frank@dciem.UUCP (Frank Evans) (08/14/86)
Curiosity got the better of me and I took my brother's third party modified 512K Mac and my Mac+ and exchanged the ROMs. The result was that the 512K worked without an 800K internal drive!! Here is a synopsis of observed differences and capabilities: Third party modified 512K Mac with 400K internal and 800K external: Doesn't recognize 800K discs formatted by Mac+ even with an 800K external drive that it would normally operate from. Doesn't operate apple's 800K external drive. 512K Mac with new ROM's: Can now read/write 800K discs formatted by Mac+ in an external 800K drive. Can now operate and boot up from apple's 800K external drive. The Mac can even boot up from the original internal 400K drive. Boots up to desk top about 1/3 faster than old ROM Mac. Opens, saves and quits MacWrite also about 1/3 faster than old ROM MAc. Operates on new system file for Mac+ Well Apple how about it? Why don't you offer one more upgrade option for the people who helped make Mac what it is today!! $50.00 for the two new ROMs would be a nice alternative option which could help restore customers faith in APPLE!!
oster@lapis.berkeley.edu (David Phillip Oster) (08/17/86)
In article <1914@dciem.UUCP> frank@dciem.UUCP (Frank Evans) writes: >I took my brother's third party modified 512K Mac and my Mac+ and >exchanged the ROMs. He goes on to talk about wanting to use an external 800k floppy drive on an old 512k Mac, and not wanting to pay apple for the upgrade. Frank, If all you want is to use an 800k external floppy drive on your old 512k Mac, Just put the file called "HD20" in the system folder of your boot-up disks. HD20 was written by Apple and, like all Apple system software, available at no recompense to Apple on compuserve and from any Mac users group. Y You should also upgrade your system files to System version 3.2 and 3.2 Imagewriter version 2.3, and Finder version 5.3. These files will be on the same users group disk with the current release of the HD20 file. These are the current release of the operating system and are, from Apple's point of view, a free upgrade. (You may have to pay the Mac users group for the disk though.) Using this software release patches your old roms so that new software, relying on some of the services of the new roms, will continue to run on your machine. I think it is very decent of Apple to distribute revised system software this way. You don't see IBM/Microsoft doing it. If you want to boot up from an 800k floppy, you will need the new roms. I think Apple is being quite fair to charge what they charge for the bundled internal drive upgrade and rom upgrade. Apple wants both to make money, and to be fair to its customers. Other companies, who fear their roms being reverse-engineered, refuse to make new roms available to old cutomers at all. (Try to get your IBM PCjr upgraded to a real PC, for example. I'm sorry to keep beating on IBM, but they are after all, the standard for support in the industry.) --- David Phillip Oster -- "The goal of Computer Science is to Arpa: oster@lapis.berkeley.edu -- build something that will last at Uucp: ucbvax!ucblapis!oster -- least until we've finished building it."