Two Requests

[Mk.558]

I don't have a machine that is capable of doing the feats listed below at the present time, so I thought I'd ask for some help. (This is for the Guide.)

1.) Can a Mac with an internal floppy drive, like a Molar Mac, when booted into OS X such as Jaguar, recognize 800K disks? I heard that OS X does not support 800K disks, and I also heard that Mac OS X Server 10.0 and 10.1 can read them only. But I'd like to know for sure on the real thing. I'm pretty sure Molar Macs and machines like the beige G3 series with internal FDDs can work with 800Ks in OS 9.

2.) Can a Mac running System 6 connect to OS X 10.3.9 over Ethernet and MacTCP? I've heard that Jaguar is the last to speak "Old AppleTalk" but I'd like to tick off that box concerning 10.3 on the Chart. System 7.0.1 should be able to do it, but I've never known myself as I've never even owned 10.3.

I'd appreciate the help, surely!

 

[markyb86]

I can try the 6.0.8 to 10.3.9 setup, I am just not on the ball with getting 6.0.8 and MacTCP setup correctly on my SE :-( It's running 7.1 ATM. I have 6.0.8 on a zip but that install is not setup for networking.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

OS X does not natively support the SWIM floppy controller in pre-iMac Macs. Thus, by default, it cannot read *ANY* disk in an internal floppy (like in a Molar Mac.)

An 800 kB disk will work fine booted into OS 9.

There was a project that ported a MkLinux floppy driver to OS X, but it was very buggy and insanely slow.

Hey, a quick search turns up my writeup on it from five years ago.

USB floppy drives work fine, but only with HD floppies, not 800k Apple floppies.

 

[Mk.558]

OS X does not natively support the SWIM floppy controller in pre-iMac Macs. Thus, by default, it cannot read *ANY* disk in an internal floppy (like in a Molar Mac.)

Great info. I've been obsessively tracking down all sorts of info to make the section on Disk Images extra-comprehensive.

I take it this also includes the floppy bay module for the G3 PowerBook series like the Wallstreet? Does that module also read 800Ks under OS 9?

Use a System 6.0.8 NAD. One of the best recovery disks I've ever made.

I have even made 6.0.8 NADs with 800K disks (2), with a full finder and features. It's a bit tricky, but completely possible.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

I take it this also includes the floppy bay module for the G3 PowerBook series like the Wallstreet? Does that module also read 800Ks under OS 9?

Every floppy drive that shipped directly from Apple internal to a Macintosh (barring the very earliest 400k drives, of course,) can read and write 800k disks when booted directly into the classic Mac OS. But it must be an Apple-original. The VST expansion-bay floppy drive is actually a 120 MB "SuperDisk" drive, which can NOT read 800k floppies.

 

[Mk.558]

Really? I thought it was just a conventional 1.44MB drive?

Color me surprised. Correction will be forthcoming...AFIAK the only "external module floppy drive" for any Old World Mac was the module for the PowerBook Duo. Am I correct? All the others had it either built in or didn't have an option for it at all -- the external floppy port stopped with the Mac II series and AFAIK the Color Classic doesn't have one. There might be a PowerBook that doesn't have an internal drive, but requires an external, and said external has 800K support -- but I wouldn't know for Macs other than the Duo series.

Right now I'm planning the next major update to the Guide. Reordering and restructuring, followed by condensing to make it shorter and more concise. In the beginning it was about all-out horizontal and vertical growth, but I'll be making efforts to trim it down considerably while still covering just about everything.

Can anybody else check out 10.3 compatibility for me?

 

[markyb86]

I'm setting up 6.0.8 tonight so I will know or not if it works.

What all do you want tested?

Just file sharing back and forth over appletalk?

Screenshots of either?

(besides the writeup of my findings of course)

 

[Mk.558]

If it shows up in the Chooser, that is usually good -- but not always (*looks over at OS X Tiger*).

A quick upload and download should be fine. See if there's read/write access -- IIRC in System 6 with my test of Jaguar I didn't always have write access. Check the section on Jaguar if need be -- you'll most likely have to enable "use_appletalk" as per 10.2.

System 6 cannot be mounted by the Panther system onto to the Panther's desktop -- it's a client only. Do me a favor and check if Panther can mount System 7.0.1/7.1 on Panther's desktop and xfer files.

 

[markyb86]

Still trying to get System 6 to play Nice with a Farallon EtherMac SE.. in 7.1 I have to use "Ethernet Built-In" for any kind of connection to work. That option/driver isn't on NSI 1.4.5 so I'm trying to get it from the 1.5.1 disk over to 6.0.8.

In the meantime, Pantera/G3 sees my SE "Maxine" under network. Click on it and asks for authentication. After entering password, it shows the SE's Hard drive and asks to mount it. Click OK and nothing happens, the window just dissapears. I hear the SE crank for a second but no connection is made.

Going the other way, 7.1/SE under chooser, shows my 'Pantera Macintosh'. Click on it to connect and it says that the server is running an incompatible version of appletalk. It's 10.3.9.

I'm guessing (from the patch notes) that in the 10.3.6 update they made a change to AFP protocol that made it incompatible. I wish I could roll back the 10.3.9 update and check.

Will post back once I get (If I can get) System 6 online.

It gets really hot in a small room with a G3/SE/PC and macbook all doing things.. heh

 

[markyb86]

I got the files copied over but System 6 doesn't like this NIC card.

I'm guessing since it was made in 1994, 6 might be too old?

It works just fine in system 7, maybe it requires it?

I really hope someone else chimes in and you get the answers you are looking for.

(On a side note, system 8.6<=>7.1 with no issues on the same two computers.)

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I haven't had coffee yet, so I'm not sure I understand the question . . .

Does the "Duo" FDD have 800k support? It actually dates back to the PowerBook 100 with its onboard FDD controller. I wonder if that might support 800k floppies? I haven't got the DevNote for the PB100 handy, but the Luggable had a discrete SWIM chip, if SWIM was gobbled up by an ASIC in the 100, then that might be a dead end as well.

I'd add the 2400 to the FDD free 'Book list as well, but I've no experience with that one.

 

[Mk.558]

Hmmm.

Here's what you can do. (I'm under the assumption the SE has a 1.44 drive.)

Start up with a plain basic System 6 floppy disk. Even better if you have two floppies available. Then get ahold of RAMDisk+ 2.01 and use it to create a ~1.5MB RAM disk. (Assuming you have 4MB RAM, which is a pitifully easy thing to achieve these days.) Next, make the RAMDisk bootable, and hotswap over to it. Take a fresh formatted 1.44 and install a basic installation of System 6 on it, selecting "Installation for the Macintosh SE". Make another disk just like it, so you end up with two fresh 6.0.8 bootable floppies.

Now, get ahold of AS WS 3.5. Install it onto both floppies. Next, take 1.4.5 and you'll note that you have the option of "Ethernet NB" and "EtherTalk". Install "Ethernet NB" on one disk and "EtherTalk" on to the other disk.

Repeat the 10.3 trails and see what happens. If it still fails, then if you have the Farallon install disk, try that. If you don't, I can't say where to get one within the rules of the forum but I have a backup of mine that came with the former SE/30's Farallon Ethermac card.

RE: Duo floppies:

This will be slightly interesting because the Duo 230/100 (which was not long ago converted back into a 2300cTB) appears to have some slight Mobo issues. The first is that zTerm .9 is hiccuping over the serial ports, which is an obstacle for my Serial Data Transfer project. This means the modem port (and I installed the internal modem software just yesterday, still doesn't work) and the GeoPort isn't playing nice at all, even with AppleTalk off.

So, awhile back I was very interested in fixing a mistake I made on the DC 4.2 version of AS 1.1 for the 512K/512Ke 400K boot disk. So I knew that 7.5 was the last to write to 400K disks, so I tried "fixing it" and the machine froze when copying data to a new 400K disk I had formatted on the SE/30 when I still had it. (This'll have to wait for another machine to solve this problem.)

As far as 800Ks go though, it reads them perfectly fine.

But awhile back I was also strongly interested to know if a 400K disk could be written without actually having 7.5. So I installed 8.1, which cannot even read 400K MFS disks entirely, and wrote some 400K MFS disk image I had laying around. Rebooted into 7.6.1 which can read 400K MFS only, and it worked perfectly fine, aside from the usual System 7 "issues".

If I hadn't relieved myself of that 100MB SCSI 2.5" HDD that came with a certain Duo 230, I could check under 7.1, but I guarantee that the Duo disk drive will read 400K MFS disks given the proper system version.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Really? I thought it was just a conventional 1.44MB drive?
Color me surprised. Correction will be forthcoming...AFIAK the only "external module floppy drive" for any Old World Mac was the module for the PowerBook Duo. Am I correct? All the others had it either built in or didn't have an option for it at all -- the external floppy port stopped with the Mac II series and AFAIK the Color Classic doesn't have one.

Ah, yes. Sorry, I was only referring to very late Macs with floppy drives.

Apple-made "Superdrive" externals also work with both 1.4 MB and 800 k disks:

• The (rare) standard desktop-port Superdrive external floppy drives. It only works with 1.4 MB disks with a very few systems - ones that both have an internal Superdrive AND have an external floppy port, such as the SE Superdrive, SE/30, Classic, IIx, IIci. HOWEVER - *ANY* system compatible with an 800k external drive can use it to read/write 800k (and 400k) floppy disks.
  The "Duo" drive, which is the same drive as used on the PowerBook 100.
  The PowerBook 2400C external drive.

 

[krye]

@Mk.558

What "guide" is this we're talking about? Sounds interesting.

 

[markyb86]

http://www.applefool.com/se30/

 

[Mk.558]

The module for the 3400c is a conventional 800K-capable drive too, right? The PB G3 series is the only one that has that SuperDISK type module?

Request #3:

More information on Netatalk, compiling it from source and setting it up to be used with MacTCP. I only was able to get Netatalk working with OT 1.3. I emailed the netatalk-dev team and got nothing useful.

http://www.lyonlabs.org/macintosh/index.html

I know it's possible, but the steps are extremely elusive. I emailed Mr. Holmer last month and he said he'd be picking up an SE/30 ( :approve: ) but I fired off another email last week and haven't heard anything back.

 

[Mk.558]

Anybody else want to take a crack at this?

One option is to start with a bare-bones basic 10.3.0, and incrementally upgrade it all the way up, 10.3.1, 10.3.3, etc up to 10.3.9.

 

[napabar]

Yes, Jaguar (10.2) was the last OS X variant to speak pure AppleTalk when it came to file sharing. I think Panther (10.3) could use AppleTalk for discovery, but the subsequent connection was made with TCP/IP, requiring a Mac with 7.5., and a minimum version of Open Transport and the AppleShare client.

AppleTalk remained in 10.3 to 10.5, but was really only there for printing.

 

[Bunsen]

Just to clarify:

The Powerbook G3 shipped with an original Apple floppy drive removable drive bay cartridge (which can read/write 800k Apple floppies under OS 9 and earlier), and there was also a third party SuperDisk cartridge from VST (which can only read 1.4MB floppies and the proprietary 100MB SuperDisks).