Prepping an LC 475 for an Apple IIe Card

[Rezmason]

Hello! This is my first post here. Nice place, you guys.

First off, I know my way around a Mac. But as you guys know, it doesn't take an engineering degree to work with a pizza box LC.

Two months ago I saw an LC 475 sitting outside someone's office. I made some phone calls, did some online bidding and rummaged through the basement, and now it's sitting on my desk with an Ethernet card and 36 megs of physical RAM. It's running Mac OS 7.6.

I named it Elsie. I thought that was creative at the time, but now it looks like it isn't.

I just got an Apple IIe card in the mail, and because it requires 24-bit memory addressing (which OS 7.6 doesn't allow), I just backed up and repartitioned the hard disk to have 10 megs of ProDOS and a 10-meg System 7.5.5 partition. My plan was to boot up in 7.5.5 whenever I wanted to use the Apple IIe card.

But for some reason, when I select the 7.5.5 partition in the Startup Disk control panel, it boots into 7.6. And when I reopen the control panel, both partitions are highlighted. What's going on? Please tell me I can boot from separate partitions of the same disk. :-/

 

[Charlieman]

What utility did you use to create the second disk partition? Some utilities don't always work or don't deliver bootable partitions as you have discovered. Edit: In what order did you create your partitions? It should be Mac volume, Mac volume, ProDOS volume.

Check that the System 7.5.x System Folder is blessed, and try booting again. Otherwise, try using System Switcher.

 

[Rezmason]

I'm using the Drive Setup utility (v.7.3.5) on the Mac OS 7.6 boot/install disk to partition the drive. When I partition the drive, I am only given the "Mac volume" option once– when there is no preexisting "Mac volume" partition.

What there is is "Additional Mac Volume". When I create one of these partitions, it automatically bumps down to the "bottom" of the partition table. Because of this, my partitions were Mac volume, ProDOS volume, (additional) Mac volume.

What I didn't notice before is a button called "Group". That might shift the additional Mac volume up the partition table, so that the partitions are in the order you described. [update: Well that did it. It'll take a while to determine whether that'll fix the problem, though.]

The System 7.5.x System Folder had the typical System Folder icon, so I assume it was blessed. Where can I find this "System Switcher"?

 

[Charlieman]

For "System Switcher", Google or look at Gamba. "System Switcher" was an unofficial Apple hack.

 

[Rezmason]

Thanks, I found "System Picker", which now lets me switch between System Folders. I'm one step closer to the prize.

My next problem is, I need to boot my machine with 32-bit addressing disabled. OS 7.6 is the first OS to force 32-bit addressing; that's why I'm working with multiple systems in the first place– System 7.5.x allows 24-bit addressing.

However, when I configure 7.5.x this way and restart the machine, it begins to boot 7.5.x, stops, resets, and boots into 7.6 with 32-bit addressing turned on.

So. Is this a hardware issue– a problem with the LC 475, or maybe the physical memory I installed? Or is this a software issue– something that could be fixed with an extension, or an app, or worst case scenario, removing OS 7.6?

 

[porter]

You may have to solve the problem with separate physical disk drives, or at least prove something with that arrangement.

What is the need for 7.6?

 

[Rezmason]

You may have to solve the problem with separate physical disk drives, or at least prove something with that arrangement.

I'll just wipe the 7.6 drive, it's entirely backed up. As an aside, is it possible to boot from a Zip disk? Could I use removable, Zip media to boot into 7.5.x? That would be much more convenient.

What is the need for 7.6?

I'm trying to remember... I think it's required for Shareway IP, something about Open Transport.

Update: I wiped 7.6, and now the machine can boot with 24-bit memory addressing. So, this is a tough call: should I keep using 7.6 and search for the problem, or give up 7.6 and update 7.5.x to 7.5.5? Does anyone else here use OS 7.6? Is it important for any reason?

 

[Gil]

Does anyone else here use OS 7.6? Is it important for any reason?

All I can think of is that 7.6 is a lot more stable than the 7.5.x versions.

 

[equill]

Although it relates principally to production of data CDs, this contains much that could be useful to you.

de

 

[Rezmason]

Well, I've installed 7.5.5 and things are looking good, except for one thing: I can't connect to the internet. "Error -23009", insufficient resources, which sounds to me like a router issue... except that when I run OS 7.6 (zip 100 boot disk, so apparently that works), I don't get any error at all. Fantastic.

So! Has anyone got any ideas? I'm going to try to dig up a walkthrough that might cover this, since those are usually idiot proof. Worst case scenario, I restore my previous 7.6 system from backup, install 7.5.5 on the zip disk and use that to support the Apple IIe card. But that sounds pretty complicated. :-/

 

[Gil]

I'm assuming you're connecting via Ethernet. Are the extensions installed? TCP/IP configured?

 

[Rezmason]

I'm assuming you're connecting via Ethernet. Are the extensions installed? TCP/IP configured?

I've got the "TCP/IP" (v1.1.2) control panel, and it's configured to use a "DHCP Server". The addresses and masks all say "< will be supplied by server >".

I've got these network-related extensions:

• Apple Ethernet stuff, v1.0.3
  
• Apple Built-In Ethernet, v1.0.5
  
• Internet Config Extension, v2.0.2
  
• Network Extension, v7.5.5
  
• Open Transport stuff, v1.1.2
  
• TokenTalk (what is this? it sounds useless)
  
• Text Tool, TTY Tool, and a bunch of other Tools

I don't think I'm missing any. I've tried swapping these and other extensions with their OS 7.6 counterparts, without much luck, though frankly there wasn't any method to doing that.