wsinkees@lso.win.tue.nl (Kees Huizing) (11/16/89)
Question from a Macintosh pre-novice: Is there a way to read and write floppy disks on a MS-DOS computer in Macintosh format or the other way round (on a Macintosh in MS-DOS format)? Not necessarily MS-DOS 1.44 Mbyte (HD) floppies. I intend to buy a Mac Plus and I want to exchange ASCII files with the MS-DOS computers at my office. I know that the second option can be achieved with the super drive, but the Mac SE is beyond my budget. My Apple dealer told me that the super drive is not available in the Mac Plus nor as a separate drive. Is this true, or can one get additional drives from other brands that do the job? The other option is to get some MS-DOS software that makes the local drive read and write Macintosh disks. Or are there others ways to achieve what I want? Thanks in advance for your answer, either by net or by e-mail (below). Kees -- Kees Huizing - Eindhoven Univ of Techn - Dept Math & Comp Sc - The Netherlands DOMAIN: wsinkees@win.tue.nl BITNET: wsdckeesh@heitue5 FAX: +31-40-436685 -- -- Kees Huizing - Eindhoven Univ of Techn - Dept Math & Comp Sc - The Netherlands DOMAIN: wsinkees@win.tue.nl BITNET: wsdckeesh@heitue5 FAX: +31-40-436685
wsinkees@lso.win.tue.nl (Kees Huizing) (01/05/90)
Two months ago, I asked the folowing question: is it possible to read and write MS-DOS floppies on a Mac Plus, not necessarily the HD format (1.44Mb)? Recently, I saw a similar question on the net, so I think I owe you a summary. Thanks a lot for all who repsonded and those who took the time to read. Warning: none of these are from personal experience, just second hand information. If you have comments or supplements, please post quickly so the least possible harm will be done. There are several drive solutions for the Mac: 1. Ordinary external Apple drive, connected via the Rapport (cable+electronics) from Kennect Technologies. Rapport costs about $220. (if you connect Rapport to the drive port of your Mac, the *internal* drive is pestered to *read* MS-DOS floppies) 2. Kennect 2.4 Drive together with Rapport (see above) lets you read/write normal and HD MS-DOS floppies, HD Mac and 2.4Mb format exclusive to this drive. Costs about $550 (together). 3. Apple 5 1/4" external drive. Needs an extra card, so not possible in the Plus. Gives only 360K MS-DOS format. 4. New Apple 3 1/4" external drive. Works like the superdrive, so you can read and write 800K Mac, 720K DOS and 1.44M DOS formats. I am not sure whether you can *format* all these types. Some people say the hardware is not that good. Expensive. 5. The PLI TurboFloppy is a SCSI device that can be added to any Mac with a SCSI port, and it is very similar in function to a SuperDrive (though it is not quite the same). It can only read/write 1.44Mb MS-DOS format. Costs about $350. 6. DaynaFile makes drives that read IBM disks, and from what I hear the interface is better than using a SuperDrive. The disks come up in the finder just like a mac disk. An apple rep that spoke here at Penn recommended it highly. Old and expensive. I know of one solution for the **PC**. 7. Put a half card into the PC and connect an ordinary external Apple drive. Your PC can then read and write 800K Mac format. See an ad in a recent issue of Byte. Other solutions are: 8. a modem, a network, a 0-modem (RS232 cable between Mac and PC) and typing :-). With thanks to Darik Datta, keith@ux.acss.umn.edu, att.att.com!cbnewsc!fjo, Ingemar Ragnemalm, Mark H. Anbinder, Matthew T. Russotto, Paul Eric Menchen, Frank WGM de Bruyn, Marc Heijligers, Grobbins. Kees -- Kees Huizing - Eindhoven Univ of Techn - Dept Math & Comp Sc - The Netherlands DOMAIN: wsinkees@win.tue.nl BITNET: wsdckeesh@heitue5 FAX: +31-40-436685