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One of my (Steve) hobbies is experimenting with old computers to see if I can get them working, and max out what they are capable of.
In the late 90s I picked up a DaynaFile, a SCSI attached floppy drive, with a 360k floppy that someone had thrown out at my work. It sat neglected in a drawer for years until I finally got a power supply to get it working again. Looking around the internet I was able to find a copy of the 2.2 enabler, the 4.1 enabler, a copy of the 5th edition (1989) of the manual, and a brochure (1987), but limited technical information. As usual, I’m using my blog to document what I’ve found and pieced it together so I don’t forget, and to hopefully help others.
4 CommentsOver the years I have been lucky enough to pick up some 68k systems that that had accelerators installed: two MacPlus machines with 68030 accelerators (unlabeled), a SE FDHD with a Mobius 030 SE accelerator, and a collection of NewLife Accelerators. As I dug around the internet looking for information I have found a lot of of advertisements, reviews, and some manuals and drivers for various accelerators, I also found some contact names that I used to track down old employees through LinkedIn (with some success), so I decided to create this post to track what companies I’ve found information about.
10 CommentsA lot of the old Macintosh and other electronics I play with as a hobby were long gone before the internet or before the way back machine started archiving the internet in late 1996. Luckily a lot of old computer magazines and documentation can now be found and searched through on the internet archive or on google books. I’ve created this page to help me track my sources, and useful searches that I use for creating this site.
2 CommentsAbout a year ago I purchased a null modem (serial) cable to let me connect my Apple IIe Card enabled LC 475 to my Apple IIc, and decided I should also test it out as a way to transfer files between my Windows 10 PC (should also work with OSX and Linux) and my Macintosh Plus, it was actually fairly easy. Initially I used it with Zterm, but after a bit of experimentation I got it working with Apple Remote Access Personal Server 2.1 (ARA PS) and can now use Basilisk II to access files using AppleShare and see all the shared devices on my LocalTalk (AppleTalk) network. The speed is still fairly slow, so for larger files I use Basilisk II to edit my drive/volume images, or connect using my Asante SCSI to ethernet adaptor.
1 CommentIn my previous blog entries I mentioned that I could not include the full version of System 7.1.3 (System 7.1 + System Update 3.0) with with my drive images due to copyright restrictions, but you can install the full version of the North American version of 7.1 up to 7.1.3 using Apple’s Legacy Software Recovery CD.
3 CommentsIn my previous blog entries I mentioned that I could not include the full version of System 7.0.1 with my drive images due to copyright restrictions, but you can install the full version of the North American version of 7.0.1 using Apple’s Legacy Software Recovery CD.
2 CommentsOne of the most popular features of my site is my ready made System 6.0.8 or System 7.5.5 bootable images for use with 68k Macintosh systems. This entry describes how you can edit my volume images on Windows 10 using Mini vMac (Mini vMac cannot read or modify drive images). You probably know what Mini vMac is, but if not, a quick summary: Mini vMac is an open source emulator of some 68k-based Macintosh computers that runs on Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Open Indiana, Microsoft Windows Mobile, and some other platforms. I mainly use Mini vMac for working with System 6.x and earlier Systems that aren’t supported by Basilisk II. Once I have everything setup the way I want on the volume image I can use Basilisk II to copy the contents of the volume image to a drive image if needed.
Leave a CommentI recently purchased a MacSD adapter to try out and see if it’s easier to use than my SCSI2SD adapters, after some experimentation I can say that it is definitely more flexible than the SCSI2SD, specifically the ability to assemble a set of volume images in a directory on your SD card as a drive. You can directly edit the volume files on your SD card using Basilisk II and other emulators and tools for quicker updates. It also allowed me to increase the number of ProDOS volumes for my Apple IIe card, unlike HD SC Setup which limited me to 2 ProDOS portions per drive, I was able to create 6 on a MacSD composite drive (likely more, but 6 is enough for now). You can also use the MacSD with Drive images (similar to SCSI2SD), floppy images and CD-ROM images.
2 CommentsThis entry builds on my entry for how to use Apple Remote Access Personal Server (ARA PS 2.1) to connect Basilisk II to a 68k Macintosh with AppleTalk over a null modem connection. Once that connection has been created between your Macintosh system and modern system running Basilisk II, you can use IPNetRouter to bridge the ARA PS’s AppleTalk connection with Basilisk II’s ethernet connection and surf the web from your Macintosh.
2 CommentsAbout a year ago I purchased a null modem (serial) cable to let me connect my Apple IIe Card enabled LC 475 to my Apple IIc, and decided I should also test it out as a way to transfer files between my Windows 10 PC (should also work with OSX and Linux) and my Macintosh Plus, it was actually fairly easy. Initially I used it with Zterm, but after a bit of experimentation I got it working with Apple Remote Access Personal Server 2.1 (ARA PS) and can now use Basilisk II to access files using AppleShare and see all the shared devices on my LocalTalk (AppleTalk) network. The speed is still fairly slow, so for larger files I use Basilisk II to edit my drive/volume images, or connect using my Asante SCSI to ethernet adaptor.
Leave a CommentThere has been a lot of work in the Apple II community to port Apple DOS games to ProDOS, with the Apple IIe Card‘s ability to support multiple 32Meg partitions (up to 4 at the same time), I wanted to share the steps I use to get the 4am’s Total Replay Collection and the Alex’s ProDOS game bundle on to my LC475 with my Apple IIe card.
3 CommentsAbout a year ago I purchased a null modem (serial) cable to let me connect my Apple IIe Card enabled LC 475 to my Apple IIc, and decided I should also test it out as a way to transfer files between my Windows 10 PC (should also work with OSX and Linux) and my Macintosh Plus, it was actually fairly easy. One of the methods I tried, and the one I use the most, is transferring small files from Basilisk II to my 68k Macintosh. For larger files I use Basilisk II to edit my drive images.
1 CommentYou can use balaenaEtcher to raw-write my drive image files to an SD or Compact Flash Card, and some other USB attached storage. When you raw-write a file it doesn’t simply copy the file to the target storage media/device it writes the file bit-by-bit on to the target storage media/device removing all existing formatting.
2 CommentsI’ve been lucky enough to pick up a few upgrades to my classic Macintosh systems over the years, and in the process of hunting down information on those upgrades I’ve come across ads and reviews of a lot of different options that have been produced over the years for a Macintosh Plus, so I thought I’d create this entry to capture some of what I’ve found, and hopefully people will comment on ones I’ve missed.
1 CommentAs part of a general cleanup and as something to do on rainy days, I’ve decided to make a version 2 of the drive and…
3 CommentsI’ve finally gotten around to creating drive images for using an Asanté Desktop EN/SC (1996 version), SCSI to Ethernet converter with a Macintosh Plus (once I bought a keyboard from Herb Johnson to replace the ones I had that were lost in a move). I have one of the later versions that draw’s it’s power from the SCSI bus, which caused some issues with the Macintosh Plus.
1 CommentRecently I pickup a few Macintosh Plus systems, so I’ve decided to play around with the FloppyEMU’s HD20 support with the hopes of writing some future blog posts for maxing out a Macintosh Plus. This guide will also work for the SE, Classic, Classic II, Portable, IIci, IIsi, or LC.
2 CommentsSimilar to my work to recreate the release timeline for Sierra’s Adventure Game Interpreter (AGI) games, I’ve done a bit of research to gather the…
Leave a CommentFor reference by my future self, and for anyone that might want to duplicate my setup, I’ve documented how I’ve setup the 32GB SD card for my SCSI2SD that I use with my LC 475 with my Apple IIe card. Currently I have my SCSI2SD set up as 3 devices, SCSI 0 to 2, this is for two reasons: so I don’t have to update my SCSI2SD settings when I want to test one of my drive images as device 0, and so I can have 4 ProDOS partitions (limit 2 per drive).
3 Comments