Installing software from floppy disk on OSX

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dmolony
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Installing software from floppy disk on OSX

Post by dmolony »

Does anyone know how to mount a floppy disk when an installation program asks for it? I already know how to mount a disk image, but this is different. When installing some software, the installation program will ask for a particular floppy to be inserted. And then another one, and so on until the installation is complete.

I cannot get this to work on OSX. I've tried various combinations of F1 and F11 and ctrl/option/cmd/shift, also editing the preferences file to use 'floppy' instead of 'disk', but to no avail.

Simply having the disk image appear on the desktop is not sufficient. The image has to be mounted in the floppy disk drive on demand.
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24bit
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Re: Installing software from floppy disk on OSX

Post by 24bit »

I still have a Imation Super Disk connected to (Snow)Leopard for the rare cases of reading a HD floppy disk.

As you are posting in the BII forum, your installer will want OS8 or earlier I guess.
Without a vintage Mac, best try BII build 142 for Windows - Ctrl/Shift/F11 mounts the Mac floppy
or Fusion PC for DOS - Fusion PC polls the floppy drive automatically.

Many apps installed from floppy could be moved to another Mac without complaining, hope for the best.
If your floppies are HD, you might create disk images of it with DiskDup+ and I´ll give them a try, if you wish.
dmolony
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Re: Installing software from floppy disk on OSX

Post by dmolony »

I am running BII (System 7.5.3) on OSX El Capitan. I have a working SE/30 and a floppy emu, so I can create disk images from the original disks. The problem is getting BII to mount the images so that the installation program believes that a disk has been inserted into the floppy drive. Currently it just sits there asking for a floppy to be inserted.

I've looked at the BII source code and it appears to handle floppy drive insertions. I just can't work out what I have to do to make it execute.
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mabam
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Re: Installing software from floppy disk on OSX

Post by mabam »

Does the version Of Mac OS you use within BII let you access the desktop or another program while the message asking you to insert a certain floppy is on the screen?

If it does, you can copy the images onto your Mac OS disk within BII and mount a particular image there using Disk Copy once you're prompted for it. I'm not sure though what image format is needed for Disk Copy. I only remember it had .img as extension. .smi is fine as well. That would be a self mounting image then.
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Ronald P. Regensburg
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Re: Installing software from floppy disk on OSX

Post by Ronald P. Regensburg »

The message is usually in a modal window, blocking user input.

One can try to simply mount images of all the needed floppy disks at the same time. Then start using the first one. Many installers will continue reading from the next image and the next and so forth.
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mabam
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Re: Installing software from floppy disk on OSX

Post by mabam »

Ronald P. Regensburg wrote:One can try to simply mount images of all the needed floppy disks at the same time. Then start using the first one. Many installers will continue reading from the next image and the next and so forth.
That's what I've done in the past. But I assumed it wouldn't work because dmolony wrote:
Simply having the disk image appear on the desktop is not sufficient. The image has to be mounted in the floppy disk drive on demand.
I might have misunderstood that though.
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Ronald P. Regensburg
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Re: Installing software from floppy disk on OSX

Post by Ronald P. Regensburg »

mabam wrote:I assumed it wouldn't work because dmolony wrote:
Simply having the disk image appear on the desktop is not sufficient. The image has to be mounted in the floppy disk drive on demand.
I might have misunderstood that though.
You did not misunderstand. It depends on the installer. Some installers will work fine with all images mounted, some won't. It is always worth trying before resorting to more complex workarounds.
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adespoton
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Re: Installing software from floppy disk on OSX

Post by adespoton »

Something else that works for some installers that don't like the "all floppies loaded" trick is to copy all the floppies as folders into one parent folder on the main disk image. It then pulls from the folders instead of asking for floppies.

But usually the ones that assume only one or two floppy drives are older installers. So in that case, grab a Mac II Mini vMac and MacII.rom, boot your main image with that, and then drag the floppies over the window as prompted for them. Once the installation is complete, you can boot the image back up in BII once you've shut down Mini vMac.

But other than for networking software, I've found I really have no need of BII anymore, as Mini vMac II is more compatible and faster than the Performa emulation under BII up to Mac OS 7.5.5, and SheepShaver will handle the rest.
dmolony
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Re: Installing software from floppy disk on OSX

Post by dmolony »

This turned out to be the correct answer, although I didn't understand it at first. Using DiskCopy 6.3.3 I was able to mount all of the floppy disk images as floppy disks. Then the installation went smoothly.

I haven't used DiskCopy to copy any disks yet, but it works very well as a DiskMounter.
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