Hello all, I am thrilledto have just acquired a fully functional vintage Mac SE. But it only has one floppy drive and no external drive (hard or floppy). Any advice on a way to reverse fit a 21st century hard drive on? Or any other ideas as to how to avoid constant disk-swapping to run the most basic programs? I could try to buy a vintage external drive but would prefer a larger storage capacity. Thank you!
Floppy Emu (connected to a floppy port) and SCSI2SD (SCSI port connection) are two examples of modern devices that possibly could be of interest as hard drive replacements (I have not tested these, though).
Also, information about volume size limits can be found in the article https://support.apple.com/kb/TA28860?locale=en_US , if necessary.
The stupid new forum software logged me out while I was editing. Ignore the above and go with this:
Welcome!
The SE had a SCSI (yes, we pronounced it "skuzzy" in the day) internal drive interface--they are getting harder albeit not impossible to find. And there are variants of SCSI with different connectors that can cause fit issues if used as an internal drive. Today even used working ones should be dirt-cheap because no one uses them any more.
One wise chap from Eastern Washington who used to be active here always suggested finding a original Apple 300e external CD drive like these:
:https://www.ebay.com/bhp/apple-cd-300
(I wouldn't pay more than US$10 for one.)
Its SCSI interface matches what's on the back of your SE. His recommendation was to remove the CD apparatus and install a SCSI-1 hard drive in its place--the connectors apparently are compatible without adapters. Then you install the system on the external drive and set it to be the boot volume with the Startup Disk control panel,
.
Before departing on this journey, PLEASE read up on SCSI, its evolution and how the connectors changed over time. It's more complicates that newer drive connectivity schemes and I'm pretty sure you will be dealing entirely with SCSI. Here's a good place to start:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCSI
Getting all nostalgic here--my first Mac was an SE/30 bought in 1990 as I recall; we still have it although its HD is pushing up daisies. It's been 100 percent Macs here ever since.
Allan wrote: "Today even used working ones should be dirt-cheap because no one uses them any more." One might think that would be the case, considering how older technology depreciates in value overnight. If you search ebay for an internal SCSI hard drive, it appears that the opposite is true. Here's a search for a 40 MB SCSI hard drive. I bought numerous SCSI hard drives on ebay in the early 2000s at reasonable prices, but by the end of the decade, the prices had gone up beyond belief. Apparently, sellers believe that scarcity multiplies actual value. Rather than buying an external CD-ROM drive just for the enclosure, I'd suggest buying an external SCSI hard drive, such as the one shown at this ebay listing. Keep in mind that hard drives do develop hardware and/or electronic problems with age and usage. It could develop read/write problems without warning, so be sure that the seller offers some type of short-term guarantee as to functionality. To connect an external hard drive (as shown in the listing) to your SE, you'd need to get a good quality SCSI cable (DB-25 to Centronics-50). If the hard drive within the enclosure doesn't have its termination jumper installed (as would likely be the case, so additional SCSI devices could be daisy-chained to the enclosure), you'd also need to buy an Active Terminator and plug into the other Centronics-50 port on the back of the enclosure. After that, the hard drive would have to be formatted as a Mac OS (HFS) volume.
Thank you Allan! I actually used to have a MacPlus back in the day (purchased 1989 I think) and remember when we delicately (and, miraculously, successfully) upgraded its RAM! So terms like Scuzzy are not unfamiliar to me, but just quite buried. I found a super helpful website dedicated to keeping SEs alive and running (ccadams.org). It seems the model I have indeed came with a hard drive which is not showing up, so I am going to tackle that issue first. Thanks for all the help!
Grendl (also Mac-only since my 1989 Mac Plus!)
Thank you Jeff and Allen for the very helpful responses. I also browsed eBay and was surprised at the prices they were asking for this vintage tech. I am going to consider that option but am hoping I can get the internal HD to reboot first, that would be much less hassle if it works!
One chap who used to be active here always suggested finding a original Apple 300 external CD drive like these:
its SCSI interface match what's on the back of your SE. Li
Thank you Jan for the helpful tips! Much appreciated.
Attaching a 21st century external hard drive to a vintage Mac SE
