I have a 1988 model Mac SE with two 800K drives with an external 20MB HD.
The system on it is 6.0.5 and the Finder is 6.1.5.
I was wondering what's the best System and Finder for this Mac. I had one way back but had to sell it but now I have another one I bought.
If I have to buy the disks from E-Bay I will I just need to know what you think is the best for it and the latest version of HyperCard too.
Thanks.
Paul
How much RAM is installed? If its 2.5 MB or more, then you could also run Mac SSW 7.0 to 7.5.x although it becomes sluggish after 7.1 as RAM demands on an SE's maximum 4 MB RAM, accelerate. If the SE has less than 2.5 MB on board, then you have little option but to run SSW 6.0.8 or earlier.
Mac System OS's prior to SSW 7.1 (also SSW 7.5.3) are free DL's, you shouldn't have to purchase any of these, you only need to DL the floppy disk images and restore them to floppy disk yourself.
Caveats here are your SE's 800k drives. You can only restore images made for this drive. SSW 7.0 and earlier would be OK but later OS's coming on 1.4MB media will be a technical issue for you.
It was common in Mac OS releases, for the System file and the Finder to have different version numbers, so finding Finder 6.1.5 alongside the System 6.0.5 file is probably normal.
There is probably not much difference between SSW 6.0.5 and SSW 6.0.8, but if you want to upgrade the OS to SSW 6.0.8 you can DL the images via here the link for the 6.0.8 images only, is near the top of the page, see: "SSW 6.0.8 (4 x 800K disk images, from Apple Support Area (Mirror))" in page.
HyperCard 2.3 was the latest version to run on SSW 6.0.5 or newer (I'm not sure if the updates to 2.4.1 dropped the earlier SSW support). You can find HyperCard 2.3 in 800k floppy image format here. Although, the DL is 15 MB's, so how you get this onto your 20 MB HD and extract then install will be an interesting exercise for you.
Earlier HyperCards not as large to DL are also archived here at the MG.
For moving files to the SE, you might consider one of these: http://www.ebay.com/bhp/apple-cd-300.
Something like this may ease things a lot: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Apple-3-5-Inch-Floppy-Drive-SuperDrive-M...
Not sure whether the drive alone would work with a stock SE, or a ROM upgrade is needed too.
You might also look for a OldWorld Power Mac like the 6100 (or higher), they used to go dirt cheap on flea bay.
Such a helper Mac could prepare floppies for the SE and has AAUI and CD-ROM plus a somewhat larger HDD. If you dont mind cluttering your desk, that is. 
Not sure whether the drive alone would work with a stock SE, or a ROM upgrade is needed too.
The three on board "SWIM, ROM HIGH & ROM LOW" chips would need replacing with upgraded 1.4 MB floppy compatible chips on the SE's motherboard also.
Hello, this site is difficult to use as I do not get email notifications when someone responds to my posts.
In answering your question, I have 1 MB on this SE.
25 bit, I looked at those drive on "fleabay", not bad, am considering them.
Thank you both, I really need help with this as I posted that I'd be willing to pay someone to create those two floppies for me.
Hi Mike, I won't be buying one then if I have to replace any chips.
Do you think there's anyone here that would make those CSF disks for me?
Paul
Sure, I'll make them for you. Leave a contact email address on my guestbook page.
Don't want to discourage anybody, but I presume incoming mail from "allied enemies" is scanned by electromagnetic devices when entering the US. Floppies will be unreadable on delivery.
At least mine was, when I sent to the US from Germany some time ago. 
The floppy was good prior to sending, of course.
Maybe if it was wrapped in tinfoil? Then they'd have to inspect manually, then decide "oh its only some ancient technology" 
Was wrapped in Al-foil with a customs declaration: "Mac boot floppy 800kbyte, useless for other computers." Maybe this declaration led to suspicion and it was de-magnetized to be on the safe side?
My guess is there aint no humans actually looking.
That's too bad. Maybe al-foil wasn't such a good idea
Perhaps Belethor will find someone local to help him out. I'm still willing to try tho' if nobody steps up.
Thanks Mike, I think a lead bag might help.
I have a lady sending me the Mac SE from Vancouver to here in Atlanta, she had UPS pack it for her and the boxes contain floppies, I hope to heck they don't get messed up because then I'll have to buy the System, Finder, & HyperCard from E-Bay here in the States.
I got a great deal on this system, a Mac SE with 2 800K drives, an external 20 MG HD, an ImageWriter that works with an extra ribbon, MacWrite, all the original manuals for everything and it's all in mint condition.
But I NEED CSF. It's really all I want to run on it besides HC.
Any local volunteers for CSF yet? Holler if you want me to try. I hope your SE gets to you in good working order, too. That's a big trip for an old Mac.
Yeah, thanks Mike. Vancouver to Atlanta. Should be here Thursday or Friday. But she had UPS themsleves package it, it cost more in shipping than for the whole package. I just hope the floppies don't get fried.
As for CSF, Rich told me via several emails last night he made them for me. I'm waiting on word from him about when he shpiied them. He's in the States but still, I don't trust the postal system, they may blast them with electromagenitic scanners too. If that happens then I will be forced to ask about a ZILLION questions about how to download files from here to my iMac or a PC laptop and what hardware and software I'd need to make then installable or readable in an SE 800K.
Best of luck anyways!
For the worst case be prepare for http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/zterm and a self soldered null-modem cable to connect the SE to a more modern computer.
There still is the hen-egg problem about how to get Z-Term onto the SE without it already being there.
Do you have an old dial up modem around?
Hi Rene, first let me say I wish this forum would notify me of replies to posts like most forums do.
I agree, I will have to make a null modem cable, I made one a long, long time ago so it's not too difficult.
I got ahold of Herb Johnson and he said he doesn't have any more 1.44 upgrade boards left. Too bad.
Rich said he would help if I need it so I could possibly ask him to copy term onto an 800K for me.
There's a few things I want to do first when I get it (now on Monday, argh! UPS!) I want to open it so I need to try to find a site that has photos of a tear down of an SE or a YouTube. Question, after opening the case are there any caps that could be a heavy hitter if one gets zapped? I remember you had to ground out a cap on the old TV's.
Then I want to clean it and check out how well the drives perform. This SE is in almost mint condition though. No fading, no blemishes, all the original documentation, an ImageWriter II with extra new ribbons, all cabling, I'm just amazed.
I have an old Sony VAIO laptop with a 3 1/4 floppy and a CD drive in it so that would help.
Oh, almost forgot, it does have a working modem! Cool.
I agree that some kind of notification would be nice, Paul.
But then we should be thankful for what we got here.
A modem - I was thinking of a stand alone thingie to be connected to the SE in the first place.
Some kind soul might set up a FTP dialup server to offer some files for you. Still there would have to be an FTP client and Stuffit (Expander) on the SE side, hen/egg problem again.
One other thing just came to my mind:
I´m pretty sure that 720k floppies could be formatted HFS on vintage Macs.
If that can be done, a X86 iMac with USB floppy drive should be able to handle the disks too, given the iMac is running 10.5 Leopard in a virtual machine.
I´ll give this a go with FusionPC (acting as Mac II) and my good old E5700 running 10.5 in VMWare.
Not sure whether my USB Imation Super Disk can handle 720k floppies.
Not being a big fan of the tube, I´d rather look here if I would like to tinker with a SE: http://www.ccadams.org/se/MacSEservice.pdf
Some useful hints about floppies: http://the-penciler.blogspot.de/2009/10/of-floppy-disks-hfs-and-snow-leo...
Edit: Super Disk can not read 2DD floppies, I should have known better.
Thanks 24bit. I will look at those sites.
Gosh, I miss the days of BBS's. Wonder if there are any that still exist?
It looks like I will have difficulty getting files onto this Mac. Sigh.
Some seem to be up and running still:
http://www.telnetbbsguide.com/dialbbs/dialbbs.htm
Someone here might dig out his modem and share some files for your SE to get things rolling.
I know I had software for doing so with WIn98 or was it 95? Not sure where the CD is or whether I trashed it long ago.
if you have a pc (or mac) with a spare pci slot you could get a cheap PCI SCSI card and use that to transfer the files, the adaptc 2906 card can be had for next to nothing and works in both pc's and macs
Unfortunatley all I have is an old PC laptop WITH a 3 1/2 floppy drive. No PCI for it I guess.
I will have a modem and will try some BBS's.
I wish this forum would let you know when there is a reply to posts. Frustrating.
UPS now says I won't see my Mac till Tuesday
A SCSI HBA would be very useful, but I think Paul would need a PC to cram it in as well.
Still worth a thought, as everything could be done form a PC with Basilisk_II (build 142) on the SE´s HDD.
As far as I know, 10.6 or higher has only native drivers for ACard671x SCSI HBAs.
http://ask.adaptec.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/11052/related/1/session/L...
Paul, If you are willing to "invest" in a Pentium Desktop like this http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-Thinkcentre-MT-Pent-D-2-8GHz-2G-Ram-80GHD-Wi...? with a PCI slot available, you can have a spare SCSI HBA of mine for free.
XP or lower would be best, as there are no W7 drivers for the HBA I´m afraid.
Such a Desktop could make a helper "Mac" with BII (142) as it can read/write Mac SCSI devices including your SE´s HDD, if your are bold enough to extract it from there. Some other SCSI device may be easier to handle, e.g an old Syquest cartridge drive. Maybe Max1zzz can send you a spare one?
These should work too: http://www.ebay.com/itm/SyQuest-EZ-135-Removable-Hard-Disk-Cartridge-Lot...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-SYQUEST-3-1-2-INCH-135MB-SCSI-FLOPPY-DRI...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Fast-SCSI-PCI-Controller-Card-Adaptec-AHA-2930CU...
With some luck you might get the whole stuff for about 80 bucks...
