My SE/30: Getting going.

[G-Laser]

Hey all,

First post for me. I recently dragged out my SE/30 out of the garage.  A friend was nice enough to donate it to my growing collection of retro computer.
I attend a monthly retro computer get-together from time to time and I'd like to get the the OS upgraded to that latest version possible as well as get some software on it so that others can give it a spin. Additionally, I have an Apple CD 300 for it so that should allow me to bring lots O' software.
 

I do have a few floppies that will format to 800K but this is limiting and can be problematic when it comes to getting files to it from my PC. I'm interested in finding out what people generally do when transferring software from a modern system (Windows or Linux) to an old system like this?
I'd also like to upgrade to the latest version of the OS. I think, without additional hardware, this appears to be 7.5.5 but, as I mentioned, getting images to floppies hasn't been easy.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Thanks,

 

[TheWhiteFalcon]

I have a bridge system, an iBook Clamshell running 9.2.2, that I use a USB floppy drive with. The SE/30 reads 1.44MB floppies too, FYI.

 

[Ra226]

Yep, assuming your floppy drive is working, you've got it pretty good.  OS 10.6 and newer can't write to Mac floppy format, but you can still use Disk Utility to write images directly to them (or dd if you're into command line).

Ironically, it's probably easier just to use HFV Explorer for Windows to write to/from Mac floppies.  Any USB floppy drive should work fine for 1.4MB floppies.  HFVE can open Mac image files, so your process will be:

- Get image file with stuff you want (Google)

- Use HFVE to write it directly to 1.4MB floppy or open in HFVE and copy individual files to/from floppy

 

[bobo68]

I bought an old SCSI and USB Zip drive (100 MB) and some disks. Allows you to transfer files from modern computers and boot the Mac into different OS versions from different disks. e.g. System 6 is definitely something to have a look at.

 

[G-Laser]

Thanks all for your suggestions.
Well, I went with the HFV Explorer option since my old IOMega USB floppy doesn't seem to have drivers in Mint 17.1. Of course, it appears as though when I attempt to do anything but read from my floppy driver, HFVE doesn't recognize a disk existing in the thing so I'm going to dust off the ol' Intel P4 and use it's real floppy. Stay tuned.... :b&w: 

 

[3583Bytes]

The easiest way would be to get a Floppy Emu

Else you need a bridge system.  I have had success using an old Win 98 Pentium Laptop that had both a USB 1 port and a floppy port.  This allowed me to move files in the following way.

PC ->USB Stick -> Windows Laptop ->Floppy -> Mac

I call this, the time machine method 

This however was a pain and sometimes Windows would corrupt the Mac files.  Also some files are just too big for a floppy.

Now I use a PowerBook 540c connected to the internet, I download the file, unstuff it and move it to an older Mac via floppy or LocalTalk.  Works very well.

 

[olePigeon]

And while you're at it, grab a DougG3 ROM:

http://www.downtowndougbrown.com/programmable-mac-rom-simms/

Blow your friends' minds outta the water.

Don't forget that the SE/30 can have up to 128MBs of RAM.

 

[Ra226]

I just ordered my Floppy Emu a few days ago--can't wait to play with it!  That's definitely the best option, but costs quite a bit more than free...  

Forgot to mention, you do have to run HFVE as admin (even if you're logged in as an admin--you still have to right click and select run as admin...).  It runs fine for me on a retina MBP running Windows 8.1 via bootcamp.  I use a Dell USB floppy drive (it's actually designed to plug into a laptop drive bay, but can optionally be plugged in externally as USB). 

 

[raoulduke]

Hey. The easiest way I've found is WinImage, on Windows oddly, with a USB floppy. The SE/30 should read 1.44mb floppies, no?

http://www.winimage.com/

For 800k floppies you'll need an intermediary Mac with Superdrive/GCR.

 

[techknight]

You can use HFVExplorer on windows with a USB floppy drive to natively work with 1.44MB Mac diskettes.

 

[MinerAl]

You could drop an Ethernet card in the SE/30 and ftp the files over.

An SE/30 is really the first (or last) Mac that can use Ethernet for productive things still.

 

[aplmak]

6502 if you haven't recapped that logic board you should... Clean up the leaky caps before they do any damage... few guys on here do recaps...