Sharing a Mac Plus SCSI2SD with other Macs

Burgertrench

Well-known member
I'm in the process of setting up a new to me Mac Plus for regular use. I have an external SCSI2SD v5, which I've set up according to the instructions for System 6.0.8 at savagetaylor.com. The machine booted fine with the basic 2GB image. I am hoping to use AppleTalk with my Asante Ethernet bridge to get files on to this Mac, but I don't have the network drivers installed, and I don't have any other Mac with a working floppy drive to copy them over. I plugged the SCSI2SD into my Performa 5400 running MacOS 8.6 and copied the installer across, but after that the Mac Plus no longer saw this as a bootable drive. I suspect the newer Mac automatically updated the disk drivers - does anyone know if this is the case, and if there is a way around it? I will be re-imaging the SD card using DD to make it bootable again, but If I can't use this drive with the Performa, I do have an SE/30 running 7.5.5, would this leave the disk in a format still compatible with the Plus? I'm trying to avoid having to update the disk image and re-burn it to the SD card each time I need to load files over.
 

cheesestraws

Well-known member
The Plus is notoriously picky about SCSI, unfortunately. You might be able to use HD SC Setup on the SE/30 to put the "old" driver back on, might be worth trying that?

In terms of file transfer for the ethernet driver, if you have a serial cable, you could just copy the driver over LocalTalk...
 

Burgertrench

Well-known member
The Plus is notoriously picky about SCSI, unfortunately. You might be able to use HD SC Setup on the SE/30 to put the "old" driver back on, might be worth trying that?

In terms of file transfer for the ethernet driver, if you have a serial cable, you could just copy the driver over LocalTalk...

I will give HD SC Setup a shot on the SE/30. I don't have a long enough serial cable yet, just the short one that came with my Asante Ethernet bridge. I'm ordering one but it will be after xmas before I get it.
 

Realitystorm

Well-known member
This is Steve from the SavageTaylor site, I typically use Basilisk II, to add any files I want to my drive images before I write the to the SD card, it drastically simplifies setup. You can also later use Basilisk II as a file server to you networked Macs. With the creation of MacSD, ZuluSCSI and BlueSCSI, I wasn't sure if people were still using SCSI2SD. Personally I use the two I have as internal drives, and use my ZuluSCSI as an external drive so I can directly edit the drive images on the SD, and include CD images for installing applications/system files
 
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Burgertrench

Well-known member
This is Steve from the SavageTaylor site, I typically use Basilisk II, to add any files I want to my drive images before I write the to the SD card, it drastically simplifies setup. You can also later use Basilisk II as a file server to you networked Macs.
Hey Steve, thanks for the great write up and resources on your site! I've used Basilisk when building a disk image for the SE/30, it works well. I wanted to see if it's feasible to load files to the SCSI2SD using other macs, since they all have network access and I can download direct from Macintosh Garden or my file server to them, which I find faster and easier than updating the image and re-burning it to SD. For some reason it took almost half an hour to burn the 2GB image to SD using my Mac Pro 4,1.
 

Realitystorm

Well-known member
I did experiment a bit with making an easier to update version, that you could try, It setups the SD card as FAT32 format with a set of volume images that can be directly mounted by Basilisk II or mini-vMac. No need to re-burn to the SD. For why it took so long to burn, could be a few things, the speed of your SD card, or how you had the SD card connected to your Mac Pro.
 

Burgertrench

Well-known member
I did experiment a bit with making an easier to update version, that you could try, It setups the SD card as FAT32 format with a set of volume images that can be directly mounted by Basilisk II or mini-vMac. No need to re-burn to the SD. For why it took so long to burn, could be a few things, the speed of your SD card, or how you had the SD card connected to your Mac Pro.
This would be handy if I can get it to work. Will try some of the above options and see how I go later today.
 

Burgertrench

Well-known member
Happy days, I managed to get the SCSI2SD v5 to boot the Mac Plus by using the SE/30 running 7.5.5 to format it and install System 6.
I can easily transfer files between the Mac Plus and SE/30 now using the SCSI2SD like a USB key and just swapping it between them.
The SE/30 has an Ethernet card so I can easily download files from Macintosh Garden or my NAS directly to the SCSIS2SD.
The Performa 5400 running 8.6 seems to break disk compatibility with the Mac Plus but not the SE/30.

- I created two disks of 1.8 GB on the SCSI2SD v5 using the SCSI2SD utility, in case I want to run multiple OS's.
- I assigned SCSI IDs that would not conflict with other devices on the SE/30 and double checked them all with SCSI Probe.
- I formatted and partitioned the disks using Apple HD SC Setup (Patched) on the SE/30.
- I installed System 6.0.8 on the disk using the SE/30, selecting the custom install option for the Mac Plus.
- Then I plugged the SCSI2SD back into the Mac Plus and it fired right up!

I did try using Basilisk II and Mini VMac to build a disk image but hit a few snags, Basilisk didn't boot using a Mac Plus ROM and vMac didn't read the disk image format I was using. In retrospect I could have booted Basilisk from a compatible 68k ROM and just selected the Mac Plus install option like I did on the SE/30. But the option I am using is much more convenient for me going forward. All I need now is to source a right-angle SCSI adaptor to keep the SCSI2SD from hanging out so far, and to get the localtalk network going.
 
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