cow,

Yeah, I did some research some time after my post to find out what I needed to know about a Mac Plus, and to my surprise I saw that, as you said, it uses an 800k drive! The Plus, in fact, seems like a bit of a mixture between a 512k and an SE--which makes sense, figuring that that was the order the machines were respectively produced!

So I will look for an Apple IIGS drive. Thanks for that tip.

And I'll post back here with pictures of the Plus once it arrives!

-Apostrophe

 

[JRL]

x2 cheap compatible 800k drives:

Linky

 

[Apostrophe]

Hi,

Thanks JRL; I've actually been watching those for a while now.

But from my research about these drives, I found that they will not work on my Macintosh 512k without special software, which can only come from a floppy disk that has to be inserted into the internal drive. So those external 3.5's have to be used as the second floppy disk. So I must redouble my efforts in finding more info on that 400k internal drive so that I can know more about their mechanisms, in order to find what's sticking and fix it. It's so frustrating; no websites seem to have detailed info on how these drives work. :-/

-Apostrophe

 

[Mac128]

But from my research about these drives, I found that they will not work on my Macintosh 512k without special software, which can only come from a floppy disk that has to be inserted into the internal drive. So those external 3.5's have to be used as the second floppy disk. So I must redouble my efforts in finding more info on that 400k internal drive so that I can know more about their mechanisms, in order to find what's sticking and fix it.

Actually no. Apple intended the external Apple 3.5" Drive (A9M0106 – originally introduced with the Apple IIgs) as a universal replacement for all computers, including the 512K (and unofficially the 128K). The Apple 3.5" Drive is 100% compatible with 512K without special software or the 128K ROM. You can boot from it with 400K MFS formatted disks, format, erase and use any 400K MFS formatted disks and even format a double sided disk as 800K MFS. What you cannot do is use it as an 800K HFS drive without the HD20 INIT startup disk, but it will boot from the HD20 INIT disk allowing it to be used as the primary drive with HFS. The internal 800K drive mechanism used in it is also fully compatible as an internal 512K drive. NOT all 800K drive mechanisms are. You can read more about it here.

However, I recommend you both learn to fix your 400K drives and use them when working with 400K files and disk images (I don't fully trust an 800K or Superdrive to properly format the drives) :beige:

You have your choice of a functioning drive, with no special warranties, for a starting bid of $.99 from mercasaurus, or a "serviced" drive, for a buy it now price of $149.84 from from danapplemacman. Obviously the more you know about maintaining your own equipment, the less you have to pay for it!

Presumably you have visited this excellent site already.

 

[Apostrophe]

Thanks Mac128!

Yes, I've been to that website you linked to; the pictures are a bit fuzzy, however, and there is no description of what exactly the insert/eject mechanism should do. For instance, does it 'sink' a few mm when you put in the disk, or does it stay put?

I'll do more digging to find the answers to these questions.

Thanks for the eBay links, I'll look at those!

-Apostrophe

 

[Mac128]

there is no description of what exactly the insert/eject mechanism should do. For instance, does it 'sink' a few mm when you put in the disk, or does it stay put?

It drops approximately the thickness of the disk. Get yourself a copy of Larry Pina's book as it has an excellent chapter on dealing with 400K drive maintenance with pictures.

 

[Scott Baret]

A bit of insight on the floppy drives...

There were five different non-Powerbook external 3.5" drives produced by Apple during the 1980s and 1990s that plugged into the floppy drive port. Make sure you look at the drives carefully when purchasing them to make sure you get the right one. (Both of the ones in the auction linked to this thread would work).

The 400K drive has a raised Apple logo much like the pre-ADB keyboards and mice that shipped with Macs. It does not have a colored logo and has the same indentation on the right side of the floppy slot as the 128K/512K/Plus drive. All are beige.

The Apple 3.5" drive was usually bundled with the IIGS but should work on anything. Mac128K's comments apply to this drive. It's recognizable by its red access light and eject button with a paper clip hole in the middle of it. These drives are platinum and were originally designed to match the IIGS.

The Macintosh 800K drive was sold with the Plus and later. It does not work on Apple II computers and lacks both the eject button and indicator light. These were most commonly bundled with Pluses and are all beige to my knowledge. Apple seemed to drop this drive in favor of the Apple 3.5" drive at some point in the late 1980s, perhaps because this drive was so similar to the 3.5" drive and because the 3.5" drive was platinum instead of beige (Apple went to all-platinum computers in 1987). This drive was introduced before the 3.5" drive.

The UniDisk 3.5" is the same white as the IIc and early ImageWriter IIs. This drive was designed exclusively for Apple IIs. There is a way to pull the onboard Apple II cable to make this drive Mac-compatible. It required a special card to be used with the IIe (if memory serves me correctly it's called the Liron card or something similar; I have the card and drive somewhere and can double-check when I go into the storage closet sometime). These are relatively rare. The drives themselves are 800K drives and will work with the IIe, IIGS, and IIc. They have unique eject buttons that protrude quite a bit from the case and are separate from the paper clip hole. These drives also have red access lights.

The external SuperDrive looks identical to the Apple 3.5" drive but is marked "FDHD" on the front. They should work as 800K drives if plugged into a computer that does not support the SuperDrive. These are also uncommon (this is the only one of these five drive types I have never encountered in 20+ years of working with Apples).

 

[Mac128]

A bit of insight on the floppy drives...

And for further reading:

http://www.vintagemacworld.com/drives.html

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_External_Disk_Drive

 

[Apostrophe]

Hi,

It just arrived!

This poor Plus looks like it came from a bad home. It was absolutely filthy, and the power connector where you plug the power cable into is all rusted, green like a penny. I'll find some de-rusting product to take care of that...

I have not yet turned it on. The seller claims it works, so we'll see. I'm currently focusing a small fan on it to cool it off (it just traveled 2,000 miles in a warm little box) and I will use that same fan to keep it cool while it's running. (Thanks a lot Steve Jobs. > )

Anyway, here it is next to one of my SE's:




And here it is by itself:




-Apostrophe

 

[Apostrophe]

It boots!!!

I was worried the FDD wouldn't work after a week and 2,000 miles in transit. I was wrong. It booted from and ran the 400k system disks that shipped with my Macintosh 512k!!! Problem is: it spat out the 800k disks that I prepared for it on one of my SEs.

So it's either that the two read/write heads in the Plus's drive are misaligned, and so only the lower one works when it's alone (hence the 400ks being read but not the 800ks)...or else my SE fudged up the disks.

But I'm not too worried; I'll do more experimentation in the future and I'll figure all this out.

In the meantime, here are pics of the Plus running MacPaint, MacWrite, and a program called Amazing that came on the Macintosh Tour disk.

MacPaint:




MacWrite:




Amazing (easy and hard levels):







-Apostrophe

 

[LCGuy]

Good to see that it arrived safely and works, despite the rusted power connector!

 

[Mac128]

It booted from and ran the 400k system disks that shipped with my Macintosh 512k!!! Problem is: it spat out the 800k disks that I prepared for it on one of my SEs.

I hope those 400K disks are copies and not originals, and you have them backed up someplace. NEVER stick anything in an untested drive you don't expect to get trashed.

There could be any number of problems causing the disk incompatibilities in the 800K drives. Since the 400K disk is only read from one side, head alignment is the most likely culprit. The 800K drive shipped with the yellow plastic insert to prevent head damage during shipment as the heads did not park. Most likely this is why it is not properly reading the 800K disks (as both heads have to align to read alternating information from both sides at once). It could also be the 400K/800K switch not recognizing the 800K disk so it doesn't know to read both sides. Your SE could also be slightly out of alignment for the very same reason, though it works perfectly well internally to disks it formats itself. Also note: if your Mac has been running a while and is hot when you make the disks, the media itself could expand causing a misalignment after it cools. The best time to format a disk is when the machine is cool.

 

[Apostrophe]

So it's either that the two read/write heads in the Plus's drive are misaligned, and so only the lower one works when it's alone (hence the 400ks being read but not the 800ks)...or else my SE fudged up the disks.

So it looks like my theories are well-founded after all...

NEVER stick anything in an untested drive you don't expect to get trashed.

Yeah, I'm aware of that. What can I say, I'm a risk taker!

But I'm not too worried; I'll do more experimentation in the future and I'll figure all this out.

Tonight I'll turn the Plus on again and do some file-saving experimentation with 800k disks, seeing if the Plus can read its own disks, and whether the SEs can read the disks the Plus makes. I'll pinpoint this issue!

And then I'll unplug it, wait a few days, and then open it up to check for any capacitor leakage. I don't want any corroded traces...

-Apostrophe