🚀 go-pugleaf

Matt Wilson <matt@zamboodle.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> I have been given a Macintosh SE computer - it's an all in one case with
> monitor and two disk drives.
> 
> It all appears to work when you power it up, but I have no disks with it
> (they appear to be lost).  So all it does is show a disk icon with a
> flashing '?'.
> 
> What else do I need to get it working (bearing in mind I've only got PCs).

A working boot disc.  System 6.0.8 is what you need, but how to get it
is another matter - do you have any sort of physical access to a working
Mac?

ftp://ftp.apple.com/dts/mac/sys.soft/                    Sys 5.0 - 7.0.1

is a pointer to downloadable disc images of 6.0.8 - they're in BinHex
encoding (hqx) and need to be decoded to be of any direct use.  Decoding
them on a PC will lose the resource fork which is a Bad Thing.

If you have no joy trying to DIY, do ask again (uk.comp.sys.mac is
another good place) and someone can probably post you some boot discs.

> The little Mac's probably ideal for a simple & easy to use word processor
> machine.  

It certainly is - but note that System 6.0.8 (the most recent OS you can
run off floppies) is really rather old so not a lot of modern software
will run - quite a lot of current(ish) software is too big to fit on
floppies even if it *can* run under System 6.

>I'm not too hopeful though, as I seem to recall Macs having a
> non-linear disk format with varying speeds depending where the heads are -
> no PC is going to cope with writing a disk for that!

Bets?

ftp://ftp.iele.polsl.gliwice.pl/pub/software/emulators/emul8.bydnet.com.
pl/Macintosh/HFSexplorer111.zip

Anyway, check the case: if it says `FDHD' or `SuperDrive' anywhere on
it, you've got a Mac with 1.4M floppies.  The 800K Mac format uses
variable rotational speed, but the 1.4MB format doesn't.

I *think* you should be able to create working boot discs from the disc
image files using HFSExplorer on a Win32 PC, but I don't have such a
beast so I can't be sure of whether you can or not or how to do the job.

> I have also noticed it appears to have a mini-DIN for the printer port -
> can this be made to work with a 'normal' centronics socket type HP DeskJet
> 600 that's hooked up to my PC?

Does that HP have a serial port?  If so, it should be just a matter of
getting a cable (from anywhere) and driver software from HP:

http://hpcc920.external.hp.com/peripherals/printers/main.html

If not, you might see if an advert in uk.adverts.computer.mac could get
you a PowerPrint RS422-Centronics cable and software (it's a bit pricey
to buy new for a free Mac).

> Anyway, any info appreciated as I would like to get it doing something!

Some urls that might help:

http://www.walli.uwasa.fi/~mhaveri/68000.txt             68k mac FAQ
http://shareware.unc.edu/shareware/home/ftp/pub/mac/  
Vintage Mac software
http://home1.gte.net/mcorphan/system6.html               System 6 page
http://www.edprint.demon.co.uk/se/index.html             Mac SE stuff
http://www.mactimes.com/lowend/               The low-end Mac site
http://www2.prestel.co.uk/macman/classicmac/home.html 
A Classic Macs site
http://www.eden.com/~arena/jagshouse/jagshouseone.html   Jag's house
http://members.aol.com/maccrypt/index.html         Old software and OSs
http://www.gamesdomain.com/tigger/sw-oldmac.html    Old Mac software
http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n22139  How to get Mac OSs
http://www.uwm.edu/~thig/plus.html             Antique Mac pages

And a couple of mailing lists:

To subscribe to Classic Macs,

send e-mail to <Majordomo@hitznet.com>. In the body of the message write

subscribe classics

You will be added within a day.

Vintage Macs, the listserv for users of 68000, 68020, and 68030-based
Macs.
FAQ at http://www.mactimes.com/lowend/vintage/

Hope this helps
Rowland.

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