Updike@UMass.BITNET (05/14/88)
I just wanted to start this letter by saying I love my Atari. But on the serious side, I have two questions! 1. I am using the SI ramdisk. When I first created it I labeled it "H". I now want to change it to "C". I have tried the configuration program, but it doesn't seem to work. Any help would be appreciated. 2. I have been reading a great deal about Magic Sac, but does anyone know what programs DON'T run on it? Any help on these subjects would be greatly appreciated! Damian Roskill UPDIKE@UMASS
jdg@elmgate.UUCP (Jeff Gortatowsky) (05/15/88)
The magic sac is interesting... HOWEVER! Anybody seriously thinking of using it, MUST! have a harddisk. Even w/ 2 DS floppy's The disk swaps will drive ya nuts! This is no fault of the magic sac... Just the way they grew the apple. I went through CONTORTIONS! getting the system 3.2/ FINDER 5.4 and Harddisk20 (the Hard disk driver for 64k mac roms (you know the ones w/ the little gray hairs on em')) I thought great here we go! My hard disk is STILL not working w/ it just blows up every time I tell it there's a hard disk there!). Why? Got me? Anyone out there? I've tried every combo I can think of, it just gets an illegal instruction trap EVERYTIME! (too much gravity from the moon maybe? (hmmm...)). The Mac IS NOT a "speedy" machine, Cutsie! yeah... I heard pagemaker 4.0 STILL has bugs in it (through I dunno how many revision's (certainly at least 4!) and still has bugs? (Fruit attracts bugs!)). In answer to your question however... There are some fine programs that run w/ the SAC.. And, a good deal of semi-respectable PD software available (NOTHING! like the PD on the IBM PC however (tons of excellant stuff)... But, who wants good usable software at a decent price!). As I understand it, even w/ the Magic translator (allowing your ST to read write McFormated McDisks) copy protected Mac software does'nt run. (bummer, as much of the real nice McStuff is protected). The translator I'm told is VERY slow.. (Not that any Mac is gonna do 0-60 mph in 8 seconds). In other words, it's meant to allow an individual to take McWork McHome & back to work where the REAL mac is. Still.... some excellant programs are available (Items like Ready Set Go which is lightyears ahead of ST publishing stuff I've encountered). Conclusions? Errr... W/ a WORKING harddisk, the $99 magic Sac is a fine buy. And actually an incredable feat for Dave Small. There's just nothing like seeing that little McFace staring at ya!. My compliments to Dave. I digress... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ My comments are my own... Yeah... dat's it... own... RG! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Jeff Gortatowsky .....allegra!rochester!kodak!elmgate!jdg Eastman Kodak Company These comments are mine alone and not Eastman Kodak's. How's that for a simple and complete disclaimer?
tim@brspyr1.BRS.Com (Tim Northrup) (05/16/88)
From article <930@elmgate.UUCP>, by jdg@elmgate.UUCP (Jeff Gortatowsky): | | The magic sac is interesting... HOWEVER! Anybody seriously thinking | of using it, MUST! have a harddisk. Even w/ 2 DS floppy's The disk swaps | will drive ya nuts! This is no fault of the magic sac... Just the way | they grew the apple. I went through CONTORTIONS! getting the system 3.2/ | FINDER 5.4 and Harddisk20 (the Hard disk driver for 64k mac roms (you know | the ones w/ the little gray hairs on em')) I thought great here we go! | My hard disk is STILL not working w/ it just blows up every time I tell | it there's a hard disk there!). Why? Got me? Anyone out there? | I've tried every combo I can think of, it just gets an illegal instruction | trap EVERYTIME! (too much gravity from the moon maybe? (hmmm...)). I just went through the same thing. What I did was went back and went through the steps outlined in the notes for Release 5.9 (you are using this release, aren't you???). You must follow the rules EXACTLY -- TO THE LETTER. In my first attempt, I formatted an MFS and an HFS partition as instructed. Then booted with HD enabled from a floppy w/o HD20. I then copied the System Folder from the boot floppy to the MFS, then HD20 from another floppy to the MFS partition. *** BAD MOVE *** It seems that copying the file "System" from the boot floppy tries to make the MFS partition bootable, which really messes it up. As far as I can tell, everything for the system folder MUST be copied from another disk (not the one used to boot in Mac mode). Be sure to use Finder 5.3 --- Using Finder 5.4 on the MFS partition really causes some wierdness. You must use 5.3 on the MFS boot partition, but you can put 5.4 on the HFS partition, which is the one that will eventually be used anyway. I still get crashes every now and then, but the above findings eliminated a lot of them. If anyone finds anything more, please post or email to me! [ Has anyone read the notes from Data Pacific on GEnie regarding use of the harddisk? I haven't looked there yet, but I remember reading somewhere that there was something there. ] > Conclusions? Errr... W/ a WORKING harddisk, the $99 magic Sac is a fine buy. > And actually an incredable feat for Dave Small. There's just nothing like > seeing that little McFace staring at ya!. My compliments to Dave. Actually, I found it pretty good even with floppy disks. I have 1 meg of memory (I would not recommend less), and use RamDisk+ to create a 350K RAM Disk -- then copy whatever I want to run that session there. It also allows for copying of the System/Finder stuff and running from there, but you need HFS installed for that (which leaves out floppy-only systems :-( Anything that needs the 128K ROMs *will not work*. This includes neat things like HyperCard, which I think is one of the things Magic Hackers really want. But there is still a lot of good stuff that does work. > Jeff Gortatowsky .....allegra!rochester!kodak!elmgate!jdg -- Tim "The Enchanter" Northrup +------------------------------------------+ +---------------------------------+ Air Warrior Handle: | UUCP: uunet!steinmetz!brspyr1!tim | "Duke" | ARPA: tim@brspyr1.BRS.Com +------------------------------------------+
Thomas_E_Zerucha@cup.portal.com (05/22/88)
Quick instructions to get HFS up on hard disk:
1. Format TWO partitions, one small MFS partition to boot from, and the rest
to your HFS. These must be one of the Four "standard" (as opposed to
Supra's extended ones) partitions. Use the Magichd program to do this.
The MFS only needs to be large enough to hold a minimal System file and
Hard Disk 20 (but I have my own transfer program which can access my
MFS partition and move files back and forth, so mine is bigger).
2. Boot from floppies (having prepared two MFS floppies, 400K, beforehand).
Copy ONLY system and finder to one, and System, Finder, AND Hard Disk 20
to the other. Reboot with the disk without Hard Disk 20 (this is needed
since HD20 likes to eject each drive as it continues the boot). Now
Mount your MFS partition (usually shift-F3) and copy System, Finder AND
HD20 there.
3. Reboot from hard disk and it should come up, but you then have to add
System and Finder to your HFS in a system folder to complete the process.
I have removed Finder from my MFS partition, and reduced System to nearly
nothing since it isn't used except for booting (One small DA, no fonts, etc.).
I also have used the resource editor to remove the .sony driver from HD20
(leaving only the dispatch kernel and TFS). I also removed HD20 from my
HFS since it INIT's from the MFS.