Dual Floppy SE Mods.

[30pin]

I just finished dropping a 1.2gb Quauntum Fireball hardrive into my dual floppy SE. I thought it was going to really tight inside the case,but there is lots of room in there! It is running O.S. 6.0.7, with 4mb of ram. It all works well with a really crisp screen, no burn in at all. But it did get me thinking. I came across a stripped dual floppy case in very good condition. I can trade something to get it. I have a SE/30 with a very yellowed case and a bit of damage on the front. Would the SE/30 motherboard fit into the earlier dual floppy case? If it would, then I should be able to put in dual 1.4 floppys! Most of my software is on the 1.4mb floppy. Using the SE/30 board might be easier than finding an accelerator for the SE. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[tomlee59]

It's been a few years since I did the same thing, but I think you can do it without any trouble. At least, I don't remember having to do anything at all. That may mean that there were some necessary mods, but they weren't too traumatic. Or it could mean that my memory has truly gone south...

I'm sure others with more recent experience will weigh in shortly.

 

[TylerEss]

The SE/30 board will certainly *fit* in the dual-floppy case, they're the same.

The problem will be with getting dual 1.44MB floppies working on the SE/30. There's only one internal floppy port on the SE/30 motherboard. You could probably solder a flexcable onto the pads for the external floppy port with an internal floppy header on the other end, but wow, that'd be a lot of work...

 

[tomlee59]

NOW I remember a mod. Thanks, Tyler.

To get both floppies working, you can make a new cable. ISTR you just put on another 20-pin header and separate the drive select connection. This also bypasses the sometimes-troublesome filter that occasionally dies and causes problems.

 

[TylerEss]

so you just put 'em both on the same cable and cut the drive select wire?

Does this mean that you then can't use the external floppy port, or does it appear to be daisy-chained on with the rest of them? (like when you do dual external floppies)

 

[tomlee59]

All great questions.

Here's where my hazy memory gets even hazier. ISTR that, with a bum filter and two internal drives, I would occasionally get an error message that seemed to refer to a third floppy drive (which was not hooked up). This seems to suggest that the OS/ROMs have support for a third floppy. But I've never tried this out (maybe others here already know the answer to this; please chime in!). In my case, I just clipped out the filter altogether, because I had all the drives I needed already hooked up to it internally. I never attempted to connect anything to that external floppy connector because I feared it would be a Very Bad Idea. But I don't really remember for sure.

I might have some notes on what I did. I'll go rummaging this weekend (maybe) and see what I find.

 

[TylerEss]

great! We hope you find something.

I'm pretty sure the OS has support for at least 3 floppy drives, because the external floppy drive has a daisy-chain port.

I have an external SuperDrive and a dual-SuperDrive (and HDD) SE. I could test the 3-floppy-drive hypothesis (on a dual-internal-headers SE, not a cable-hacked SE/30 ) if only I had 3 working floppy disks...

 

[wally]

Actually, tomlee59's memory is amazingly good for an event so many years ago! It's pretty much like he said. In Guide to the Macintosh Family Hardware, Apple Computer Inc., Second Edition, the SE/30 situation is detailed in the schematic on page 351. I've never done this mod but it looks like you need one dual header cable from the computer board to both internal floppies. Cut pins 9 and 20 loose on both drives. Cut the second drive pin 14 loose and drive it with the second enable from the DB-19 connector pin 17. No external floppy drive allowed in addition to the two internal ones, because the SE/30 lacks the third enable that the SE has detailed on page 340 (and that the software presumably handles at least in the SE model). Check if the SE/30 PDS may be blocked by the existing SE chassis plate, due to 96 vs 120 pin connector cutouts. [] ]'>

 

[tomlee59]

Wally -- thanks (as always) for your exceptionally detailed information! It will help others who want to try the same thing. And thanks also for letting us know that the SE/30 won't support a third floppy. Too bad -- it dashes my ambitions to implement a floppy RAID on the SE/30.

 

[Scott Baret]

The SE is the ONLY Mac that can support three floppies*. Two must be internal. The external drives do have a daisy chain, but they were designed for the Apple II series where there could be two drives per slot/port.

Shift-Command-0 ejects the third floppy disk.

*It is theoretically possible to use 4+ USB floppy drives on a newer Mac. But WHY?

 

[Bunsen]

So you can do THIS!

 

[30pin]

Looking at the posts made me rethink how I will do this. I picked up the dual floppy case(swapped him 2 100mb zip disks for it!) But I will look for a scruffy SE superdrive, add another 1.4 floppy drive and a newer hardrive, to the mix, then install everything into the other case. Put all the programs on I want and then just enjoy 8mhz till I can get my hands on one of the SE cpu upgrades. Thanks to the other members for some really good posts!!

 

[bigD]

The SE is the ONLY Mac that can support three floppies*.

Sorry to dig up this thread, but I was hunting around for SE mod ideas and came across this comment. I have an LC with two internal floppy drives, but never tried to connect an external floppy to it. Is there any reason why I couldn't use three drives with my LC?

 

[Mac128]

You mean besides the fact the LC has no external floppy port?

There is all sorts of misinformation in these forums. The fact of the matter is the SE is NOT the only Mac that can use three floppy drives. The Mac Portable can as well.

However, no LC has an external floppy port.

 

[bigD]

Heh - you know, I never bothered to even look. My IIsi had one, so I assumed my LC did too. Of course, you know what they say about the word assume!

 

[Patrickool93]

Huh, I always thought there was too. In fact I just turned arounf my LC Iuse as a monitor stand just check

 

[coius]

If I recall correctly, the actual floppy controller is on the Logic board. And it's one drive per Controller. hence the reason the dual-floppies have dual ports for floppy. The controllers only handle one device per connector. Sorry guys, it's not possible to put two drives on one cable. The only reason PCs can do it, is that the floppy drive itself has the controller on it. Also, the reason a mac can eject the floppy by itself, is because the computer has direct control over the floppy. It's also another reason floppies are faster read and write in a mac than a pc (they format faster, and they can access much faster than a pc can)

 

[Scott Baret]

Floppy drive support is as follows:

Mac 128K, 512K, 512Ke, Plus, SE/30, Classic, Classic II: Can accommodate one internal and one external floppy drive.

Mac SE: Can accommodate one or two internal and one external floppy drive.

Mac II, IIx, IIfx: Can accommodate two internal and no external floppy drive.

Mac IIcx, IIci, IIsi: Can accommodate one internal and one external floppy drive.

Mac LC: Can accommodate one or two internal and no external floppy drive.

Mac LC II, LC III, Colour Classic, LC 500s: Can accommodate one internal and no external drive.

I don't believe any other pre-USB Mac listed here has an external floppy connector, exception is made for some PowerBooks.

Any Mac with an LC PDS can theoretically have an external floppy drive on it, although that drive will be a 5.25" drive for use with the Apple IIe card. I think I also heard the 3.5" drive for Apple II's will work.

BTW: The LC was very poorly documented, even in its day. The original manual even states that the screen can be adjusted using the brightness control panel!

 

[Quadraman]

So you can do THIS!

That's just sick! I liked his thumb drive array, though.