Sharing files with a Macintosh SE

[agent_js03]

Hello all,

I have a Macintosh SE that I found for 10 bucks on craigslist back in 2011 when I was still in graduate school. I had to replace the hard drive and a little sensor on the floppy drive, and it has been working great ever since. I still love that little machine. I used to have a powerbook with a floppy drive that I used to write data to 800k floppies so that I could move data to the SE, since the SE doesn't support FDHD.

Well now I don't have that powerbook anymore... I have another powerbook that has a CD-ROM but no floppy. I am wondering, however, if it is still possible to share/transfer files from the powerbook to the SE using appletalk. I have a mac serial cable that I could connect the two machines with. Would it be possible to transfer files this way? On the SE, if I open the chooser, there is an option called "AppleTalk" that can be enabled/disabled. If I connect the two machines and then enable it, what might be the next step? What can I do to get this working? Do I need additional software for the SE in order to do this? I would have to find some 800k disk somewhere with it, since I have no way of transferring it otherwise.

Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[LazarusNine]

I've personally never had much luck establishing an AppleTalk network without the little bits that go in between each computer. To my knowledge a cable between both is simply not enough.

In any case, you do have a couple options to get files transferred over (probably a combination of both):

1) IF the SE has a network card installed, this is a lot easier. I'm going to assume it does not. You can try to find an SE-specific Ethernet card (the standard and readily available Nubus cards or LC PDS cards don't work). Alternatively, you can opt for a SCSI to Ethernet adapter like the Asante EN-SC. You'll naturally need drivers for some of these options, which are readily available with a search.

Plug each Mac into a router on your network. Make sure that you have AppleShare 3.7.2 (or higher) and OpenTransport 1.3.1 installed in the SE (and perhaps the PowerBook, if it's running anything prior to Mac OS 8.1). Go into TCP/IP and select Ethernet on both machines. Then, go into 'Chooser' on the SE and select AppleShare. Then click the connect to server button (or whatever it's called). This will prompt you to enter an IP address. This will simply be the IP address of your PowerBook on the network (so something like 192.168.0.XX). Click 'OK'. Good to go - you just need to enter user name and password. The PowerBook drive will be accessible on the SE.

2) Buy a FloppyEmu. Do a bit of research about it and use an SD card to get files over to the Mac SE.

I've employed both options above and they both work. In fact, I think you may NEED the FloppyEmu if you need to get some of the basics, like AppleShare, over to the SE in the first place and you don't have any way of formatting and working with 800k disks. I typically use the FloppyEmu to get the basic essentials over and then once the network sharing is working, I transfer other files and apps over using that.

Best of luck to you!!

 

[Jaek_3]

Get a 9 pin din serial cord and connect them both via the printer port on the back of both respective machines. If the chooser is blank on your SE, then you need to get AppleShare. It would be probably be easier to just perform a full installation of System 6. If you need to know how to write them, PM me. Anyways, enter you name into the little slot in chooser, and turn AppleTalk on. Click the big empty box above it and the neighboring computer will be shown. If not, then restart, and make sure that you inputted a name for both computers.