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![[F]](/Images/i7/site.gif) TidBITS  TidBITS TidBITS Talk
Floppy Server?![[Hettinga, R.A.]](/webx/?30@@1) R.A. Hettinga (apparently) - 02:43pm Apr 8, 2004 PSTvia email[After some thought, I've decided that this is just crazy enough to warrant posting, even though it's not related to anything. :-) -Adam]
I have an old client (for about 15 years) with an old machine (IIsi!)
running an old database using an old copy of 4D (3.bla).
This machine is starting to creak a bit :-), and we've decided to
move to another machine. For fun, I drag copied the whole machine
onto a Zip Drive, and drag-copied 4D onto my G5 along with the
aforementioned database, double-clicked same, and... 4D starts up!
"Kewlll", says I, "I can muck around with this, or maybe I won't have
to do anything except fire it up on the new machine, and we can plink
around, upgrade, whatever, at our leisure..."
Almost. The copy protection cruft then asks me for my "Disk 1" disk,
and, unthinkingly, haul out my USB floppy drive, plug it in, put in
the "Disk 1" disk, and, well, you get the idea. So close, yet so far
away.
Long story short, after rooting around for an SE/30 PDS Ethernet card
for the IIsi (which I'd have to haul the Radius Pivot board out from,
not happy about that, but I can live with headless if I have to) and
not finding *any* (okay, *one* guy on EBay with 4 days left on the
auction...) out there on the net, I got to remembering something I
read earlier last night that I dismissed out of hand when I saw it,
but looks like it is, in fact, the easiest thing to do now.
With AppleTalk file-sharing, ethernet, and a (floppy!) Superdrive on
the right ancient and honorable Mac of my own, I could have a floppy
server.
Ideally, I'd like an all-in-one, an SE/30 with an Ethernet PDS card
would be nice, but they're, oddly enough, hard to come by ;-). I saw
one, sans Ethernet card, for 10 bucks, but it's the Ethernet cards
that are the pain, as I've said before.
So, before I go wading any farther into the weeds on this, has anyone
had any success doing this? *Can* you mount a floppy on an OS X 10.3
desktop via AppleTalk file-sharing, and so on?
Also, I suppose I'm in the market for such a machine, if it's cheap
enough, so ping me directly about that, as well, I guess. I'd rather
have something that has everything on it, than to install components
to see if they work...
--
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah  ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation < http://www.ibuc.com/>
R.A. Hettinga (apparently)
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Apr 9, 2004 11:00 am
(#1 Total: 12)
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Re: Floppy Server?
At 2:43 PM -0700 4/8/04, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
>I got to remembering something I
>read earlier last night that I dismissed out of hand when I saw it
Just to give credit where it's due, here's where I saw the idea, on, of
course, The Low End Mac:
< http://www.lowendmac.com/myturn/010315.html>
--
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation < http://www.ibuc.com/>
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R.A. Hettinga (apparently)
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Apr 9, 2004 11:00 am
(#2 Total: 12)
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Re: Floppy Server?
At 4:20 PM -0700 4/8/04, Somebody wrote:
>I'd guess that if the USB floppy drive doesn't satisfy the copy
>protection, then a floppy server won't either. Those 4D guys were
>pretty crafty. They're probably talking directly to the OS9 (OS7?
>OS6?) floppy driver, which doesn't exist on your G5.
It's not the copy protection. It's the fact that the USB drives won't
mount an 800k (maybe 400k ) Mac-formatted floppy. Being IBM format
drives, they
The external 400/800/14.4 *original* SuperDrives used a modified
Integrated Woz Machine chip, or something, if I remember what someone
told me:
At 12:39 AM -0500 4/5/04, Somebody Else wrote:
>No, it's actually a proprietary-to-Apple 19-pin interface that is
>largely based on (if not entirely) a protocol the Woz designed for
>the original floppy controller chip in the Macintosh. (Thus the name
>"IWM" or "SWIM" for the floppy controller chip. The acronym stands
>for "Integrated Woz Machine" or, in the case of the Superdrive,
>"Super Woz Integrated Machine.")
Are we having fun yet?
--
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation < http://www.ibuc.com/>
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perry (apparently)
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Apr 9, 2004 11:00 am
(#3 Total: 12)
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via email - Perry The Cynic |
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Re: Floppy Server?
There's a trick. :-)
Don't share the floppy on the new Mac, share the disk with 4D on the old Mac.
Ingenious to be sure. Reminds me of why I ditched 4D long ago...
From < http://www.4d.com/support/faqinstall.html>:
"There is also a way to install 4D V3.5.4 on a Macintosh with no floppy
drive, as long as you have access to a networked Macintosh with a floppy
drive. Let us assume you have two such computers; we'll call them iMac and
oldMac. To get 4D V3.5.4 running on iMac, follow these steps:
Install 4D V3.5.4 on iMac, but don't launch it. - Turn on File Sharing
(Sharing Setup or File Sharing Control Panel) on iMac. Share the hard disk
of iMac, so that you can write to it. If you're not sure how to use File
Sharing, consult Apple's built-in help, or the documentation that came
with your computer.
Connect to iMac from oldMac. - Launch the copy of 4D V3.5.4 on iMac's hard
disk. You are running 4D on oldMac, but the copy you are running is on
iMac, and you are loading it over the network. - When you are asked for
the Key Disk, insert it. Then quit from 4D V3.5.4. - Disconnect oldMac
from iMac. If you previously had file sharing turned off on iMac, turn it
off again.
You will now be able to launch 4D V3.5.4 on the iMac."
Cheers
-- perry
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kreme (apparently)
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Apr 9, 2004 11:00 am
(#4 Total: 12)
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via email - kreme@kreme.com |
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Re: Floppy Server?
On Apr 8, 2004, at 3:43 PM, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
> Almost. The copy protection cruft then asks me for my "Disk 1" disk,
> and, unthinkingly, haul out my USB floppy drive, plug it in, put in
> the "Disk 1" disk, and, well, you get the idea. So close, yet so far
> away.
Did you try making an IMAGE of the floppy and mounting that?
images almost always work on Macs (and is how I play games like Tiger
Woods or NeverWinter Nights that insist on having a CD in the drive).
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georgewade1 (apparently)
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Apr 9, 2004 11:00 am
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Re: Floppy Server?
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kevinv (apparently)
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Apr 9, 2004 11:00 am
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Re: Floppy Server?
R. A. Hettinga wrote:
>[After some thought, I've decided that this is just crazy enough to warrant posting, even though it's not related to anything. :-) -Adam]
If you're going to post crazy things related to floppy drives, you should
include this web site that tells you how to setup a 5 floppy drive RAID
system:
< http://ohlssonvox.8k.com/fdd_raid.htm>
>Almost. The copy protection cruft then asks me for my "Disk 1" disk,
>and, unthinkingly, haul out my USB floppy drive, plug it in, put in
>the "Disk 1" disk, and, well, you get the idea. So close, yet so far
>away.
Did 4D not talk at all to the USB floppy or does the USB floppy not
support the floppy disk format on the 4D disk?
If 4D would not read the USB floppy, I would guess it's because 4D is
attempting to talk directly to old style floppy hardware instead of
using standard system calls to get to the disk. If this is the case
than a floppy server won't work either because the network drive won't
react to direct reads of floppy hardware.
If the problem was the format on the disk, the server might work. Also
can you read the floppy on the original system still? Can you make a
disk image on the old system and then move that old disk image to the
new system and mount it? I used to do this with old Quark serial number
disks because they were flaky.
Kevin
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R.A. Hettinga (apparently)
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Apr 9, 2004 11:00 am
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Re: Floppy Server?
At 12:59 AM -0600 4/9/04, LuKreme wrote:
>Did you try making an IMAGE of the floppy and mounting that?
Aye. There's the rub. I have a IIsi which writes old floppies. I have a G5
which only reads new floppies.
Copying images is probably not gonna work, right? ;-).
I think we're gonna be okay with an ethernet PCMCIA card in her old laptop.
--
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation < http://www.ibuc.com/>
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Larry Rosenstein (apparently)
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Apr 12, 2004 6:18 am
(#8 Total: 12)
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Re: Floppy Server?
At 11:00 AM -0700 4/9/04, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
>Aye. There's the rub. I have a IIsi which writes old floppies. I have a G5
>which only reads new floppies.
Use the IIsi to create a disk image of the floppy. Then mount the
disk image on the G5. (You don't use the floppy on the G5 at all.)
--
Larry Rosenstein
lsr alum.mit.edu
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matti.haveri (apparently)
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Apr 12, 2004 1:48 pm
(#9 Total: 12)
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Re: Floppy Server?
Speaking of floppy servers, there is a floppy-only 4 MB RAM Macintosh
Plus Web Server running System 7.0.1 and MacHTTP 2.2 at:
< http://aurejac.dyndns.org/>
I hope the poor old Plus isn't going to be TidBITSed ;)
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R.A. Hettinga (apparently)
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Apr 12, 2004 1:48 pm
(#10 Total: 12)
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Re: Floppy server
At 6:18 AM -0700 4/12/04, Larry Rosenstein wrote:
>Use the IIsi to create a disk image of the floppy. Then mount the
>disk image on the G5. (You don't use the floppy on the G5 at all.)
Again. The IIsi has *no* Ethernet connection. It writes the *old*
floppies. The floppy I have is an *old* floppy. The floppy drive I
have for the G5 is a *new* floppy format, which is completely
incompatible, at the *hardware* layer, with USB/PCI Macs.
But, all is not lost.
It dawned on me that, since I had both SCSI *and* USB ZipDisk drives
I could download an ancient and honorable version DiskCopy, put it
onto a zip drive, take it over to the IIsi. Use the IIsi's floppy
drive to create a disk image of the offending 4D disk, and write it
to the *ZipDrive*, and, hopefully, joy.
Look, Ma, no floppy server, after all.
Thanks to Christophe Appell who proposed this to me about an hour
after it dawned on me myself, to confirm its sheer brilliance. Or
simplicity. Or something. :-).
I'm going to test this out tomorrow. I'll get back here if this
works, or not. I can't imagine why it wouldn't, though. :-)
--
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation < http://www.ibuc.com/>
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qpanda (apparently)
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Apr 12, 2004 4:21 pm
(#11 Total: 12)
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Re: Floppy server?
on 4/12/04 4:48 pm, R. A. Hettinga at rah shipwright.com wrote:
> Again. The IIsi has *no* Ethernet connection. It writes the *old*
> floppies. The floppy I have is an *old* floppy. The floppy drive I
> have for the G5 is a *new* floppy format, which is completely
> incompatible, at the *hardware* layer, with USB/PCI Macs.
It is not entirely incompatible. USB floppy drives cannot read 800k
floppies, but they *can* read 720k DOS/Windows floppies. And with an old
copy of Apple File Exchange, the IIsi could write the disk image (binhexed
if necessary) to a 720k floppy.
It's moot in this case, of course, since you were able to use the Zip drives
to transfer the needed files. But knowing that 720k floppies are still
accessible could help you or someone else in some other situation.
Mark D. McKean
qpanda quantumpanda.com
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R.A. Hettinga (apparently)
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Apr 15, 2004 5:47 pm
(#12 Total: 12)
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Re: Floppy Server?
At 6:50 PM -0400 4/9/04, Saint John wrote:
> No, I think he has the right idea. Use an application like
> DiskCopy to make an image of the 400 or 800K disk, as an image of
> exactly that size. Then see if it'll mount using the new OS X
> version of the same program, which name I forget. Might just work,
> I do a considerable amount with images that think they're floppies
> or CDs (not under X, though).
Okay, folks. I did it. I made images of the floppies, and, when the
old 4D asked for a disk, I first double clicked the image in
response, and then double clicked it in advance, and neither worked.
I'm going to -- at some point *after* we just go get a copy of 4D and
the new iMac and port the old database to OSX native :-) -- use an
image to create a new-style floppy and see if *that* works.
If not, *maybe* I'll, someday, plink together a floppy-server and see
if *that* works. I bet, frankly, it wouldn't work, now that the image
thing doesn't work either.
Stick a fork in me, I'm done, baby...
--
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation < http://www.ibuc.com/>
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