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| Author | Color Classic Dilemma (Read 68314 times) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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edd
8 MB  Posts: 14 
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on: October 14, 2011, 16:14
Hi all, I've just acquired a 1993 Color Classic with the intention of playing some of my favourite old games on it. However I'm really struggling to get files on to it. It is running system 7.1. It has no ethernet or networking. The only thing I can attach is via the SCSI port on the back. I was thinking of getting a ZIP 100 drive, however according to Iomega's site only 7.6+ will read/write ZIP discs. Again, the samr dilemma - I can't access files to upgrade! So how can I get files on to this thing? I'm out of ideas! |
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dpaanlka
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1024 MB Posts: 1646
Reply #1 on: October 14, 2011, 16:28
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Oh, you want this. Afterwards give us another shout and we'll help you along the rest of the way.
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dpaanlka
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1024 MB Posts: 1646
Reply #2 on: October 14, 2011, 16:32
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PS getting an external CD drive would probably be a better investment than a ZIP drive.
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edd
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8 MB Posts: 14
Reply #3 on: October 14, 2011, 16:47
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Thanks for the reply. So if I put that in, could I just link my modern iMac (running OSW X 10.7) and the Color Classic with an Ethernet cable?
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dpaanlka
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1024 MB Posts: 1646
Reply #4 on: October 14, 2011, 17:06
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Well, there will still be some setup to do, but once you do it, it'll be way convenient to have your Color Classic on your network rather than using ZIP drives or anything like that. Mac OS Classic and Lion cannot talk to each other directly over AFP anymore - that broke with Snow Leopard. But there are workarounds such as setting up an FTP server on your iMac.
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edd
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8 MB Posts: 14
Reply #5 on: October 14, 2011, 17:20
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Thanks again. Wow this is proving way more difficult than I thought. It seems ZIPs are out as apparently OS X can't read/write Mac Classic formatted discs anyway. So even if I got the drive working on my Color Classic, I have no way of getting the files on to a disc! The ethernet/networking sounds quite painful. I'm not a networking guru by any means. So is maybe a SCSI CD Rom the best bet? Will that be plug and play on the Color Classic, or does that need drivers to read CDs too?
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24bit
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64 MB Posts: 91
Reply #6 on: October 14, 2011, 18:19
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I would vote for ethernet... CD ROM drivers were not included with 7.1, if I recall right. Apple shipped their CD300´s with a floppy and drivers on it therefore. CD drivers from 7.5 could make use of many different drives. The drivers should work with 7.1 too. FWB´s CD ROM Toolkit offered connectivity for some third party drives, but it was hit and miss, mostly.
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dpaanlka
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1024 MB Posts: 1646
Reply #7 on: October 14, 2011, 18:29
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You'll probably want both an external CD drive and the ethernet card. Forget about ZIP. You'll need a CD drive to install 7.6.x anyway, and from there you can install all sorts of more modern-ish networking and internet tools that will allow you to download games and do whatever. 7.1 is going to be very limiting, but you can still do it with some effort on your part.
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beachycove
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16 MB Posts: 31
Reply #8 on: October 15, 2011, 18:39
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Couple of thoughts: 1. Installation of 7.6.1 on a stock Color Classic is a BAD idea. Think slow, and then think slower, and then think almost stopped, and you'll get the general idea. Even 7.1 is painfully slow on the thing. You can speed it up by installing an LC520, 550 or 575 logic board in the machine. Note that each solution requires a different software hack, some easier than others but all very do-able even for a rank beginner. 2. I don't know about the idea that OSX cannot read a zip drive formatted by the classic Mac OS. What version of X are we talking about? 3. A CD drive is probably a good idea, though note that some burned CDs are unreadable in older machines without some software savvy. Another potential solution would be to source an intermediate machine to bridge between the two machines you already own: for instance, a beige 604e-based Mac or a beige G3 running 9.1, either with a USB PCI card installed, would let you copy via USB disk and floppy between the machines.
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edd
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8 MB Posts: 14
Reply #9 on: October 17, 2011, 10:37
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Thanks for all the info. To answer some of your questions: 1) My Color Classic has 10mb RAM. Would that still be too slow to run 7.5+? 2) I'm running 10.7 Leopard on my 'new' Mac. I've read that OS X can only read Mac Classic zip disks, and CANNOT write to them. Can anyone confirm? 3) I believe CDs need to be HFS formatted to be read in Classic. But all OS X sofwtware I've tried (Toast, Disk Utility) cannot do this format any more. I'm leaning towards the network card then. Assuming I buy that new one on ebay that comes with the software disk, should I just be able to plug the card in, install the software on the disk and then plug a modern ethernet cable into it, and it will work? Thanks.
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edd
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8 MB Posts: 14
Reply #10 on: October 17, 2011, 12:59
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Update. I have managed to acquirea SCSI CD Rom drive from a friend  So my next question is, will the driver from thwe top of this page work on 7.1?http://www.macdrivermuseum.net/disk.html Hopefully then all I'll need to do is figure out how to burn HFS CDs on OS X Lion.
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theos911
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8 MB Posts: 13
Reply #11 on: October 17, 2011, 20:23
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1) 8MB is about the bare minimum for 7.5 + applications. 10 should be OK, but don't expect to run a web browser or anything like that. 2) 10.6 and above can read hfs (not talking about hfs+) , but will not write to it. I can confirm this as I am on a 10.6.8 iMac at school atm and it will not write to my hfs thumb drive. 3) Idk about format, but... You need to be careful about media as well. My PDQ's CD drive will only read CD-R. It won't read CD-RW even if burned on another Mac OS 9 machine. I found this out when trying to make Debian CDs. Sheepshaver has CD drivers for Windows, they might have them for OS X. If so, you can give control of your optical drive to SheepShaver and format with OS 9.
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edd
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8 MB Posts: 14
Reply #12 on: October 17, 2011, 20:56
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OK 2 hours down and I'm completely stuck. There's so many things that 'could' explain it not working, I'm not sure where to start! 1) When simply trying to copy the CD Rom installer from the floppy to the Mac, it was behaving weirdly. Copying the file to the HD just seemed to create a short cut to it - but then if I deleted the alias, it deleted the file off the floppy too! How on earth do you move.copy files in System 7? 2) I did eventually manage to get the file on the computer (I think) It said to copy the file (extension) to my Extensions folder - but there was no extensions folder in System. Should there be? I created one and put the file in there. No idea wether it is picking it up or not - aren't extensions supposed to appear in the bottom left corner when you boot? It still only shows the same 2 as before (no idea what they are.) 3) The CD Rom definitely does something when I restart the Mac, the light flashes duting boot up. But no disc mounts in the finder. 4) I burned the files on to a CD-R using Toast 10, HFS format. Burn speed of x4. Should be OK right? 5) The external CD Rom itself (Lacie) has all kinds of things on the back - 2 SCSI ports, termination on/off, and a slider from 1 to 6. No idea what any of it does, again could the combination of buttons/ports be the problem? Anybody know what could be up?
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edd
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8 MB Posts: 14
Reply #13 on: October 17, 2011, 22:48
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Finally, got it working! It turns out that my 7.2 install seems rather messed up. I found my Extensions, Preferences etc folder inside the Microsoft Word Folder. So it looks like whoever owned this before accidentally moved a load of stuff around. Think I should do a clean install now. Will me Color Classic (10mb RAM) handle 7.5.3 and still be able to play games?
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24bit
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64 MB Posts: 91
Reply #14 on: October 18, 2011, 01:48
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My 68k 7.5.3 is up and running with about 3MB. If you have enough free HDD space, you might consider to partition it for 7.6.1 and 7.1, so you may get the most out of it. Maybe you can find an old Windy system as intermediate? I once rescued a ASUS PIII with SCSI, ethernet, USB-2 (and floppy drive of course) from e-recycling.
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