Re: Making Apple II 3.5 inch disks with a modern Mac

[Roger Johnstone <rojaws@orcon.net.nz>]

In <cogva1pn66od2gr1ikg2pjkhuti17nep04@4ax.com> Mitchell Spector  wrote:
> Roger Johnstone <rojaws@orcon.net.nz> wrote:
> 
>>In <8vmsa1t2qt70etrdgitf3s9t3bjac0j02m@4ax.com> Mitchell Spector  
>>wrote:
>>>     I picked up a desktop 233 MHz G3 last week and it recognizes 
>>>     IIgs
>>> floppies just fine under MacOS 8.6. I haven't yet installed MacOS X (
>>> still hunting for a copy) but I'd question whether it still has 
>>> ProDOS  support.
>>
>>Not only does it have no ProDOS file system support, it has no support 
>>for the built-in floppy drive at all! The OS works fine with USB 
>>floppy  drives though, since it treats them exactly the same as any 
>>other drive.  If you want you can even partition them or set them up 
>>as RAID volumes.  But of course there are no USB drives that can 
>>handle Apple GCR disks.
> 
>     Well then, in that cause I'll definitely be partitioning the 
> hardisk to accommodate a dual boot setup between MacOS 9 and X (that 
> is, assuming a dual boot configuration can done on an older G3; if not, 
> I'll install a second hardisk I suppose).

You can install both operating systems without partitioning and still 
boot from either one. The catch is that you can't choose which one at 
startup, but only by using the Startup Disk control panel available in 
each OS to select which OS to use and then rebooting.

The main advantage of installing on seperate partitions is that with 
later Macs (not the original Power Mac G3) you can hold down the option 
key at startup and pick a partition to start from.

>     Question is, does MacOS 9.22 still support ProDOS and the built-in
> floppy drive? I'd would guess so, but before I go ahead and install...

It still supports floppy disks fine, but Apple seems to have stopped 
updating the ProDOS support by the time Mac OS 9 came out. It still 
works, but it can be a bit buggy. From memory it worked for me, but if 
there were any problems with the disk it could lock up the system!

It certainly still works great for making disks from images, or images 
from disks, since that doesn't require any support for the ProDOS file 
system.

-- 
Roger Johnstone, Invercargill, New Zealand
http://vintageware.orcon.net.nz/
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