Q: Boot System 7 from floppy disk
Hi everyone!
I'd like to buy a Macintosh plus on ebay but first I've got to work out something:
I want to be able to quickly swap systems (i.e. system 1, 3, 6, and possibly 7). I saw that "system disks" were available for System 1 so that you can directly boot from the floppy. But I can't find any equivalent for System 7. I have no idea why. Maybe Apple changed the name? (Disk tools, Tidbits ...). It seems to me that you can't boot from the floppy anymore on System 7 through 9. You can only INSTALL System 7. Am I wrong?
Every little helps, If you have a solution to my problem, please feel free to just post whatever your idea was
Thanks,
Bad Gold Eagle
Posted on May 2, 2014 10:41 AM
Hi,
The Macintosh Plus can only handle maximum 800K floppy disks in a special Mac format (on standard 2DD/DSDD diskettes). It is not possible to use 1.44 MB floppies (HD diskettes).
http://support.apple.com/kb/sp190
System 6.0.3, 6.0.8 and 7.0 are all downloadable from Apple as 800K disk images (the 7.0 disk images are contained in one large .smi file).
http://www.info.apple.com/support/oldersoftwarelist.html#system
It is true that System 7.0 must be installed (a complete system needs more space than 800K), but you can at least use the separate Disk Tools floppy for startup purposes (in addition to the disk with the installer).
If necessary, you could easily connect an external hard drive to the SCSI port of the Macintosh Plus. It is even possible to have several system versions on the same hard disk (a utility such as System Picker could be used to switch between systems).
Jan
Posted on May 2, 2014 1:41 PM