Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

OWC: Mercury On-The-Go FW800+USB2 up to 1.0TB. Bus Powered, no external power supply needed. Macworld ‘Editor’s Choice’, CNET ‘Very Good’ Starting from $99.97, 500GB $159.99. Click here

Poker Mac Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Adam's Apple

Working with Vintage Macs

Vintage Mac Networking and File Exchange

Adam Rosen - 2007.12.19 - Tip Jar

Popularity: LEMLEMLEMLEMLEM

del.icio.us Bookmark in del.icio.us

I deal with older (pre-G3) systems regularly, both through my consulting work and my personal collection, the Vintage Mac Museum. Here are some tips I've found for keeping the old beasts running and exchanging data with current systems.

Exchanging Data & Networking

Exchanging data between new and old Macs can be challenging, whether over a network or via removable media (sneaker-net). It's often necessary to set up a bridging arrangement using one or more intermediate computers to get files and software moved across Mac generations. Macs didn't have built-in ethernet until the Quadra series, and the AppleShare AFP network protocol has changed over the years.

Fortunately Mac OS 8 and 9 support AppleShare IP and thus can talk to Mac OS X servers via TCP/IP. All 68040 Macs can run Mac OS 8.1, and pre-G3 PowerPC models can support flavors up through Mac OS 9.2.2.

Set your Mac OS X system to a static IP address on your network and enable Personal File Sharing (choose System Preferences under the Apple menu, then Sharing). In the Chooser on the older Mac, select AppleShare, click the AppleShare IP button, and enter your server's address. You'll be prompted for the login name and password (which you can save), and the shared drive mounts on the desktop.

Jaguar and Panther Best

Mac OS X 10.2.x (Jaguar) or 10.3.x (Panther) file sharing seems to work most reliably with Mac OS 8.x and 9.x; 10.4.x and 10.5.x systems also work, but not as reliably, particularly with large file transfers. Apple is aware of this problem (the 10.4.11 update addresses part of this issue), but a 10.2.8 or 10.3.9 equipped G3 or G4 with sharing enabled makes an ideal file server to use with both older and newer Mac OS versions.

Bridging LocalTalk Macs

To reach System 6 and 7 Macs that don't have ethernet, LocalTalk Bridge can save the day. This free extension from Apple allows a Mac equipped with both ethernet and LocalTalk (RS-422 serial) ports to bridge the two networks. The bridge Mac can talk to the older Macs via LocalTalk (using serial cables or PhoneNet adapters) and the newer Macs via ethernet. Enable File Sharing on the Bridge machine and you have a server the older systems can talk to.

Sneaker-Net

Sneaker-Net is also an option. Zip disks make a great transfer medium for old Macs, since drives are available in SCSI, IDE, and USB flavors; you can copy something from a Mac OS 8 or OS 9 machine to a modern OS X system on a disk using HFS+ formatting. In my experience, 100 MB disks are the most reliable size and are supported in all flavors of Zip drives.

On the lowest end, all beige Macs (68k and early PowerPC) have floppy drives. Mac floppies came in 400K (single sided), 800K (double sided) and 1.4 MB HD (high density) flavors. Nearly all floppy-equipped Macs can read/write 800K disks; some old models won't read HD floppies, and some newer models won't handle 400K format. USB floppy drives can be found (also dirt cheap these days) that work with OS X, though you usually need to stick with 1.4 MB HD floppies on these drives.

Quadra and PowerBook 5xx: The Ultimate Bridge Machines

PowerBook 500 seriesFor the Museum and when working with client Macs, I've found Macintosh Quadras and PowerBook 5xx models to be the Ultimate Bridge Machines. These systems have built in ethernet ports (AAUI adapter required) and RS-422 serial ports for LocalTalk. Running Mac OS 8.1, they can network via AppleShare IP to a file server running Mac OS X (be sure to set AppleTalk to the ethernet port), mounting the OS X disk on the OS 8 desktop. With LocalTalk Bridge installed and File Sharing enabled, I can then access the OS 8 disk on System 6 and System 7 desktops. Copying files between, say, a Mac Plus running System 6.0.8 and a Power Mac G4 Cube running OS X 10.3.9 just involves a relay step via the Quadra or PowerBook.

If networking doesn't work or you need to deal with floppy disks, again the Quadra or PowerBook 5xx work handily: both have floppy drives that support 400K, 800K, and 1.4 MB HD disk formats. Note that some floppy drives may not mount 400K disks on the desktop, but they can write 400K volumes with Disk Copy if needed.

I used all this bridging capability recently to extract a needed file from a 400K disk image I had archived on my OS X system: copy the disk image to a PowerBook 540c over ethernet, create a 400K floppy disk with Disk Copy 4.2 on the PowerBook, read the 400K floppy in a Mac Plus running System 6.0.8, copy the needed file back to the PowerBook via LocalTalk, and then copy back to my OS X Mac via ethernet!

A lot of steps, but it's possible (and I've always loved the 540c, so I'm glad to see this model still performs useful tasks)!

More Tips and Suggestions?

I'm sure there are many other tips and suggestions on the topic of working with old and vintage Macs; write in to the Low End Mac Mailbag or contact me with your suggestions and we may do a follow-up to this column with additional ideas. LEM

This article was originally published on Adam's Oakbog website. It has been adapted and reprinted here with his permission.

Adam also publishes The Vintage Mac Museum Blog. If you find Adam's articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.

Recent Adam's Apple Columns

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.

Custom Search

Amazon.com

Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Video Cards
Email Lists

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
B&H
MacMall
TechRestore
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.