Partition Hard Drives/HD20 With MacServe

[Mac128]

Based on some demand, I have finally posted on http://www.mac128.com (index/"Working with XL/Serve & MacServe") a brief basic tutorial for using MacServe to partition any hard drive connected to a pre-System 7 Mac (System 6 has not been tested). Everything you need to use it is there. However, please note that the tutorial is offered as-is for the moment. Eventually there will be excerpts from the user manual to better help explain the complexities of this software. However, http://www.vintagemacworld.com/pu-manual.html#macserve is an invaluable resource for understanding some of the issues facing your use of MacServe. It is mandatory reading before you begin as I describe on my site. I am indebted to Charlieman for transcribing this invaluable resource and all the other excellent work and research he has done on his site.

I have only used MacServe to partition an HD20 and a ZIP 100 drive, but theoretically it can partition any hard drive from the serial port variety, floppy-based or SCSI. The importance of MacServe is that it is the only software I know of which will not only create MFS partitions on any drive (most early hard drives required custom software and drivers specific to their drive), but also allow you to create multiple MFS & HFS partitions on the same drive.

Because of the time involved, please limit any questions you may have to the basic tutorial of partitioning drives for stand-alone use (not networked). I will eventually add more information about MacServe's other uses over time as I can get to it. In the meantime, feel free to experiment with the other features, but use extreme care and back-up often. Since I cannot guarantee the results of any of the claims made in the tutorial, make sure you don't risk any data you can't afford to lose, until you are certain yourself it works on your system as you've configured.

Have fun!

 

[JDW]

Mac128, a million thanks for adding this. I only had time to skim through it today on my lunch hour, but I'll give it a more thorough read tonight. Anyway, I did Google for "XL/Serve Lisa" based on what your article mentioned. I came across this Lisa Handbook PDF. Open it in your browser and then search for "HD-20" which will jump you down to the section I found interesting ("August 1986"). At the time, Apple's HD20 product manager formally recommended leaving it turned on 24/7 unless you wouldn't be using the hard drive for several days. They say it does more harm to those drives when you switch them ON/OFF each day. I also Googled up this XL/Serve Manual Photo from a Japanese site (they at one time sold it, but now have no stock).

Here are some things I Googled up about MacServe:

• •

Power User's Manual
• December 1986 Mousehole (search for "MacServe" in your browser to jump to it)
• August 1986 Mousehole (search for "MacServe" in your browser to jump to it)
• Sydney Apple Users' Group Book Listing (would be very interesting to find a 1991 copy of Members Handbook # 345!)
In regards to navigation of your website, I could not find any easy way to bookmark individual pages at first. I've seen such on all Flash sites, but your site appears to be standard HTML. It appears that your web server is masking out the individual page URLs in order to give the address bar a cleaner look? Regardless, I'm one for a dirty look if it gives me access to bookmarking an individual page. I discovered the individual pages in your site only by COMMAND-Clicking on the "Read more..." text links, which throws the pages into a new Tab in Safari. And for some reason, I get the whole URL of the page only when I throw individual pages of your site into new tabs!

Anyway, jump to this page on your site and scroll down to the ClarisWorks: Using OS X Classic section. You make mention of "MFS Lives" but you don't provide a download link for it in the text. It would be nice to have an easy means to download that while reading your text.

Lastly, I noticed some AppleTalk networking pages on your site. I've actually been having a discussion in this Vintage Macs thread. (Since I haven't the faintest idea how to jump to you the actual posts, you need to load that page, scroll to the bottom and look at my "JDW" reply to HexStar. Pretty much the rest of that thread centers on AFP troubles under OS 10.4 when using classic Macs.) I recently posted a detailed set of OS tests, from System 7.1 through 8.1 on my SE/30 which some of you may find interesting.

 

[Mac128]

JDW, thanks for checking it out. If anyone will thoroughly vet the details it will be you. Also thanks for posting all those links. As you can imagine I have seen all of those pages, articles and documents before and personally find them historically fascinating, however, they don't shed a lot of light on actually using MacServe. In fact I am shocked at the paucity of information which exists on both it and TOPS on the web. http://www.vintagemacworld.com/pu-manual.html#macserve provides the most helpful information on the web, which I do link to on my site: in fact I recommend it as required reading before doing anything with the MacServe software. My other sources are of course the actual MacServe manual as well as several early Mac books including the original "Macintosh Bible" by Arthur Naiman from 1986, excerpts from all of which I will eventually post on my site.

As for XL/Serve, make sure you do not try to obtain a copy for purposes of partitioning a drive. It will only partition a Lisa 2/Macintosh XL's Widget or Profile drive. My interest in XL/Serve is solely in finding a copy of version 1.0 to confirm whether it works on a 128K (as a compatible MacServe AppleTalk client) as represented in various old marketing brochures from early 1985 I have obtained. Finding a copy is highly unlikely since a bug in MacWorks 2.0 forced users to upgrade to XL/Serve v.1.1 in order to use the internal hard disk. Because the original disk contained an embedded serial number, it had to be upgraded, thus overwriting v.1.0

Thanks for your constructive criticism of my site. As I mention several times therein, it is a work in progress and takes a significant amount of time to develop. I indicate on the site that links and pictures will eventually be added for everything. We all have to have primary goals and mine is getting the info out there, detailing it later as I have time to research the links and document it with proper footnotes and references, particularly if I use images that are not mine. I'm using iWeb which doesn't do everything I'd like either so I have to work around its limitations as well as I implement other aspects of the site. As you point out with your response to this post regarding XL/Serve links you found, "MFSLives" and most other references on mine and other websites can easily be found on the web by Googling for now, or they can just ask as you did. As for direct linking to my pages, eventually I will implement that. Command-clicking has been for some time now the common accepted method in most Mac browsers for opening a direct link. I use it all the time because most websites are masked or have embedded links I want the source for. Though try using ctrl-click to see a list of clickable options, including bookmarking and open in another window, the site is fully navigable that way. On my site you can ctrl or Apple-click on the splash screen and open the site, directly bypassing the masking, if you like it dirty.

Also, thanks for your info about AppleTalk networking with OS X. I'm certain the forum will appreciate it. However, I am only concerned on my site exclusively with pre-System 6, stand-alone Mac networking with OS X (without using an intermediary Mac as a bridge), for which there are no easy solutions for file transfers (and none for the 128K). Again http://www.vintagemacworld.com/netprimer.html does a fantastic job of detailing most options, including links to http://www.Mac512.com and others which cover almost all options from System 6 through 9 with vintage Macs.

 

[JDW]

Thanks for your detailed reply, Mac128. And thank you again for your tireless efforts in post such detailed classic Mac information on your excellent website.

I just wanted to add a note that Googling for "MFS Lives" will not yield the file. Rather, you would need to Google for"MFSLives" without the space in the middle.

To save everyone the trouble, here is the direct MFS Lives Download from Apple ADC site. Note that this is not a simply double-click to install program. You have to be a developer or a geek to deal with the compile-and-install required. Some will tell you its "easy" to do that, but again, those folks are not your average computer users. Also, you need to have installed Apple's XCode.

Anyway, you can give it a try and post your experiences here. The ultimate aim in doing this is to mount MFS disks (i.e., mostly 400k Mac floppies) on your OS 10.4 Tiger machine. You can only view the content with MFS Lives, but you cannot alter data or save new data to your MFS disks.

 

[Mac128]

I prefer to link directly to the site, not the file:

http://developer.apple.com/samplecode/MFSLives/index.html

Also this is not the proper place for this post. It has little or nothing to do with MacServe.

 

[JDW]

I too normally prefer to link to the page the downloads are on, specifically because most of the time the pages provide loads of useful information you need to take into consideration before you download. But because that is not the case with MFS Lives, I offered the directly download link. More specifically, the README and other documents that are available only inside the MFS Lives download package are far more detailed than any info on that ADC download page. So again, it was this logic in my mind that led me to post the direct file download URL, not the page download. But since you've added the page download too, this discussion is now moot. :b&w:

I also agree that this thread should not lose its MacServe focus. The only reason I didn't open a new thread on MFS Lives is because it would have only been a post containing a download link, making it a pretty dry thread. I really had no useful information to add about it -- your site serves that purpose. So I will refrain from adding more comments in this thread about MFS Lives.

But I must say that as much as I do like to talk with you, Mac128, it is rather depressing that others don't think so. You and I are the only ones making time to talk about anything in this thread! Is everyone on their Autumn vacations now? 8-o

 

[Mac128]

The disk image has been reposted as a zip package containing a binhex disk image with a complete creation history for those who have any trouble. Please let me know if there are issues.