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Macintosh SE and Data Transer

sciencegirl100

sciencegirl100

Experienced Member
Joined
Jun 11, 2016
Messages
63
Location
Washington, DC
I just got my first properly "vintage" mac! It's a 1988 Macintosh SE with a SCSI HDD. Problem is, I have no way to get files on it. I have multiple PCs with floppy drives. One of them even runs Linux. In addition to this, I don't have any extra hardware (such as NIC or modem) for the SE, just the Keyboard and mouse.
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These are the only Macintosh floppies I have:
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So, how can I transfer files between my main PC (or a new-ish mac [G3, G4, or early intel]) and the Macintosh SE?
 
Best solution will be to use a G3 or even G4, even early Intel will be ok.

Your SE is probably one of the early one, with a 800 k Floppy drive, so basically no USB floppy drive will be able to cope with this size.

You can try to find yourself ZIP drives (one USB and another SCSI -not the PC one- the SCSI has two switches on the back) connect the SCSI to the SE and format the disk, then use the USB to fill the disk with required software, then go back to the SCSI drive and enjoy.
 
My 68k macs were more work to get running than II's and other vintage computers, mainly due to the difficulty transferring software (initially.) To get the 6.0.8 system disks written, I used a G4 (no disk drive) that can dual boot OS X 10.5 and OS 9, which I networked via Appletalk to an LC III with an 800K drive.

Currently I use SCSI zip drives on both a mac plus and a mac SE.

Software needed for bootable zip drive install:
- System 6.0.8 disks
- Zip driver 4.2
- Disk copy

From my notes, here are the requirements and steps for making a bootable zip disk:
1. need first 3 OS 6.0.8 disks. I wrote these to 1.44MB disks formatted as 800K disks from images using disk copy (I know, sort of bad, but so far these disks have worked.) The four disks are: 1-"System Tools", 2-"Utilities 1", 3-"Utilities 2", 4-Printer Utilities (didn't need this disk)
2. need minimal boot disk with zip driver (4.2)
3. Boot minimal boot disk with zip driver
4. Insert zip disk. Should mount
5. Erase / format zip disk
6. Insert "system tools" and run the installer
7. Installed system that will boot on any Macintosh, + Appletalk, and Responder
8. after system successfully installed, drag zip driver 4.2 to new system folder

Good information on system disks, including minimal systems:
http://earlymacintosh.org/disk_images.html
 
The Macintosh uses its own filesystem called HFS. This is not supported natively under Windows or even Linux. Your best option because you have a working imac is to do whatever file transfers you need through that which you will need to buy hardware, depending on what way you wanna do it.

Floppy: The big issue with writing floppies for something like the SE is that it uses the older 800K format. Now if it was one of the later models like the SE FDHD or SE/30 you could write disks on a PC as the 1.44mb format is pretty similar but for the 800K stuff you're pretty much out of luck. Even the fancy Imation SuperDisk drive that was sold for machines like the iMac do not support the older 800k format. You need another mac with a REAL floppy drive in it. Everything up to the beige Power Macintosh G3 will work.

SCSI: You will need a USB to SCSI adapter. Not especially the the most common things anymore.

Appletalk: You will need a USB to mac serial adapter. A few different people sold them but with that you can use a MiniDIN 8 serial cable and transfer machines form machine to machine.
 
sciencedude100 said:
Would i be able to use a PCI SCSI card in my PC to read/write the SE's HDD?
Click to expand...

Indirectly, yes. You can connect the SCSI drive to a PC in that way and then use "dd" or similar to make a drive image. Then you can mount that image in an emulator, use various tools to insert/extract files, and then write the image back.

Basillisk II (at least under Win9x) also has the ability to use SCSI drives directly.

Another indirect and somewhat cumbersome method is to use a Kryoflux. A Kryoflux can read MacOS whole 400K/800K disk images (not manage files) using a 1.44mb drive, and with a little bit of help from the PCE tools it can also write 400K/800K disk images.
 
SomeGuy said:
Another indirect and somewhat cumbersome method is to use a Kryoflux. A Kryoflux can read MacOS whole 400K/800K disk images (not manage files) using a 1.44mb drive, and with a little bit of help from the PCE tools it can also write 400K/800K disk images.
Click to expand...

I doubt he's willing to pay over $100 for a stupid little board when a Zip setup will cost him a fraction of that and be a million times more practical in this application.
 
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The beige mac's were the only ones to handle 800k disk formats, none of the colored/flavored G3's or later will handle it, and even on the beige ones, it's only supported under Classic OS, no OSX support.
I use a beige G3 for most of my 800k disk imaging. Though most any old beige mac will do if you have an easy way to move data to and from it (such as ethernet, Zip/Jaz, CD, USB flash, etc..).

SCSI ZIP and Jaz drives are VERY handy tech to have, and with the proper software/hardware you can read/write them from a PC either via a PC SCSI card, or a USB Zip drive (probably the cheaper route). There's multiple software packages that can read/write mac disks on PC, most the mac emulators, such as Executor will do it, or there's HFSExplorer which will let you work with them in an explorer like shell.
 
NeXT said:
The Macintosh uses its own filesystem called HFS. This is not supported natively under Windows or even Linux.
Click to expand...

but linux will read write HFS applications with a package called hfs utils

in debian / ubuntu sudo apt-get install hfsutils

that will allow you to mount and read write HFS drives in linux, another way to go about things in linux is to install basilisk II macintosh emulator, and you can tell it where the drive is (ie /dev/sdc1), there's a starter disk image floating around that has os 7 something on it but if you boot from that it gives you access to the linux filesystem, and disk images you may have told it about and nyour real deal hard drive as well. I only yank the drive if im reinstalling the OS, my SE's floppy drive is dead and this is the only way I can get an os on it (only if the drive is properly partitioned and formatted, I havent gotten linux to make a bootable mac drive from 100% blank yet)

I even wrote a little article about it, though some of it is outdated in its specific commands its still a decent reference for myself (including a generic rom file needed and the mentioned starter disk)
http://www.instructables.com/id/Install-system-70-software-on-a-classic-mac-using/
or pdf
http://cheesefactory.us/filecenter/Install-system-70-software-on-a-classic-mac-using.pdf


for day to day use I usually use a serial connection (requires adapter and crossover cable) that is quite slow as the SE can only muster a 19200bps connection so its like downloading disk images from a BBS back in the day, which is charming until its not.. meanwhile I have been looking into network solutions but havent bothered

edit:added link pdf version of my artilce
 
Floppy EMU should work great with the SE: http://www.bigmessowires.com/floppy-emu/

Appletalk from a Mac that supports it would also work well.

You could use a null-modem cable to transfer files, and then unpack them on the SE, but you'd have to have comm. software first.

Or, find an Ethernet card for the SE and file share from your other Mac....
 
I'm using a SCSI2SD in my SE/30.
Works great, and you can attach the drives in an emulator to add more software.

You can also use a scsi cdrom to copy software to the mac.

Next up is a appletalk to ethernet bridge, and the a2server software. It allows you to see a file server over appletalk and windows and copy files in between them. (I have an asantetalk.)
(Very slow.....)

Later,
dabone
 
Dang, that KyroFlux sounds really nice, but OUCH that price! $110
I would love to get a performa or quadra (as long as it's sub-$20). I know people give them away sometimes.
Problem: Where I live is sort of a dead zone for old tech, I found the SE on craigslist, 45mins away and that was it. The rest of my collection was kindly given to me from an old Apple employee. I will ask him though.
Until then, I'll try to get my hands on as many old application floppies as possible.

P.S. Can the 400K/800K drive format a 1.44MB floppy (like, at all?)??
 
I still have a Macintosh Performa 6400/180 and a Power Macintosh 6100/60, either or both of these can be yours for the price of shipping from 37421 zip.

I don't know if the Power mac works, I don't have a video adapter for it, the the performa worked fine last time I used it, and I can test it again if you want it.
I also have a another very yellow monitor for the performa, but no extra kb/mouse.

Later,
dabone
 
dabone said:
I still have a Macintosh Performa 6400/180 and a Power Macintosh 6100/60, either or both of these can be yours for the price of shipping from 37421 zip.

I don't know if the Power mac works, I don't have a video adapter for it, the the performa worked fine last time I used it, and I can test it again if you want it.
I also have a another very yellow monitor for the performa, but no extra kb/mouse.

Later,
dabone
Click to expand...

Wow, Sweet!
Unfortunately, both would cost $76, the performa would cost about $50 and the powermac about $25.
I need to do another home networking job first, but afterwords I might take you up on that offer, Thanks!
 
I strongly don't recommend you open a ZIP drive unless you really need to. As you can see they are very cheaply assembled with nothing but plastic and having the heads open to the air for prolonged periods runs the risk of contamination.
 
dabone said:
I still have a Macintosh Performa 6400/180 and a Power Macintosh 6100/60, either or both of these can be yours for the price of shipping from 37421 zip.

I don't know if the Power mac works, I don't have a video adapter for it, the the performa worked fine last time I used it, and I can test it again if you want it.
I also have a another very yellow monitor for the performa, but no extra kb/mouse.

Later,
dabone
Click to expand...

it's super awesome, but shipping is just way too expensive. The cheapest option is the performa and with FedEx. It'll cost me ~$50 for shipping, then a $10 adapter to use a monitor that I have.

I found a SCSI (yes, actually SCSI) Zip drive on Amazon for ~$40, I might take that route.
 
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