External ZIP Drives, networking, or USB 1.0 disks?

nwassault

I've been trying for some time to establish a system of transferring documents from my Power Macintosh 6500 to my MacBook. In particular, I want to get the ROM image from the Power Mac 6500 over to my desktop for use in SheepShaver. I've used an external floppy drive at work for transferring files between machines from both eras, but I'd have to use a file splitter, since the files I want to transfer are larger than a 1.4 MB floppy. The Power Macintosh has the optional ZIP 100 drive for that model built in, so I could use an external ZIP drive. This has similar expenses to buying an external floppy drive. I purchased a B&W tower some time ago that happens to have USB 1.1 and a ZIP 100 disk, so I could use a ZIP disk to transfer the files, then transfer them to the MacBook using a thumb drive. I could set up a network between the two, but I've tried that before, and it doesn't seem to work well. Finally, the Power Macintosh amazingly has USB ports, which were obviously a third-party upgrade. The problem is that I've tried to use USB thumb drives in it before, but it tells me that the USB device is draining too much power. What sounds like the best approach to transferring files?

While we're on the topic, I've got a Mac SE that's not wanting to boot from the internal hard drive. I got it to boot once recently and took the opportunity to spend my only free floppy disk on creating a pared down system folder. System 6 is pretty heavy, though, so I ended up with I believe 2 KB. Just enough space for two TeachText documents. I need to find a way to get files and apps onto a 800KB floppy without any other computer from the era. Any suggestions for that?

Squirrel

I dumped my Power Mac 6500 ROM and tried to use it in SheepShaver. I failed miserably, so good luck to you. IIRC, the ROM is 3 MB.

Do you want a file splitting program? I wrote one for situations like this.

Do you have a ZIP-100 disk around? Just use it. If not then...

...my recommendation: setup an FTP server on the G3. Use Anarchy on the 6500 to connect to the G3 and transfer files to the G3. From there, copy the files from the G3 to a USB drive. Then connect the USB drive to the MacBook.

For future reference, what version of the Mac OS is running on the 6500 and G3?

As for your Mac SE, your Power Mac 6500 has a floppy drive. Why not use that? Here is a link to System 6.0.x:
http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American/Macintosh/System/Older_System/System_6.0.x/

And here is a link to some versions of Disk First Aid so you can troubleshoot its drive:
http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American/Macintosh/Utilities/Disk_First_Aid/

Good luck!

nwassault

The 6500 and G3 are both running Mac OS 9.2.2. Actually, I should be able to set up an AppleTalk network between them, come to think of it. I did buy a ZIP disk awhile back, but I bought a 250 MB on accident. As for the SE, I haven't had any luck copying the disk images onto floppies on either the 7300 or the 6500 that I have. The SE is strictly an SE, not an SE/30 or a FDHD, so it doesn't have a 1.44 MB SuperDrive, and OS 9 seems unable to write MFS disks. I had been using an external SCSI drive to move files between them, but the SE doesn't appear to be able to boot from it.

seanstar

I've used ZIP disks on occasion for transfer between my old systems. However, I seem to recall having better luck with networking over a single length of CAT5 so long as both boxes ran OSclassic or both ran OSX and I just used the native networking / file-sharing functionality in the OS. I believe I worked out somewhere than OSX doesn't like talking to classic.

If you have an intermediary Mac laptop with SCSI, you can SCSI-dock to the old PowerMac just like you can FW-target-mode today. Done that too a few times.

If you're getting USB overpower issues, the quick check is whether a powered hub solves them. If the powered hub over-draws, you may have a bad card.

Squirrel

The 6500 only supports 9.1... but yeah, an AppleTalk network is probably a better idea.

My 6500 came with 7.6.1. Boot that and see if it lets you write 800KB floppies.

As for the bootable SCSI drive, try holding down Command-Option-Shift-Delete when turning it on. This tells the Mac to not boot from the hard drive. This is how I got a bunch of SE/30s to boot from a SCSI removable disk drive. Perhaps the HD is messing it up.

Or perhaps the System Folder on the SCSI drive isn't blessed. Try opening the System Folder on another Mac and see if just doing that helps.

Also, your 7300 uses internal SCSI drives. You could take the HD out of the SE and put it in the 7300 and install System 6.0.8 from there. After you repair the disk, if it needs it, first.

seanstar: Do tell about the SCSI-docking...

menace690

6500 can easily run 9.2.2.

http://www.os9forever.com/os9helper.html

seanstar

I don't have my PBG3 on me, but the internet seems to agree with my recollection that the adaptor provided for using the odd-form-factor SCSI port of the laptop has a switch (which apparently shorts pin 30) that will cause it to automatically boot into SCSI docking/disk mode if hooked up to another SCSI bus. Much like Target Disk mode, this lets you pull up the laptop's HDD on another Mac. Of course, being SCSI, it's not quite as real-time plug'n'play, but it works pretty well otherwise.