Basilisk II and auto-mounting USB floppies

[RevolutionEagle]

So, I need Basilisk II to help support my old PowerBook 180 (1993). For that, BII would have to be able to read and write floppies from a USB floppy drive (to upgrade system software, install applications, etc.). Trouble is, I can't seem to get Basilisk II to auto mount a floppy whenever I put it in the drive.

I'm using a MacBook Pro 15.4" Core i5 (on loan) with Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard.

[Cat_7]

Hi,

Basilisk for OSX doesn't support direct access to floppy disks. However, if the disk mounts in OSX (does it?), you might have a chance of reading it when you add the volume to the volumes list in the Basilisk GUI.
After the floppy has mounted in OSX, edit the hidden .sheepshaver_prefs file in you home folder from the command line with "open .sheepshaver_prefs" and add:

disk /Volumes/NameOfFloppyDiskVolume

Save the file and try to start SheepShaver. If the disk appears on the desktop, you might be able to read/write to it. But this is speculation, as I don't have the hardware to try. Looking forward to your report, it might help others.

-Can you not use the shared folder option to exchange files between the floppy and Mac OS.
-You might also try to enter the path to the mounted floppy in the Unix root in the first tab of the GUI.
-You might be able to construct disk images from the floppies, open them in Mac OS, change what you need, make images again and use the "dd" command in OSX to copy them back to floppy.

Off topic: Basilisk (build 142) for windows reads mac floppies and so does the HFV explorer software.


Best,
Cat_7

[RevolutionEagle]

Thanks for the advice. I do have a Windows machine I could make use of for this job—looks like the best option is to do that.

On that topic, will direct floppy access be coming to Basilisk II for Mac sometime in the future?

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

On that topic, will direct floppy access be coming to Basilisk II for Mac sometime in the future?

Who knows? Certainly not any time soon and probably never.

No active development of BasiliskII (and SheepShaver) is going on since the last leading developer stopped working on this project a couple of years ago. Some fixes and improvements have been added to the source code by users with programmer skills. And if, for instance, these emulators would prove to be incompatible with future versions of host systems, some may try to solve that. But I do not expect new features.

[flowers]

I've the configuration needed to try this setting; i follow cat_7 idea and inserting the volume/namefloppy (for me was an "Untitled") the system 7.5.3 when boot give me the request to format an unreadable disk. I insert a regular floppy 720k with old "MS-DOS Fat 12" not a mac HFS floppy disk; but can the floppy usb drive read an HFS drive ? i do not think so. The hardware i used is my macbookrpo with MacOSx Lion and a pocket USB FDD Lacie 706018 .





With Lion the only way to see the USB drive is insert in the USB reader a formatted floppy and only then connect the USB. (not formatted floppy do not mount)
Like seen in the last snapshot I tryed to initialize it but it do not work, i think this ismore connected to macosx Lion then other problem; i look now to found some floppy to read from this lacie.. but i do not think it willbe able to do it ... and i do not think to have anymore...

[Cat_7]

Does the floppy show up on your OSX desktop? Can you read and write to the floppy from OSX?

If the USB drive does not support HFS (which I suspect it will not, as special Sony drives were used for that) you need to read/write to DOS formatted floppies. It will not be able to format Mac floppies.

Is your Mac OS 7.5.3 installation capable of reading DOS formatted floppies? Do you have PC access available?

The floppy disk itself has a small switch enabling/disabling write access. Is the small switch set so the hole in the floppy is open? (Which enables writing)

In Windows, using HFV explorer, you can only read/write to 1.44 Mb floppies. Perhaps the size (720k) is also part of the problem.

Perhaps a workaround: I downloaded a blank 1.44Mb Dos formatted floppy disk image and added it to the Volumes list. Basilisk opened it (with a icon labeled PC). I could then write/read to the floppy disk image. As I don't have a real floppy available, I couldn't test whether I could write the image to a real floppy (using the dd command, with something like "dd if=floppyimage.name of=/dev/diskname").

(diskname can be found when selecting the floppy disk and then get Info in Diskutility.)

Best,
Cat_7

[flowers]

Does the floppy show up on your OSX desktop? Can you read and write to the floppy from OSX?

Yes, i try now a different 1,444 Flppy and it mount:

Is your Mac OS 7.5.3 installation capable of reading DOS formatted floppies? Do you have PC access available?

I've a PC compatible that i can use; using virtual box with a windows xp sp3 this USB Floppy drive is visible and usable. Under Basilisk the system 7.5.3 is not permitting me to initialize the floppy with the same advise as before; when basilisk start the led of the external floppy start that sound good and as before the system ask me to initialize the floppy, now macintosh 7k.

In Windows, using HFV explorer, you can only read/write to 1.44 Mb floppies. Perhaps the size (720k) is also part of the problem.

I think is not the problem, the 720k and the actual 1.44Mb are with MSDOS fat12 and are both visible under windows in the virtualbox machine. these floppies are even visible by macosx, that can read/write inside.

And finally: the floppy disk itself has a small switch enabling/disabling write access. Is the small switch set so the hole in the floppy is open? (Which enables writing)

Yes sure; is been closed to permit the write, but nothing happen. same as before warning, basilisk seems that is not able to pass the comand to the unit... maybe is needed a permission ? or simply needed to share the unit. I do not know... i do some more tests...

[Cat_7]

Please check my updated comments above.

Best,
Cat_7

[flowers]

I continue to follow your thought, first i try to mount a blank formatted 1.44 floppy disk image with diskname "EMPTY" under macosx and put the volume in the basilisk_ii_prefs
disk /Volumes/EMPTY

Same effect as the real floppy mount; these are the informations from Disk Utility about the real floppy and the mounted disk image :




Now i Add the empty.img to basilisk and i've the added line in .basilisk_ii_prefs :

extfs /Users/Michele1/BasiliskII/Shared

and a PC drive is visible in the desktop :

[flowers]

I downloaded a blank 1.44Mb Dos formatted floppy disk image and added it to the Volumes list. Basilisk opened it (with a icon labeled PC). I could then write/read to the floppy disk image.

Do you see the floppy Icon ?

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

What exactly is the reason for these attempts to read (or write?) floppies or floppy images in BasiliskII? Do you have floppies with files you want to import in BasiliskII? Are these Mac or Windows floppies? What size are these floppies?

As far as I know, it should be possible to at least read both Windows (DOS formatted) and Mac (HFS formatted) 1.4MB floppies in Lion with any USB floppy drive. It should also be possible to read 720k Windows floppies. But it is not possible to use 800k Mac (HFS formatted) floppies with normally available drives and driver software.

(720k floppies that are HFS formatted in a Apple floppy drive that uses variable speed, become 800k Mac floppies that can only be used in special drives that can read those floppies again at variable speed. All floppy drives in old Macs do that. It seems also to be possible to read those floppies in Windows with the use of special driver software, but that is beyond my expertise.)

[flowers]

the fact is simply that i'm following this post about the connection of an USB external drive and the virtual system 7.5.3 and basilisk; i were here today with this Lacie USB unit and this post.

Then is true that I own a preatty old Quadra 610 disconnected from the world in my garage and i'm thinking to get it back. no scsi units inside or outside to connect and no appletalk too... i'm looking to found an Ethernet adaptor that probably i'll have in hands in the next weeks.. but thinking on the floppy drive i was looking to use the same emulated 68k Quadra under Basilisk and a real USB drive to transfer some file back to it... but more then this game that i do not see possible for the different format.. i'm even here to enjoy to understand how can be this USB drive be visible in this nice Basilisk system that i'm trying for the first time these days... and is really nice ^_^

[24bit]

Moving floppies between your Quadra and OSX should be possible if you use 1.4MB HFS formatted disks. 10.6 can read such HD HFS floppies and you can move your files to the shared folder of your 10.6 host (Unix drive in emulation). As OSX is aware of the old HFS resource fork you should be safe with any kind of files.
If you want to move files from OSX to the Quadra via HFS HD floppies, you will need a virtual machine running 10.5 Leopard or lower on your 10.6 system to write files to a HFS HD floppy.
(Actually I did just that with my PPC7100 and a 10.5 VM running on a 10.6 host.)

Of course you can also move files on FAT (PC) HD floppies, if your Quadra runs 7.5.3 or better with PC Exchange. USB HD floppies can be partitioned as MS-DOS FAT with Disk Utility in OSX.
In that case resource forks will be lost on the journey, so you would better transfer your files as .sit or .img.
Stuffit can be used for .sit, DiskCopy for .img, on both your Quadra and in Basilisk_II.
(I guess PC Exchange could also be installed with 7.1, but I never tried myself.)