I’ve been lucky enough to pick up a few upgrades to my classic Macintosh systems over the years, and in the process of hunting down information on those upgrades I’ve come across ads and reviews of a lot of different options that have been produced over the years for a Macintosh Plus, so I thought I’d […]
Macintosh 68k
New images for Macintosh System 6.0.8
As part of a general cleanup and as something to do on rainy days, I’ve decided to make a version 2 of the drive and partition images I created a couple of years ago: I’m going to get rid of the 512MB image I created, from what I can see people are only using the 1GB […]
Using Asante SCSI to Ethernet with my Macintosh Plus
I’ve finally gotten around to creating drive images for using an Asanté Desktop EN/SC (1996 version), SCSI to Ethernet converter with a Macintosh Plus (once I bought a keyboard from Herb Johnson to replace the ones I had that were lost in a move). I have one of the later versions that draw’s it’s power […]
Using a FloppyEMU emulated HD20 with my Macintosh Plus
Recently I pickup a few Macintosh Plus systems, so I’ve decided to play around with the FloppyEMU’s HD20 support with the hopes of writing some future blog posts for maxing out a Macintosh Plus. This guide will also work for the SE, Classic, Classic II, Portable, IIci, IIsi, or LC.
Sierra 256 colour and SCI games for the Macintosh 68k and PPC
Similar to my work to recreate the release timeline for Sierra’s Adventure Game Interpreter (AGI) games, I’ve done a bit of research to gather the release timeline of their SCI and other 256 colour adventure type games (e.g. by Dynamix) for the Macintosh. 1. Reconstructed Timeline Spring 1990, Sierra’s Spring 1990 Newsletter Volume 3 Number […]
SCSI2SD setup for my Apple IIe card in my LC 475
For reference by my future self, and for anyone that might want to duplicate my setup, I’ve documented how I’ve setup the 32GB SD card that I use with my LC 475 with my Apple IIe card
Technical Note QD01 – 32-Bit QuickDraw: Version 1.2 Features
This Technical Note describes the changes and enhancements to 32-Bit QuickDraw from version 1.0 (as shipped on the original Color Disk) to version 1.2, which ships with System Software 6.0.5 and later. This Note assumes familiarity with Inside Macintosh, Volume V, Color QuickDraw, and 32-Bit QuickDraw release notes. [Apr 01 1990] I’ve included this in […]
68k Macintosh and Sierra AGI games
I’ve been a fan of Sierra games since 1988 when I bought a Tandy 1000SX as my first high school computer and picked up the Sierra Value Pack with Thexder, Helicopter Simulator, and Space Quest II at the same time. So when I first started playing around with old Macs in the late 90s (when […]
Roland MT-32 Midi for a 68k Macintosh
I’ve always had a soft spot for the Sierra quest series, LucasArt and similar games of the 80s and early 90s. Recently I dug them out again to play on in DosBOX with MUNT (Roland MT-32 emulator) enabled to hear the amazing (for the time) orchestrated music. As part of setting up MUNT on my […]
Using an Apple IIe Emulator Card in your 68k Macintosh
Back in the early 2000s I managed to buy a couple of Apple IIe PDS cards (at a price far less then they go for now). Over the years I’ve learned several tricks for how to use these cards as a way of bridging the old Apple II systems, through a classic Macintosh to modern […]
Using MAME to setup your 68k Macintosh
You likely already know what MAME is, but if not, the simplest description is a multi-purpose emulator. Most people use it to emulate old arcade systems and gaming consoles, but it also provide support for several of the 68k Macintosh Systems (search the page for mac.c). For this blog entry I’m going to walk through setting up […]
Using SoftMac to setup your 68k Macintosh
You might know what SoftMac is, but are more likely familiar with Basilisk II, SoftMac was a commercial Macintosh Emulator created by Emulators Inc in the 1990s that is now freely available on their site. SoftMac has a few benefits over Basilisk II for helping you set up your Classic Mac: SoftMac supports both System 6.x and […]
Installing the full version of System 7.5.5 or 6.0.8
In my previous blog entries I mentioned that I could not include the full version of System 7.5.5 or System 6.0.8 with my drive images due to copyright restrictions, but you could download the full versions from Apple’s FTP site…. that option is gone, and is now replaced with the files being available from the […]
Initializing and Partitioning your Hard Drive for your 68k Macintosh
I recently acquired a SCSI2SD adapter to replace a failing SCSI drive from the 1990s, so thought I’d document some of the options I’ve found for initializing and partitioning bootable drives for classic Macintosh systems.
Using DD to create and write disk images
With SCSI being essentially obsolete, and the fact that Macintosh systems (since OS X 10.6 I think) can no longer write to HFS formatted disks, the best way to use modern systems when setting up your classic 68k system is to create a bootable drive image using a Macintosh 68k or PowerPC emulator then writing […]
SCSI on Windows 10 64-bit: Adaptec AHA-2940 (29xx) Ultra, AIC-7870 (78xx), or 29320LPE Ultra 320
When I first started playing with 68k macintosh systems around 1999/2000 (a Macintosh Plus) I connected an external SCSI drive to my Windows 98 system and was able to use an early version of Basilisk II with SCSI pass-through to format the hard drive. Now 18 years later, SCSI is an obsolete technology, and in general […]
Using Basilisk II to setup your 68k Macintosh
You probably know what Basilisk II is, but if not, a quick summary: Basilisk II (manual) is an open source emulator of 68k-based Macintosh computers that support 32bit memory (therefore you can NOT boot System 6 under Basilisk, but you can setup System 6 on a secondary drive image, see Section 5) that runs on Windows, […]
Using a SCSI2SD adapter to setup your 68k Macintosh
I recently purchased a SCSI2SD V.5 adaptor (3.5″ and 2.5″) to replace a failing 1980s SCSI HD, and realized once I had it set up I could “image” the Micro-SD card to make boot-able images anyone could use.
Mac OS Standard Format Specifications (Apple KB Article 8647)
This is a copy of Apple Knowledge Base Article 8647 taken from the internet archive, this article explains the various limits for partition sizes, and number of files under different versions of the OS Before discussing hard drive block allocation, and the intricacies of determining allocation block sizes and such, let’s first review the Macintosh […]
Using a 100MB SCSI Iomega Zip Drive to setup your 68k Macintosh
I’ve recently been experimenting to see if I could somehow use of my old Iomega Zip drives (a 250MB USB version, and a 100MB SCSI) to move files between my Windows PC and my various 68k Macintosh Systems. After a bit of experimentation I discovered how I could not only move files, but also create […]