Spectre Mac Partition Migration

[Goochman]

So,

 

After some fiddling I got my Spectre 128 to boot into Mac mode again - Joy!

 

It seems the Spectre software doesnt like the 16mhz Ad-Speed upgrade. When in 16mhz mode the memory shows up double the size and nothing works

 

Anyhow - I have 2 Mac partitions I want to move to my UltraSatan II - any thoughts on how I might accomplish getting the System and other programs moved????

 

My Mac skills have vanished over the years!

[Goochman]

I got this to work via some Device/ID changes and moving to my SD card.

 

Some additional notes in case others try this:

 

1. QUICKST Mono causes the Spectre software to not work on my ST (The Memory check is off)

2. Running in 16mhz mode with my AD-Speed also causes the Spectre software to not work (seems like a screen refresh issue causes Spectre to not read memory correctly)

3. The Spectre HD software can only see 4 partitions on any one device. With the SD cards I have alot more than 4 partitions so you need to plan accordingly.

4. Going with #3, I have an AT-Speed (IBM card) - this cant see more than 4 partitions either so it makes it a real challenge getting both of these going.

[Goochman]

Ok Ill keep talking to myself

 

Found out that the 'Transverter' program which can move content from the ST->Mac Partitions doesnt work with HFS disks. Explains why I had 2 partitions setup on my ICD drive (MFS and HFS). Keep in mind if you are starting new.

 

I also have downloaded a few old Mac games in .SIT format. I have StuffIt Deluxe 1.0.1 on my Mac but for some reason it cant read any of the files I have

 

When using the Transverter Im not sure if I am using the correct parameters and corrupting the file?

 

Using the latest version of StuffIt on Windows some of the files come out 0 bytes evern though they are 100k in the archive.

 

Damn Mac and its File/Resource file setup..............

[jens]

Damn Mac and its File/Resource file setup..............

Hehe.

 

I recently setup a virtual Macintosh with SheepShaver, and when doing so I read that the latest StuffIt release for Windows is said to be a pain in the ass.

You should try to find an older version there.

Also I'd recommend a later version than ver 1 on the Mac side.

I don't know which one is the latest verion to work with System 6, I can just tell I'm using version 5.5 with System 7.5.

 

Are you able to verify your files on a real Macintosh setup?

If not, feel free to mail some of your files in question, but not more than a meg, please, to peter dot andreas dot jens at gmx dot de, so I'll try them on my SheepMac.

[Goochman]

Hey Jens - I think it would help my cause if I got a Mac running under emulation to test some stuff.

 

It appears there isnt alot of love for the old Mac Classic or 68000 versions. I dont think System 7.5.x runs on these systems (I have 6.1 or 6.4 of the Finder).

 

I basically have a 16mhz 68000 Mac with 1.5 megs of RAM.

 

Ill see about getting a newer version of StuffIt - not sure if they still want me to license it

 

I dont have a real Macintosh - just my ST emulation. Its alot of fun playing with an 'old Mac' though - you forgot how simple things used to be!

[mellis]

Hey Jens - I think it would help my cause if I got a Mac running under emulation to test some stuff.

 

It appears there isnt alot of love for the old Mac Classic or 68000 versions. I dont think System 7.5.x runs on these systems (I have 6.1 or 6.4 of the Finder).

 

I basically have a 16mhz 68000 Mac with 1.5 megs of RAM.

 

Ill see about getting a newer version of StuffIt - not sure if they still want me to license it

 

I dont have a real Macintosh - just my ST emulation. Its alot of fun playing with an 'old Mac' though - you forgot how simple things used to be!

 

 

System 7.5.x is supported on a real Mac Plus.

 

IIRC, there was an incompatibility with Spectre and System 7. The last Mac system I used with my Spectre GCR was System 6.0.8 with Multifinder.

[Goochman]

Ok - Im in a real pickle here. Though doing this just for fun, I really want to figure this process out.

 

I have StuffIt 4.x on a .dsk format. Apparantly you can in theory write this out to a Macintosh formatted disk. There are some PC utilities that can do this, however it seems most are geared towards HFS and not MFS sizes. I only have an 800k drive so I cant do the 1.44 floppies..............

 

I have a Discovery Cartridge so if I can get a Mac 800k I can convert it to the Spectre format, but Im knida stuck right now.

 

It seems that StuffIt for Windows strips the Resource files so anything I try to move from Windoze will not work.

[mellis]

Ok - Im in a real pickle here. Though doing this just for fun, I really want to figure this process out.

 

I have StuffIt 4.x on a .dsk format. Apparantly you can in theory write this out to a Macintosh formatted disk. There are some PC utilities that can do this, however it seems most are geared towards HFS and not MFS sizes. I only have an 800k drive so I cant do the 1.44 floppies..............

 

I have a Discovery Cartridge so if I can get a Mac 800k I can convert it to the Spectre format, but Im knida stuck right now.

 

It seems that StuffIt for Windows strips the Resource files so anything I try to move from Windoze will not work.

 

I'm confused as to why you are worried about MFS vs. HFS. As I recall, the Spectre GCR will read HFS disks just fine.

 

I suspect that what's causing you confusion is the difference between Mac DD and HD disks. For double sided, double density (DD) disks, the Mac used "Group Code Recording" (GCR) to vary the speed of the drive, and thus increase the amount of data that could be stored. With this technique, the drive ran more slowly when the read/write head was at the outer edge of the media, allowing more data to be stored there. In contrast, the Mac's support for HD disks employes a constant velocity (as does the PC), and therefore, PCs can write Mac 1.44MB HD disks, but they usually cannot write Mac DD disks.

 

So whereas there are hardware requirements for supporting the creation of Mac DD disks (the drive needs to be able to vary its speed on demand), writing Mac high density (HD) disks is usually just a question of format. For that reason, PC drives can usually create Mac HD disks, but they cannot create Mac DD disks.

 

The HFS vs. MFS thing is a question of disk format. The Mac originally used MFS (Macintosh File System), which is an inherently flat file filesystem. It's presentation of hierarchical data (folders) was sort of an illusion, where there was a single, flat table that tracked all of the files on a disk. HFS (Hierarchical File System) came shortly thereafter, with the introduction of 800K drives, IIRC. HFS uses a B-Tree to keep track of subdirectories and their contents, and therefore, it is a practical format to use for larger disk (including hard discs). MFS should really not be used at all, and if you have to, you really should only use on a floppy disk. MFS was only widely used for like two years after the Mac's introduction.

 

It seems that you think you need to have your data stored on MFS disks for use with Spectre. That's not the case. You are having trouble creating a DD floppy disk from an image because your PC's floppy drive can not write a DD Mac disk. What's more, even though your PC's floppy drive can write an HD Mac disk, your Atari's DD drive cannot read that. From what I can tell, you're assuming that the failure is due to MFS vs. HFS, but really, it's a question of double density vs. high density and the capabilities of your PC's floppy drive.

 

Hope this helps.

[Goochman]

My problem with the Mac disks is the Spectre Transverter program doesnt work with HFS disks - I also dont have a 1.44 drive on my ST nor do I have the GCR Spectre. I have a Discovery cart which can convert Mac 800k disks to Spectre format, but I dont have a way to create these.

 

I need to get StuffIt 4.5 to my Spectre partition - however I have a .DSK image which needs to be written out to a Mac floppy disk first which I cant do

[jens]

You might try StuffIt 7 on your pc. See pm.

 

Oh, and I just found StuffIt Lite version 3.something and StuffIt 4 for Mac.

Second pm will follow.

[TwiliteZoner]

Hey Jens - I think it would help my cause if I got a Mac running under emulation to test some stuff.

 

It appears there isnt alot of love for the old Mac Classic or 68000 versions. I dont think System 7.5.x runs on these systems (I have 6.1 or 6.4 of the Finder).

 

I basically have a 16mhz 68000 Mac with 1.5 megs of RAM.

 

Ill see about getting a newer version of StuffIt - not sure if they still want me to license it

 

I dont have a real Macintosh - just my ST emulation. Its alot of fun playing with an 'old Mac' though - you forgot how simple things used to be!

 

 

System 7.5.x is supported on a real Mac Plus.

 

IIRC, there was an incompatibility with Spectre and System 7. The last Mac system I used with my Spectre GCR was System 6.0.8 with Multifinder.

 

Here is a message from Dave Small from a thread a couple of years ago regarding System 7.

 

 

System 7.0 had a bug early on in the boot process that took a horrific amount of work to find. I believe it ended up being a Nil pointer *read* that returned a pointer to a data structure, well, it returned the Atari ROM startup addresses. That then plopped corrupted data all over everything. It was a subtle bug way in the middle of nowhere that caused a chain reaction crash. (The zero reads were a major pain for us because, well, they never triggered a bus error, and thus they were not fun to find and fix). MultiFinder was unstable because it was doing that. The only reason we really found it was the ZAX In-Circuit-Emulator. (This is also the only reason I found an interesting thing in 68K chips ... multiply and divide fail unless the stack is pointing at valid RAM. It uses RAM for a scratchpad!).

 

I think I had to set up a multiple event trigger ... some line-A trap after this and that ... and then trace into some machine with a huge disk (probably a whopping 20 megs back then), then read to the end and find the disaster. It was really un-fun. I patched it by hand (what fun!) and let the machine run, but it crashed further in. If you remember your Mac history, the first release of 7.0 was not exactly a thrill.

 

And the tragedy, I think, is the system update fixed the zero-store and zero-read. I never tried it personally but was told the patch issued to the initial release of System 7 fixed it. I don't know myself for sure.

Edited October 31, 2010 by TwiliteZoner

[jens]

Read that as well yesterday evening.

I should setup my GCR (for the first time) and try a preinstalled System 7.01 or 7.1.

I think 7.5 has too big memory demands.

I wonder if one could surf the net with a Spectre...

[Goochman]

So Im think Im making some progress. Will know later today.

 

Have a few more requests

 

1. I have System 6.0.4 and Finder 6.1.4. Can someone point me to a newer version of the System - 6.0.8, and can I just replace that file in the System Folder or do I need to do something more fancy to upgrade my system?

 

2. I have a few .DSK images. It seems this is more popular with Apple II software vs Mac. Any thoughts on how I can restore a .DSK image under the Mac into something I can use?

 

3. .HQX files - Does StuffIt handle these or something else?

 

As for Networking Jens - It would hlep me *alot* if I could do this. Unfort my network card connects via the Cart port on my Mega 2 so I am out of luck. If this was purpose built for Falcon maybe - Someone call Small

 

From reading above it seems that maybe System 7.x might work with the Spectre. What was the latest release of Spectre software that tracked down the System 7 bug?

[jens]

As for the .DSK images:

They might be accessible via DiskCopy.

 

.HQX is opened with StuffIt as most archives.

 

Networking might be possible via serial line?

Don't know about Spectre's possibilities.

[Goochman]

Is DiskCopy a utility or something in the OS?

 

SutffIt didnt seem to recognize the .HQX file I moved. I think I am using incorrect parameters with the Transverter 4.6 program. The .BIN installer worked fine, but all the .SIT files Ive moved come up as 'corrupted' under Mac mode.

 

The Transverter parameters are:

 

MacBIn or Unary

Strip LFs or Leave LF's

Type - TEXT

Creator - ??????

 

I think I need to put in different values for .SIT files.

[jens]

I don't have any System 6 Macs setup at the time, so I can't just setup a Macintosh system the way you did it, else I'd just do it.

I'd be ready to setup a fresh System 7 SheepMac and use the tools you have under that. I don't know if that would be of help, but I'd do it. Just would need a list of the tools you are using on your Spectre Macintosh.

 

Do you expand the files by double-clicking or by drag'n'drop? (Not that I knew it makes a difference at all, but some files just won't get unpacked after a double-click.)

 

DiskCopy is a utility to mount floppy, cd- or hard drive images.

Comes with later versions of the Mac OS, but I don't believe it's with System 6.

Edited October 31, 2010 by jens

[Goochman]

Thanks Jens - I think my big problem right now is getting the software transferred to my Mac partition from my ST. StuffIt thinks the archives are all corrupted and double clicking on them the Mac doesnt know what they are.

 

Im going to have to experiment with the settings to see if I can get them to work.

[Goochman]

So Ive concluded that .SIT files are not transferring correctly with the Transverter 4.6 program for Spectre.........BIN files work fine but SIT files it thinks are TEXT files.

 

Anyone know if a SIT file is a Binary file?

 

I tried renaming the .SIT file to .BIN but that didnt help.

[jens]

A .sit file is compressed in another way than .bin.

You can try to put your .sit files into .bin-archives with StuffIt on your PC and then transfer them.

Maybe this works.

[Goochman]

Jens - I couldnt find an option to make a .bin archive on the PC version I have - do you know what the specific option is?

 

It seems the new StuffIt on the PC likes to default to .zip, but there is a 'compatibility mode' which I figure I need to use to work with the old Mac.

[frogstar_robot]

Hey Jens - I think it would help my cause if I got a Mac running under emulation to test some stuff.

 

It appears there isnt alot of love for the old Mac Classic or 68000 versions. I dont think System 7.5.x runs on these systems (I have 6.1 or 6.4 of the Finder).

 

At least old 68000 Macs do get some emulation love:

 

http://www.emaculation.com/doku.php/mini_vmac

 

Setup guide:

 

http://www.emaculation.com/doku.php/mini_vmac_setup

 

The setup guides include links to older versions of Stuffit that run on Windows and on System 6 for the macs.

[Goochman]

I dont think there is any possible way to get a .SIT file transferred............

 

I tried to create a .SEA in the Windows version of StuffIt - unfort it creates a Windows .EXE vs a Mac .BIN.

 

I tried ResEdit to fix the Resource Fork but I dont think the Transverter program moves it correctly. My only hope is to have a real Mac to move it but I dont have one.

 

Bummer.............

[mellis]

I dont think there is any possible way to get a .SIT file transferred............

 

I tried to create a .SEA in the Windows version of StuffIt - unfort it creates a Windows .EXE vs a Mac .BIN.

 

I tried ResEdit to fix the Resource Fork but I dont think the Transverter program moves it correctly. My only hope is to have a real Mac to move it but I dont have one.

 

Bummer.............

 

I have a real Mac Plus with the internal 800K floppy. I might be able to help you.

 

Of course, any disk I create with be an 800K HFS floppy written using GCR, so you'll need a way to read that.

[Goochman]

I dont think there is any possible way to get a .SIT file transferred............

 

I tried to create a .SEA in the Windows version of StuffIt - unfort it creates a Windows .EXE vs a Mac .BIN.

 

I tried ResEdit to fix the Resource Fork but I dont think the Transverter program moves it correctly. My only hope is to have a real Mac to move it but I dont have one.

 

Bummer.............

 

I have a real Mac Plus with the internal 800K floppy. I might be able to help you.

 

Of course, any disk I create with be an 800K HFS floppy written using GCR, so you'll need a way to read that.

 

I have a Happy Discovery cartridge so I can copy that disk to a Spectre disk I believe (The MFS vs HFS thing drives me nuts)

 

Though I possibly can get over 1 hurdle it wont fix the long term problem

[jens]

Just now I opened DropStuff (dating from 2001) for the first time, and it wants to see a serial number in thirty days from now on...

 

DropStuff for Windows (I use version 7) allows Stuff (default) or Zip as archive options. Exe is the output for self-extracting files.

 

If your are interested in using an old Mac you might think about a beige PowerMac 7xxx, 8xxx, 9xxx or G3. I really like them, and they do have floppies (maybe except for the G3 models). They usually work with Macintosh System 7 to Mac OS 9, with the G3s also being able to boot into Mac OS X, but not into System 7 and often not even Mac OS 8.

 

My main Oldworld Mac is a PowerMac 8600 with G3 upgrade card, 512 megs of ram, four gig hard drive running Mac OS 9.1.

I also have a oldish iMac G3 and an iBook G4 (which needs fixing), but they lack the floppy drive.

On the 68k side I have a Macintosh IIci which atm refuses to even use the proper starting sound thus telling me it has problems (which I didn't manage to find up to now).

 

If you want to you might also use an emulator to play around with archive types on a 'Macintosh' system.

Right now I use System 7 and have direct access to my Windows drives with SheepShaver.

Edited November 5, 2010 by jens