desiv Posted January 30, 2010 Share Posted January 30, 2010 The Welcome to Macintosh dialogue box flickers, not the whole screen. It just flashes like it's redrawing itself really really fast over and over. Probably won't help, but you should try rebuilding your desktop. You do that by turning on the computer while holding the OPTION and COMMAND keys. Worth a shot... desiv Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted January 30, 2010 Author Share Posted January 30, 2010 No dice. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desiv Posted January 30, 2010 Share Posted January 30, 2010 No dice. Tempest Yeah, I didn't think so.. Figured it was worth a shot. Not sure where you are, but I could send you some floppies if you need them. desiv Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aftermac Posted January 30, 2010 Share Posted January 30, 2010 Does Apple still provide System 6 disk images for download? I know if you poke around enough, you can get system 7.53. Do you own another Mac that can run classic and have a USB floppy drive? You might be able to make a set of system 6 disks from the images if apple still provides them. How does the screen flicker? Corrupted graphics or like a bad monitor? Yes the System 6 disks are still on Apples site, that's where I got them. Maybe. I don't have a USB Floppy, but I can get one. Will an IBM one work or does it need to be an Apple one? My G4 Cube is running Tiger but it has classic support. But I read somewhere that the Bless command under OS X doesn't make floppies bootable on an older Mac (no clue if this holds true for Classic Emulation mode as well). I've been meaning to stick System 9 on it, but I don't have disks for that either. The Welcome to Macintosh dialogue box flickers, not the whole screen. It just flashes like it's redrawing itself really really fast over and over. Tempest The problem with USB floppy drives is they can't read or write 800k floppy's. The same goes for PC floppy drives - IBM compatible, if you will. Macintosh 800k floppy's require a variable speed drive, which PC and USB drives are not. This is one thing I love about my beige PowerMac G3. It has all the legacy ports, floppy drive, Zip drive, plus I threw in USB and Firewire cards. It makes a very nice bridge between the old and new. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cybercylon Posted January 30, 2010 Share Posted January 30, 2010 Okay... so at least it is not a video problem. Forgot that the USB floppy drives can't read the 800K floppies. Way to late to think about what might be going on. Maybe something will come to me in the morning.... wait, it is morning. I had a beige G3 like that, but requests were made to prune down my collection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aftermac Posted January 30, 2010 Share Posted January 30, 2010 I had a beige G3 like that, but requests were made to prune down my collection. That sucks. I've had a few sacrificial lambs to make it look like I pruned down here and there, but I've still got about 70 computers. I keep them in an "L" shaped room in the corner of the basement that is out-of-sight and out-of -mind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted January 30, 2010 Author Share Posted January 30, 2010 I had a beige G3 like that, but requests were made to prune down my collection. That sucks. I've had a few sacrificial lambs to make it look like I pruned down here and there, but I've still got about 70 computers. I keep them in an "L" shaped room in the corner of the basement that is out-of-sight and out-of -mind. Reminds me of my basement. Although I did just take down the G4 Cube to make room for the Atari STE. So many tough choices, so little room... Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted January 30, 2010 Author Share Posted January 30, 2010 Well progress sorta. I got the internal drive to format the disk as a single sided 400K disk (the external drive still won't format) by inserting the disk and then using the eject hole and reinserting it. I remembered that I had to manually eject that bad disk I had so I thought that maybe the eject mechanism got stuck somehow. It still won't do double sided 800K floppies though nor will it read them (it seemed to read the 400K one I created though). Any ideas? I'm starting to think the disk mechanism is going bad or jammed somehow. BTW I just noticed that my HD is made by GCC Technologies (Ultra Drive 20). Is this the same GCC that did Atari stuff or just a coincidence in naming? Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aftermac Posted January 30, 2010 Share Posted January 30, 2010 Well progress sorta. I got the internal drive to format the disk as a single sided 400K disk (the external drive still won't format) by inserting the disk and then using the eject hole and reinserting it. I remembered that I had to manually eject that bad disk I had so I thought that maybe the eject mechanism got stuck somehow. It still won't do double sided 800K floppies though nor will it read them (it seemed to read the 400K one I created though). Any ideas? I'm starting to think the disk mechanism is going bad or jammed somehow. BTW I just noticed that my HD is made by GCC Technologies (Ultra Drive 20). Is this the same GCC that did Atari stuff or just a coincidence in naming? Tempest Sounds like only one of the read/write heads is working... it's only seeing one side of the disk. Not sure what you be the best way to unstick it... or, lubricate it... I wouldn't doubt if it was the same GCC given the era of the hard drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cybercylon Posted January 30, 2010 Share Posted January 30, 2010 So I must have fallen asleep during part of this thread. Okay, he has a HD (external I assume) hooked up. Is there a bootable OS on that? Any chance that your other macs can run classic and have a scsi card in them? If you hook up the drive to said second mac, boot into classic, and drag the contents of the boot disc from System 6 disk set onto the HD, and then hook that HD back up to your MacPlus, technically it should boot from the HD (unless the Plus was unable to boot from external hard drives). You could also do the same using the boot disc from 7.53, though that will give you system 7. This is where that beige G3 would come in handy. I could have easily set something up here for you, but maybe AfterMac can help you out. My G4 tower does have a scsi card, but it is running leopard. Having a bootable OS on that HD for the Plus would rule out logic board versus just a bad floppy drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christophero Sly Posted January 30, 2010 Share Posted January 30, 2010 (edited) This is one thing I love about my beige PowerMac G3. It has all the legacy ports, floppy drive, Zip drive, plus I threw in USB and Firewire cards. It makes a very nice bridge between the old and new.I've still got Tiger on my iMac, and using my localTalk/Ethernet crossover box, I can network with my legacy Mac's directly. However, now that AppleTalk has been cast aside in Snow Leopard, I need to find another way to bridge the gap. The easiest solution would probably be to drop a USB card in my 7500 (w/ 500 mhz G3 upgrade). Any recommendations for an inexpensive Mac-compatible card that would work with system 7.5.5? I had a beige G3 like that, but requests were made to prune down my collection. That sucks. I've had a few sacrificial lambs to make it look like I pruned down here and there, but I've still got about 70 computers. I keep them in an "L" shaped room in the corner of the basement that is out-of-sight and out-of -mind. I'm still kicking myself for donating a 660av to the thrift store, especially as it was probably just thrown in the trash. Edited January 30, 2010 by Christophero Sly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted January 31, 2010 Share Posted January 31, 2010 Yes the System 6 disks are still on Apples site, that's where I got them. Wow, that's impressive actually, considering System 6 was released in 1988!! ..Al Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aftermac Posted January 31, 2010 Share Posted January 31, 2010 This is one thing I love about my beige PowerMac G3. It has all the legacy ports, floppy drive, Zip drive, plus I threw in USB and Firewire cards. It makes a very nice bridge between the old and new.I've still got Tiger on my iMac, and using my localTalk/Ethernet crossover box, I can network with my legacy Mac's directly. However, now that AppleTalk has been cast aside in Snow Leopard, I need to find another way to bridge the gap. The easiest solution would probably be to drop a USB card in my 7500 (w/ 500 mhz G3 upgrade). Any recommendations for an inexpensive Mac-compatible card that would work with system 7.5.5? For USB support you would need at least Mac OS 8.1. Even at that it would be USB 1.0. USB 2.0 requires a B&W G3, because of voltage issues on earlier PowerMacs on the PCI bus. I'm sure there are Sonnet or Adaptec USB 1 cards that will work, but you'll probably have to find one used. Have you thought about FTP as a solution for copying files between newer and older Mac's? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christophero Sly Posted January 31, 2010 Share Posted January 31, 2010 (edited) Yes the System 6 disks are still on Apples site, that's where I got them. Wow, that's impressive actually, considering System 6 was released in 1988!! ..Al In case anybody needs it, here is the link for Apple's legacy software downloads. http://support.apple.com/kb/TA48312?viewlocale=en_US But does anyone know if this archive is still available somewhere via ftp? I'd like to download everything there before it all goes bye-bye, but downloading everything individually from the link above would be tedious to say the least. Edited January 31, 2010 by Christophero Sly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aftermac Posted January 31, 2010 Share Posted January 31, 2010 (edited) Yes the System 6 disks are still on Apples site, that's where I got them. Wow, that's impressive actually, considering System 6 was released in 1988!! ..Al In case anybody needs it, here is the link for Apple's legacy software downloads. http://support.apple.com/kb/TA48312?viewlocale=en_US But does anyone know if this archive is still available somewhere via ftp? I'd like to download everything there before it all goes bye-bye, but downloading everything individually from the link above would be tedious to say the least. I wonder if you could use curl to download them all or if Apple has it blocked? In theory you should be able to curl this directory and download everything: http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American Edited January 31, 2010 by aftermac Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christophero Sly Posted January 31, 2010 Share Posted January 31, 2010 This is one thing I love about my beige PowerMac G3. It has all the legacy ports, floppy drive, Zip drive, plus I threw in USB and Firewire cards. It makes a very nice bridge between the old and new.I've still got Tiger on my iMac, and using my localTalk/Ethernet crossover box, I can network with my legacy Mac's directly. However, now that AppleTalk has been cast aside in Snow Leopard, I need to find another way to bridge the gap. The easiest solution would probably be to drop a USB card in my 7500 (w/ 500 mhz G3 upgrade). Any recommendations for an inexpensive Mac-compatible card that would work with system 7.5.5? For USB support you would need at least Mac OS 8.1. Even at that it would be USB 1.0. USB 2.0 requires a B&W G3, because of voltage issues on earlier PowerMacs on the PCI bus. I'm sure there are Sonnet or Adaptec USB 1 cards that will work, but you'll probably have to find one used. Thanks for the info. I guess that idea is a dead end though because I want to leave the 7500 running 7.5.5. Have you thought about FTP as a solution for copying files between newer and older Mac's? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted January 31, 2010 Share Posted January 31, 2010 In case anybody needs it, here is the link for Apple's legacy software downloads. http://support.apple.com/kb/TA48312?viewlocale=en_US Holy cow, that's fantastic that they have all that online. There's even Apple II software there! ..Al Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christophero Sly Posted January 31, 2010 Share Posted January 31, 2010 (edited) In theory you should be able to curl this directory and download everything:http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American Messing with Unix commands from the terminal always makes me nervous. I understand curl in theory, and I think I understand how to download a single file, but I'm totally clueless as to what arguments/options I'd have to specify in order to download and recreate that entire directory on a local volume. Nevertheless, that's a great idea. I'll investigate it when I have more time and see if I can make it happen. Edited January 31, 2010 by Christophero Sly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aftermac Posted January 31, 2010 Share Posted January 31, 2010 In case anybody needs it, here is the link for Apple's legacy software downloads. http://support.apple.com/kb/TA48312?viewlocale=en_US Holy cow, that's fantastic that they have all that online. There's even Apple II software there! ..Al I agree, it's great they are providing the downloads... yet puzzling that they only include certain OS versions, but not others. Oh, well. As cheap as storage is hopefully, they never take it down... and possibly add to it! In theory you should be able to curl this directory and download everything:http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American Messing with Unix commands from the terminal always makes me nervous. I understand curl in theory, and I think I understand how to download a single file, but I'm totally clueless as to what arguments/options I'd have to specify in order to download and recreate that entire directory on a local volume. Actually, wget would be better, since curl isn't recursive. Take a look at SimpleWget, it's a graphical interface for wget... it's a bit friendlier for the command line weary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom-Lynx Posted January 31, 2010 Share Posted January 31, 2010 In case anybody needs it, here is the link for Apple's legacy software downloads. http://support.apple...iewlocale=en_US H O L YJ A C K P O TB A T M A N ! ! ! There are even downloads for the Apple Newton on that page! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christophero Sly Posted January 31, 2010 Share Posted January 31, 2010 (edited) Actually, wget would be better, since curl isn't recursive. Take a look at SimpleWget, it's a graphical interface for wget... it's a bit friendlier for the command line weary. It appears that Apple does indeed block "robots" from that directory. Thanks anyway. Edited January 31, 2010 by Christophero Sly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aftermac Posted January 31, 2010 Share Posted January 31, 2010 Actually, wget would be better, since curl isn't recursive. Take a look at SimpleWget, it's a graphical interface for wget... it's a bit friendlier for the command line weary. It appears that Apple does indeed block "robots" from that directory. Thanks anyway. Somehow, I had a feeling they might have it blocked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted January 31, 2010 Author Share Posted January 31, 2010 Good news! I seem to have exorcised the demons from the disk drive. It now works just fine (no idea what I did). It appears that my spare Apple IIgs drive was bad, but the Mirror Magnum 800 that came withe Mac seems to be working just fine as a second 800K drive (wish I had an official Apple one though). I'm going to attempt to expand those 6.0.8 disks and install it on the HD. Do I need to reformat it first or will installing 6.0.8 on the HD just wipe everything. Hmm... I've tried to use Disk Copy to load image files, but it doesn't seem to see them. They have a .img extension, I wonder why it's not working? Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted January 31, 2010 Author Share Posted January 31, 2010 What the heck? Those disk I downloaded from Apple are 820K. They won't fit on a 800K disk. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aftermac Posted January 31, 2010 Share Posted January 31, 2010 Good news! I seem to have exorcised the demons from the disk drive. It now works just fine (no idea what I did). It appears that my spare Apple IIgs drive was bad, but the Mirror Magnum 800 that came withe Mac seems to be working just fine as a second 800K drive (wish I had an official Apple one though). I'm going to attempt to expand those 6.0.8 disks and install it on the HD. Do I need to reformat it first or will installing 6.0.8 on the HD just wipe everything. Tempest Good to hear that! If you just want to do a clean install, you can rename your System Folder to something like "previous System Folder". The installer will create a new one, then you can transfer any drivers that you want to use from the "previous System Folder" to the new System Folder. When you are done simply trash the old system. To format non-Apple drives you need a patched version of Apple HD SC Setup 7.3.5. I found a patched version here: http://home.earthlink.net/~gamba2/hd.html Or, the direct download link: ftp://grijan.cjb.net:21000/macintosh/Software/Utilities/hd_sc_setup_735-patched.sea.bin You'll want to remove the version on the System 6 Utilities disk and replace it with the patch version. It may also fit on the System Tools boot disc. I forget exactly what the four System 6 install discs are off the top of my head. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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