System 6 screensaver

[the_anarch]

Greetings. I've got a Mac SE (with busted hard drive) that I'm trying to repurpose. I want to give it to a creative staffing agency that is seriously Mac-oriented (they've got old mobos nailed up on the conference room walls), and have it run either their name or their logo across the screen as a screensaver. The trick is that I don't have a mouse or keyboard to give them with it. So I need to be able to put System 7 on an 800k floppy, with the screensaver configured, turn it on and have the screensaver start up on its own shortly after.

Here's what I have, in addition to the Mac SE, to do this with:

-an ADB keyboard/trackball combo that I can use to configure the SE, but it's mine, I'm not giving it away with the SE.

-A Mac mini with mini VMac (intel)

-an iMac G3 running Tiger with mini VMac (ppc) and a USB floppy drive

-another Mac SE with FDHD floppy and hard drive

-a copy of Pyro 4.1 that I last successfully used with an old 7.5 system back in the 90s

I've also downloaded DarkSide, Flex and Møire, if any of those will do the trick. I've got access to lots of other systems, tools, utilities and software, but you know what storage units are like...

I'd like to either have the name scroll boringly across the screen, like lots of old screensavers we saw in offices in the 90s, or have the logo display in randomized positions... like lots of old screensavers we saw in the 90s.

When I ran Pyro on my old 7.5 system, I was able to use Pyro itself to create two custom modules that matched the second description- a logo displayed in randomized positions. When I brought over Pyro and its modules from a backup floppy to a System 6 disk image I was testing with mini vMac, it showed the modules, but the logos came up as gray boxes- and I found no provision to create a new custom module in the System 6 control panel for Pyro.

If any old Mac hands know how to do what I'm trying to do with the equipment I've got, or even if you've just got some idea or information that will help me figure this out, I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

[Scott Baret]

You've got an SE FDHD, meaning you can put System 7 on a 1.4MB floppy. It won't fit on an 800K.

Get System 7.0.1 from Apple's website. Use the disk tools disk and place your copy of Pyro on there. You may need to remove the Apple HD SC Setup and Disk First Aid programs. Perhaps the modules of Pyro 4.1 are only compatible with System 7?

The disk you make can be transferred directly from your USB floppy to the SE since you'll be using high density disks.

I'm not sure how big Pyro 4.1 is so if you could give me a ballpark figure I would be able to estimate this better.

 

[tomlee59]

If you end up having trouble squeezing everything onto one floppy using the normal Finder and System, you may be able to free up enough space by using a minifinder. Head on over to Gamba's site (home.earthlink.net/~gamba2) and click the link to bootdisks.

 

[the_anarch]

Sorry, I should've clarified the SE & SE-FDHD situation. I have both- I'm keeping the FDHD and repurposing the SE. The FDHD will help me get files onto an 800k floppy since the iMac's USB floppy drive can't.

I'll edit my original post to reflect this.

Pyro is 76k, leaving plenty of room for System 6. The modules are between 8k and 32k. Obviously I only need one or two.

Fitting this stuff onto a floppy with System 6 is not my major concern right now- finding a program or control panel that does what I want is where I'm having problems.

 

[tomlee59]

Minifinder may allow you to squeeze a system 7-compatible collection of apps onto a floppy. Since your OP mentioned that you had what you wanted on a 7.5 mac, then perhaps this is one way to skin that cat.

If no one is able to suggest how to make things work under 6, going the system 7 route may be your best hope.

 

[the_anarch]

I thought I'd read that System 7 was an absolute no-go via an 800k floppy.

Apple Support: System 7 Can't Run from Single 800K Floppy

If you guys can give me any info on how to do System 7 wtih a minifinder or some kind of autostart for the screensaver, by all means I'll go for it.

I thought I was getting close for awhile there. I did get Pyro to work yesterday in mini Vmac, and I thought it was with one of my System 6 images- I just couldn't get a specific module to do what I wanted. Well I found a "marquee" module that I think will let me put in a piece of text to crawl across the screen. But when I tried it again today, I couldn't get any of my System 6s to work with any of my three versions of Pyro (3.3, 4.0 and 4.1). They keep giving me "Divide by zero" errors on boot. Or they lock up.

I can't figure out what changed. I might try going ahead and making a boot floppy and seeing if it makes any difference to use the real machine rather than the emulator.

 

[tomlee59]

That's precisely why I posted the link to the minifinder. Did you even look at it? In less time than it took for you to rediscover the conventional wisdom that it can't be done, you could've run an experiment yourself.

When you do get around to it, you'll find that the minifinder, as its name suggests, is stripped down to fit on an 800K floppy, with about 100K left for your other software. It's not a full finder, so you will not get a familiar desktop, etc. However, as I understand your OP, you don't need to run a full system 7. And from your other post, 100K free space is more than enough.

Maybe this won't solve your problem overall, but it's the only way I know of to run a system 7 thing from a single 800K floppy. And naturally Apple's docs will say it can't be done, because what they really mean is that it can't be done with Apple software, and even with third-party software, it doesn't get you a full system 7 desktop.

 

[the_anarch]

Tomlee, I've been using Macs for 22 years, but I'm also an idiot. I did not take a look at the bootdisks page on Gamba's site when you posted that link, because, up until my last post, I've been posting and reading on this entire thread in a "System 6 Only" frame of mind, since I read that Apple article early on in this process. I also had never heard of a minifinder for System 7, only System 6, so I assumed that that was what you were talking about. But alas, assumption makes an ass out of you and... mption?

You're right, I don't need a full desktop and finder, so I'll give it a shot tomorrow. I still have to figure out how to get the Pyro Marquee module to work, but being able to use System 7 might make a difference.

 

[tomlee59]

Tomlee, I've been using Macs for 22 years, but I'm also an idiot.

Most definitely *not* the case! I regularly get stuck in a particular mode of thinking. A gentle (or not so gentle) does a body good.

And like I said, the minifinder may not solve your problem, but it's worth a look. It might be useful for some other thing someday, even if it ends up not useful for this particular task.

 

[jhvaughan2]

You may have already considered this but you can simply do witout the finder by renaming an applicaiton "finder". When the system booted it would run the "finder" application. This worked on system 6 but I dont remember if it did on 7.

I can remember doing this 20 years ago, getting a double floppy SE to boot and run MS word with a separate data disk -- no hard drive and no disk swaping.