Asante Micro EN/SC connection mod

[macclassic]

Alas, I think the pins are just too tightly packed for crimp on connectors so I'm also waiting for a HDi-30 socke, when the supplier gets round to stripping one from a broken Powerbook. (I must send him a reminder!)

I've studied the pinouts of both machines and apart from the Powerbook's SCSI Disk Mode pin the HDi-30 socket just seems to have more grounds than the Plus's DB-25S.

Surely just a case of matching up the right ones?

I'm tempted by this project on the back of succesfully making a lead for a Roland pen plotter and a serial lead to try out some file transfers to a PC Using Claris Works Communications tools.

 

[macclassic]

I got the HDI-30 socket this morning and after only four hours of soldering and double checking the connections it worked powered off my Classic's ADB lead!!!

See below, not pretty but functional.

http://web.onetel.com/~colingjones/mod1.jpg

I soon had the Plus running System 6.0.8 (with no clipboard, keyboard or mouse control panel and 2K spare on the floppy) sharing applications like Quark and Photoshop from my Classis over ETHERNET!

I'm now working on a disk to give the Plus an IP address.

 

[tomlee59]

I admire your persistence! I'm far too lazy to have done something like that myself, so I live vicariously through others.

Congratulations on a job well done!

 

[equill]

You have an excuse for your laze. With the weight of all them stewed ants on your shoulders, you must have a pronounced stoop by now.

de

 

[tomlee59]

The stoop is definitely there, but stewed ants aren't the main reason (I've been fortunate -- most of them have been remarkably self-motivated). I just have naturally bad posture.

 

[macclassic]

I'm planning to power the Micro EN/SC off the Mac Plus's external floppy drive port but I'm having to cut a 25 pin D connector down as I cant find a 19 pin connector in the UK!

The only other problem is I'm not sure how to run MacTCP and ethernet on floppies, with or without using Ramdisk.

 

[Charlieman]

Congratulations -- not too ugly either, but for longevity swap the tape cable ties for nylon snaps.

Running a minimal System 6, can't you squeeze the AppleShare client and MacTCP onto an 800KB floppy? Then run any apps from an AppleShare server (eg any Mac running System 7 onwards).

If you need System 7, you will have to use a Ramdisk. Check Gamba's old site for Ramdisk recommendations. Boot from a minimal System 6 disk with AppleShare client. Copy your desired System 7 configuration to Ramdisk and reboot. Some Ramdisk software does this automagically, but I'm not sure whether many apps understand AppleShare volumes etc. An alternative is to use some macro software (Quickkeys or Tempo) to automate the copying process.

Good luck -- this is a nice hack.

 

[macclassic]

Thanks Charlieman, I will investigate the Ramdisk route.

I have added more info for this mod at:

http://web.onetel.com/~colingjones/ensc/index.html

 

[Quadraman]

That's really sweet how you tapped the floppy port for power. I wonder if you can daisy chain this behind an external floppy.

 

[macclassic]

I can't confirm if I could daisy chain my setup with an external floppy (as I don't have one) but I am thinking of connecting the EN/SC to the pass-through port of a Zip drive connected to the Plus.

 

[macclassic]

Congratulations -- not too ugly either, but for longevity swap the tape cable ties for nylon snaps.
Running a minimal System 6, can't you squeeze the AppleShare client and MacTCP onto an 800KB floppy? Then run any apps from an AppleShare server (eg any Mac running System 7 onwards).

If you need System 7, you will have to use a Ramdisk. Check Gamba's old site for Ramdisk recommendations. Boot from a minimal System 6 disk with AppleShare client. Copy your desired System 7 configuration to Ramdisk and reboot. Some Ramdisk software does this automagically, but I'm not sure whether many apps understand AppleShare volumes etc. An alternative is to use some macro software (Quickkeys or Tempo) to automate the copying process.

Good luck -- this is a nice hack.

Re: the above, I have squeezed Ramdisk, the AppleShare client, MacTCP and PPP onto an 800KB floppy and can either share by localtalk or surf the net with this, but I really want to run MacHTTP on the Plus via ethernet which it seems means system 7.x.

 

[equant]

Nice work, and thanks for the webpage. Any chance you can post a disk image of your 800K boot disk? I'm curious to see it.

Nathan

 

[Mac128]

now we just need Tom Lee to come up with a way to turn off the video circuits so you can leave the MacPlus on 24/7 without fear of overheating: http://68kmla.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=24248#24248

Nice job, BTW. It isn't the most elegant of solutions, especially once you get the ZIP drive in there, but congrats!

FYI, you could get yourself an Apple 3.5" External Drive (A9M0106) and conceivably use the daisy chain passthrough for power only. This would give you 1.6MB, more than enough to run System 7, MacHTTP and a modest website. Of course you could just make a bootable ZIP disk and run the whole thing from it and skip the floppies altogether.