How to read mac formatted floppies under Win\Mac68k emulator

[mai]

Hi!

Finally I've got original copy of PID on three 3.5" 800K mac formatted floppy disks, but how can I read them under Windows or Mac68k emulator? I want to dump them into images. I've tried WinImage, Gemulator Explorer, HFVExplorer and Basilisk II none of these helped (floppies should be readable). What's the problem?

Thanks in advance!

//suppose the problem appears because of 800k format of these floppies, found this somewhere:

Apple squeezed 800 KB onto floppies when PCs were only getting 720 KB on floppies was to write more data on the floppy tracks far from the center than on the tracks near the center. This was clever, but extremely incompatible. There are ways to squeeze more information onto PC floppy drives than PCs usually use. However, these methods cannot be used to write or even read 800 KB Macintosh formatted floppies.

Even Mac68k emulators don't support 800k floppies, but I'm pretty sure they can read 800k floppies from images, but not from physical drive.

So any variants how to dump floppies into images? Do I need read them on real Mac? This will help or not? I'm not cleraly enough understood the problem with 800k format.

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

For the 400K and 800K floppies Apple used special hardware, floppy drives that were able to read and write with variable speed. The variable speed enabled more data to be written on the disks. Those drives were build into Mac computers. Later, Apple introduced the "SuperDrive" floppy drive that could read and write both the old format and the more generally used 720K format as well as the newer 1.4MB floppies. Up to the latest Macs with floppy drive, floppy drives in Macs could read 800K floppies. With the introduction of the first iMac in 1998 Apple stopped building floppy drives in Macs.

There have never been floppy drives by other manufacturers that could read 800K floppies and Apple only provided the drives as part of a Mac computer.

Emulated 68k Macs can indeed read 800K floppy images, but for creating images from 800K floppies you need a real old hardware Mac (can be a PPC Mac also) that has the original floppy drive built-in.

[mai]

Thanks for explanation, but that's too bad I don't where I can get an old Mac, but even I'll get one, how can I create images from my floppies? I mean, what software do I need for this? And which way I could transfer data from Mac onto PC?

Thanks again.

//furthermore I've bougt one external FDD for $20 especially for dumping these floppies, looks like that was waste of my money

[Stephen Coates]

You should be able to use Apple's DiskCopy to make images of the disks. But first you must get a Mac to do it on.

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

Well, maybe try to find someone who collects old Macs?

DiskCopy, available on all old Macs as part of the System software, can create disk images. The way to transfer the images depends on the possibilities of the used Mac and its software.

[mai]

Hi again!

Recently I've found a guy, who wants to sold one of his Macs. There're 6 machines with built-in FDD (hope they all can read 800k floppies?): LC 475 (the same thing as Quadra 605?), Performa 5200, PowerMac 7100, PowerMac 8100, PowerMac 8500 and PowerMac G3.

As you know I'm not really experienced in Mac hardware, so could you, please, give me an advice, which one is better for me? If I'm going to buy this for dumping floppies, hope I can use it more in some way I want as fast as possible Mac and at the same time most compatible with old software, espeacially games, that were released through all early nineties.

And few more questions. 'cos I've no idea about compability of Mac and PC standards, which way I can connect old Mac with my LCD? Do I need some extra hardware, cables or whatever? And last... approximately how much does this stuff cost?

Thanks in advance!

[kikkoman]

Get the Beige G3. It's faster than any of the other lower models you listed and will indeed run those early 1990's games (OS 8.1-9.2.2).

As for the LCD monitor, I don't see why you couldn't do so with the correct adapter. I mean, it'd be something like this: LCD-to-VGA -> VGA-to-Mac. Although, i'm not sure if you'd need any special software/drivers for those LCD's.

Heh, I too have pondered if I should ever replace my old CRT with an LCD for my old PowerMac 6100 (with the AV card and vga adapter).

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

All those Macs can read 800k floppies and should be useable for creating disk images from those floppies, provided the drive is functioning and DiskCopy is installed.

The LC 475 is the only 68k machine, the kind of machine the early nineties games were created for. The LC 475 can be used with System 7.1 (with System Enabler 065) through Mac OS 8.1.

The other machines are all PowerPC Macs. They will run the 68k software in 68k emulation that is built into the Mac OS system software. On the less powerful early PPC Macs that software runs slower despite a faster processor. (Many Mac users complained about that during the transition from 68k to PPC.) But, of course, the faster the processor, the less that is a problem.

There will be other factors to take into account (like the overall condition of the machines and available software) but my choice would be between the LC that is a original 68k machine and the G3 that is a much more modern PPC machine.

[mai]

Thanks all for your assistance.