Macintosh System Software – David and Steve's Blog

Published March 12, 2023

SCSI2SD: FAT32 32GB easy edit version

A new, and I think a much easier way to use your SCSI2SD with your Macintosh system. This image file can be used to setup your 32GB card with a FAT32 formatted partition that contains a set of volume files that you can easily mount and edit using Basilisk II, Mini vMac, or some other tool. I created this image file after wondering if I could create something for my SCSI2SD that would be as easy to use as my MacSD. Turns out I could, and then I found out that Andrew over on the MLA beat me to it. This is my version of what he created, his version is formatted exFAT, I decided to use FAT32 and I added more volume files and support for an optional second drive (with 4GB volumes).

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Published March 3, 2023

CD-ROM: Using a Bootable CD-ROM to setup your 68k Macintosh

A few years ago I created a bootable System 7.5.5 CD-ROM image file by editing the contents of a bootable System 7 CD-ROM I have. I discovered that I could change the contents system folder to 7.5.5 and the disk would still boot. This entry describes how you can use my CD-ROM image file and edit it’s contents.

System 7.1.3: Editing my Macintosh 68k bootable images to add the full version of System 7.1.3 (System 7.1 + System update 3.0)

In my previous blog entries I mentioned that I could not include the full version of System 7.1.3 (System 7.1 + System Update 3.0) with with my drive images due to copyright restrictions, but you can install the full version of the North American version of 7.1 up to 7.1.3 using Apple’s Legacy Software Recovery CD.

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Published January 10, 2021

System 7.0.1: Editing my Macintosh 68k bootable images to add the full version of System 7.0.1

In my previous blog entries I mentioned that I could not include the full version of System 7.0.1 with my drive images due to copyright restrictions, but you can install the full version of the North American version of 7.0.1 using Apple’s Legacy Software Recovery CD.

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Published May 10, 2020

System 6.0.8: 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…

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Published September 2, 2018

System 7.5.5: Editing my Macintosh 68k bootable images to add the full version of System 7.5.5

In my previous blog entries I mentioned that I could not include the full version of System 7.5.5 with my drive images due to copyright restrictions, but you can install the full version of the North American version of 7.5.5 using Apple’s Legacy Software Recovery CD, if you want to install one of the other versions you need to use disk images from ~~Apple’s FTP site~~ the Internet Archive (I plan to make a separate blog entry for those)

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Published September 2, 2018

System 6.0.8: Editing my Macintosh 68k bootable images to add the full version of System 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 Internet Archive. So if you are using one of the drive image files I created with minimum versions of System 6.0.8 and System 7.5.5 this guide will tell you how to update to the full version of 6.0.8.

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Published January 6, 2018

SCSI2SD: 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.

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Published December 28, 2017

Floppy Drive: Using a 3.5″ HD Floppy Drive to setup your 68k Macintosh

Booting your classic 68k Macintosh from a 3.5 inch floppy disk was the most common and the easiest way to get most classic macs working when your starting with a more modern machine (most, but not all, more on that in a bit).

This post focuses on 3.5″ High Density (HD) disks that can be created using modern USB floppy drives.

I will create separate posts describing how to get started using 400k and 800k floppy disks using either a intermediary Macintosh that supports both these the HD format, or using floppy-emu to emulate these old drives.

Selecting your System Software for your 68k Macintosh

As I mentioned in my Setting up your vintage (classic) 68k Macintosh not every Macintosh System can run every OS, for example System 7.5.5 was the last version to support the original Macintosh Systems with their Motorola 68000 (68k) processors, 7.6 required Systems with a 68030 and 32bit clean ROMs, with support for 68k processors ending with System 8.1. I also include some information about PPC systems, but my main focus for this page is 68k systems.

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Published November 15, 2015

Setting up your vintage (classic) 68k Macintosh

I recently pulled my old Macintosh Color Classic (with an Apple IIe Emulator Card) out of storage in preparation for a move to see if it still works (last used in 2001)… so far so good. I also obtained a Macintosh LCIII to setup as my backup system in case the Macintosh Color Classic decides to die on me (need to get a cap job done on both of them).

When I started to look for the guides etc. that I used back in 1999/2000, I quickly found out that Apple has finally started to abandon these old machines, removing the free downloads and knowledge base articles that vintage mac users have relied on. Luckily the software can still be found on the internet archive, or sites like the Macintosh Garden and the Macintosh Repository, but it looks like it will be a lot harder to find the information that used to be in the knowledge base. To help myself remember what to do in the future, and to hopefully help others, I’ve decided to put up a series of posts on how to set up these old systems with links to the disk images and files I use.

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Tag: Macintosh System Software