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Floppy for Macintosh Classic

Hi,

I recently find a working Macintosh Classic (running system 6.0.7) and I want to write some floppy disks in order to add some applications on it.

I don't have another old Mac with both usb and floppy, but I have an iMac with an external floppy drive.

How can I do? Is it possible?



Thank you,

Giorgio

null-OTHER, Other OS, Macintosh Classic

Posted on Dec 3, 2018 12:26 PM

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Question marked as Best answer

Hello,


Including Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, one could write to plain HFS. Reading HFS was possible even later (see, for example, the web page http://siber-sonic.com/mac/newmillfloppy.html).


Interesting is that one can use PC floppy disks for transfers from modern Macs instead, but that would require the corresponding PC-disk software (such as an appropriate program or a PC Exchange control panel, depending on system version) on an old Mac. With System 7.0.1 on the Macintosh Classic, that would not have been a problem (the Apple File Exchange utility on the Tidbits system disk would allow PC-formatted floppies to be read). Since you have 6.0.7, it is not that easy.


Do you have access to an old Windows PC with a built-in floppy drive (perhaps running something like Windows 95, 98 or XP)? If so, that would open yet other possibilities.

Posted on Dec 4, 2018 11:35 AM

1 reply
Question marked as Helpful

Dec 4, 2018 11:35 AM in response to oigroig

Option 2 would allow you to

a) on the PC, create a 1.44 MB Mac floppy, complete with a ready-to-use StuffIt Expander 4.0.1 installer for Macintosh, directly from a downloaded .exe file,

and

b) create 1.44 MB Mac floppies from certain (Disk Copy 4.2) disk images on the PC, using a utility such as WinImage,

and

c) perhaps experiment with older PC-to-Mac utilities like TransMac or HFVExplorer, thus making it possible to handle HFS files.


Regarding a), the procedure is described here: Re: Getting working files over to my SE/40

7 replies

Dec 3, 2018 5:29 PM in response to oigroig

Macintosh Classic: Technical Specifications


With a Macintosh Classic running System 6.0.7, access to another Mac with a system version capable of writing to 1.44 MB floppy disks formatted plain HFS (Macintosh Standard) would be required. HFS+ (Macintosh Extended) cannot be handled by the Classic. How old is the iMac and which operating system is in use?


All applications would have to be encoded MacBinary (.bin) or BinHex (.hqx) for protection. That is, keep all downloads unaltered until on the Classic. Do not decode or decompress anything on the more modern machine.


On the Classic, a ready-to-use utility (such as an early version of StuffIt Expander) will be needed for the decoding/decompression.

Question marked as Best answer

Dec 4, 2018 11:35 AM in response to oigroig

Hello,


Including Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, one could write to plain HFS. Reading HFS was possible even later (see, for example, the web page http://siber-sonic.com/mac/newmillfloppy.html).


Interesting is that one can use PC floppy disks for transfers from modern Macs instead, but that would require the corresponding PC-disk software (such as an appropriate program or a PC Exchange control panel, depending on system version) on an old Mac. With System 7.0.1 on the Macintosh Classic, that would not have been a problem (the Apple File Exchange utility on the Tidbits system disk would allow PC-formatted floppies to be read). Since you have 6.0.7, it is not that easy.


Do you have access to an old Windows PC with a built-in floppy drive (perhaps running something like Windows 95, 98 or XP)? If so, that would open yet other possibilities.

Question marked as Helpful

Dec 4, 2018 11:35 AM in response to oigroig

Option 2 would allow you to

a) on the PC, create a 1.44 MB Mac floppy, complete with a ready-to-use StuffIt Expander 4.0.1 installer for Macintosh, directly from a downloaded .exe file,

and

b) create 1.44 MB Mac floppies from certain (Disk Copy 4.2) disk images on the PC, using a utility such as WinImage,

and

c) perhaps experiment with older PC-to-Mac utilities like TransMac or HFVExplorer, thus making it possible to handle HFS files.


Regarding a), the procedure is described here: Re: Getting working files over to my SE/40

Dec 4, 2018 11:53 AM in response to Jan Hedlund

Addendum


At least earlier, a full British System 7.0.1 was made available for download as separate files. Generally speaking, some addresses noted earlier appear to be working even today, so you may want to check whether, for example, download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-Briti sh/Macintosh/System/System_7.0.1/Install_1.image.sea.bin is still active (other files were Install_2.image.sea.bin, Printing.image.sea.bin, Fonts.image.sea.bin, Tidbits.image.sea.bin, Disk_Tools.image.sea.bin and System_7_Tune-Up.image.sea.bin).

Floppy for Macintosh Classic

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