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Help Getting Files onto Mac SE, Possibly Other Computers

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Mister_Alex

Experienced Member
Joined
Sep 1, 2011
Messages
58
Some forum users suggested The MacIntosh Garden for some software (thanks a lot, guys) but I am having a doozy of a time figuring out how to get it from my iMac (2009, Leopard OS) onto my vintage Mac SE. And possibly copy some Tandy game files as well.

Some Mac experts are telling me to go ahead and buy an external 3.5 floppy disk drive, but others are telling me it won't work; I'll have to locate a Mac from the 90s and go on-line with that. One of my relatives has the original iMac that came in 'berry colors', but if an over-the-counter external floppy would work. . . .

Can anyone help me out?
 
I don't remember which version of Mac OS it was which allowed you to read PC floppies. But if you have that ability on the SE, then the USB floppy technique would work - you would format floppies on your iMac formatted as FAT, then read them on the SE.
However finding a 90s mac that has ethernet, a floppy drive, and ADB would let you transfer software more rapidly, and you could appletalk from that machine to the SE. I'm using a Performa 6200CD for this task, which works pretty well.
 
File Exchange is present all the way back to System 7.0.1, if I remember correctly, but it's not always installed by default; if you have the system disks you should be good to go, though. (Earlier versions are a standalone program, if you can get the extension version from System 7.5 it's much easier to use, as you can simply use the Finder.)

A USB floppy drive will work for putting files on PC-format floppies, but not for Mac-format floppies, so it's only useful if you already have File Exchange installed.
 
One *BIIIIG* thing to be aware of: Make sure your SE has a 1.4 MB floppy drive! (It should say either "SE FDHD" or "SuperDrive" on the front.) If it is an early SE with only an 800K floppy drive, then you *NEED* a beige G3-or-earlier Macintosh running Mac OS 9 or earlier to read and write them. Macintosh 800K floppies are *NOT* readable by PC-standard floppy drives, which includes all USB floppy drives, even when connected to a Mac, even an OS 9 Mac.

A VERY easy way to tell for sure it to take a floppy disk you are willing to throw away if the test fails, and put it in the SE. Format it. If it formats it to 1.4 MB, it had an HD drive; if it formats it to 800K, then you'll need an old beige Mac to transfer from.

If it's HD, a USB drive plugged in to a Mac will work fine. It will work best in Mac OS 9, but you can use HFS formatted floppies in OS X - just not well, especially on newer versions of OS X.
 
Linintosh Server.. The best way to get files to and from your Vintage Mac, runs in a VM. Then pick up a DaynaPort SCSI-Ethernet Adapter. Youll be able to dump files from your mac onto the Mac SE over Appletalk.. Simple, Easy and effective.. I use it all the time

http://ld8.org/~gavo/linintosh/index.html
 
I'll try out the disks on the SE and then post the results soon. I'm getting to the point where I just wanna pay someone on the internet to copy and mail games for me. . . .
 
Where are you located? I or someone else here could mail you a floppy with the File Exchange extension on it...

(Also, if you can get a SCSI CD-ROM drive and the Joliet/ISO 9660 extensions, I've had no trouble reading CD-Rs full of .SIT files on a 68k Mac.)
 
I am located in Plymouth, MA. Right now I'm busy with my fiction writing, and will try to setup some sort of webpage to let the pros know what I'm willing to buy from them. :)
 
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