Power Macintosh 8500 Compatible CD-ROM

[thinkdifferent]

Does anyone know of a CD-ROM that would be compatible with both the Power Macintosh 8500 and the modern day Windows PC?

 

[Lateralus]

You mean a drive that would be interchangeable between two desktops?

Any Apple OEM SCSI CD should work in the Windows environment, assuming the Windows machine supports SCSI.

But why?

 

[thinkdifferent]

You mean a drive that would be interchangeable between two desktops?
Any Apple OEM SCSI CD should work in the Windows environment, assuming the Windows machine supports SCSI.

But why?

I have some files on my Powerbook 180 that I need to transfer to my Windows computer. (Windows computer does not have a floppy drive)

 

[Bunsen]

As long as you're running 8.6 or higher, you could put a generic USB card in the Mac and use an external USB CD (or hard drive or memory stick). It would save you having to dismantle the machines to transfer the drive.

You'll only get USB 1.1 speeds (12MB/s) on the Mac, unless you're using OS X via XPostFacto. And you'll need to download and install USB drivers under 8.6/9.x

 

[Brooklyn]

Could get/borrow a usb floppy for the windows computer.

 

[thinkdifferent]

The Power Macintosh 8500 doesn't have any USB ports. Mine has a single working Geoport for data transfer, that's it. Are you saying I should install a USB port on to the computer?

P.S. It is running OS 9.2

 

[paws]

As long as you're running 8.6 or higher, you could put a generic USB card in the Mac

 

[istar1018]

I'm not sure I fully understand, but if you're looking to transfer files from the 8500 to a Windows PC, you have a few options:

1. You could get a SCSI CD burner (I use a Yamaha, but I've also had good results with NEC / Sony drives), and install that in your Power Macintosh. Get yourself an old copy of Roxio's Toast, and you'll be able to burn Windows-compatible CDs, easily.

2. You could buy a USB floppy drive for your PC, and use your Mac's built-in floppy drive to read PC floppies. Aka sneakernet.

3. You could buy a USB PCI card for the 8500, install Apple's USB drivers under 8.5 / 8.6 and use some bargain basement flash drive.

4. You could use the built-in Ethernet on the Mac to either setup a file server or connect to the Windows machine setup as a file server. This can be tricky with older OS versions, but there's quite a few guides and utilities on the net.

Good luck!

 

[JRL]

You can always buy a internal floppy drive for your PC, which are often going for very cheap or free.