jrd@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.SYMBOLICS.COM (John R. Dunning) (04/29/88)
This question has probably been answered before, but that's never stopped me in the past... Does anyone know of a PD/Freeware way of reading and writing MAC disks on my ST? I have access to a MAC II at work, and it'd be nice to be able to cart data back and forth on floppettes instead of via phone lines. No, I DON'T want to run Magic Sac, I just want to read and write the disks. Thanks in advance for any info.
Thomas_E_Zerucha@cup.portal.com (04/30/88)
There is no way of doing so without a translator box, and that requires a Magic Sac, unless you also plan on adding a PC compatible drive to your Mac II (I don't think the disk controller on it can do one on the built in drive) - but if you do so, you can use PC format disks (720K PS/2 style) in the ST directly.
hase@netmbx.UUCP (Hartmut Semken) (05/02/88)
In article <19880428185422.2.JRD@MOA.SCRC.Symbolics.COM> jrd@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.SYMBOLICS.COM (John R. Dunning) writes: >Does anyone know of a PD/Freeware way of reading and writing MAC disks >on my ST? It is impossible. You need extra hardware. Our solution to the same problem was a ST and a serial cable on top of the MAC. hase -- Hartmut Semken, Lupsteiner Weg 67, 1000 Berlin 37 hase@netmbx.UUCP I think, you may be right in what I think you're thinking. (Douglas Adams)
wes@obie.UUCP (Barnacle Wes) (05/02/88)
In article <19880428185422.2.JRD@MOA.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>, jrd@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.SYMBOLICS.COM (John R. Dunning) writes: > Does anyone know of a PD/Freeware way of reading and writing MAC disks > on my ST? I have access to a MAC II at work, and it'd be nice to be > able to cart data back and forth on floppettes instead of via phone > lines. No, I DON'T want to run Magic Sac, I just want to read and write > the disks. You can't read Mac disks on the ST without hacking your disk drive and controller some. The Mac disk controller, the IWM (stands for Integrated Woz Machine), uses a peculiar format. Most floppies, and all hard disks (that I know of) use _constant angular velocity_. That means the disk always _spins_ at the same speed. The Mac, on the other hand, uses _constant linear velocity_ (or very near constant) which means they speed up and slow down the rotational speed to keep the part of the disk passing under the head moving at the same speed _relative to the head_. To be able to read and write Mac disks on the ST, you need a disk drive and controller pair that supports this speeding up and slowing down of the rotational speed. Data Pacific sells one that goes with the Magic Sac. Other than that, you are pretty much out. There is a program for the Amiga which will read/write Mac disks, or so I'm told. It will also read/write/format IBM PC and ST disks. Got a friend with an Amiga? I might also be possible to write a Mac program that can read/write ST disks - I don't know that much about how programmable the IWM is. -- /\ - "Against Stupidity, - {backbones}! /\/\ . /\ - The Gods Themselves - utah-cs!uplherc! / \/ \/\/ \ - Contend in Vain." - sp7040!obie! / U i n T e c h \ - Schiller - wes
davidli@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (Dave Meile) (05/02/88)
In article <4961@cup.portal.com> Thomas_E_Zerucha@cup.portal.com writes: >There is no way of doing so without a translator box, and that requires a >Magic Sac Not exactly true. You *can* run the Translator One box without a Magic Sac. There is at least one shareware program on the program disk that comes with the Translator One which allows you to transfer files from Macintosh to GEM format. (I think the author asks for $ to register and get the "full function" program that allows transfers from GEM to Macintosh.) The program runs under GEM, and no Macintosh ROMs are used, so you don't "need" a Magic Sac. [Though I *will* say that the Magic Sac is quite nice in and of itself]. -- Dave Meile