Hi everyone - this is probably an incredibly stupid question, but just wanted some confirmation. I recently purchased a Classic II computer and would like to play some games on it from this site. Am I correct in assuming that I can download a game, save it to a floppy disk, and then use the floppy disk in the Classic II and open up the game from there?
Thanks!
Your assumption is correct.
What kind of machine are you writing the floppy on? That'll determine how many hoops you have to jump through
thanks for both of your replies! I would be writing the floppies on a MacBook Pro.
Then I think you are good although I can't be sure as I don't have an osx machine with a floppy. But I think if you format the floppy on the classic II, then stick it in the osx machine and save your file too it. Of course the file will more than likely need to be unstuffed which may be easiest to do on your osx machine. Here's a good link to a page that has lots of tips on moving files around between eras.
http://siber-sonic.com/mac/newmillfloppy.html
I personally have a couple powermacs running OS9 that have both network connections as well as supporting appletalk connections so I can bridge between the really old machines and the more modern world.
thanks for the advice and the link! much appreciated.
My experience with floppies on OS X is that mac formatted floppies appear locked under OS X. I usually have to format them for DOS (fat) and then i can write on them. But i have to make sure that i have PC Exchange installed on the old mac. OS 7.5.x and later installs this by default, 7.0 and 7.1 need a separate installer for PC Exchange. I use a generic USB floppy drive under Lion, precisely on a MacBook Pro.
Is there not a limitation of Mac OSX 10.6 and later, that they cannot write to HFS volumes (like unlocked mac floppies), they can only write to HFS+ volumes. Reading from HFS is still permitted.
This would mean old floppies can be read, CD's can be read, but CD's burned or floppies formatted would be in HFS+ format, making them unreadable by pre Mac OS 8.1 systems. Indeed, a CD burned (in HFS+) as a copy of a retail CD (in HFS) would be readable but may fail any piracy checks performed by the software on the CD.
Yep, HFS is read-only since 10.6. Assuming we're talking about writing floppy images that might actually be a help in this case as there should be little to no chance of the floppy getting touched by OS X once written.
That said, any floppies I wrote outside of classic Macs was in Windows with rawwrite. For Disk Copy 4.2 images you have to strip the header off first. I had a command that did this with dd. It should show up here with a search.
On a modern OS X you should be able to strip the header and write the image to a floppy disk using dd.
If sixers just wants to write stuffit files etc to floppies then there was a FUSE project that added HFS write support back. I never tried it though. It might actually be easier to format the floppies as DOS and use File/PC Exchange to read them on the CII.
Thanks for the heads up on this, guys. I did not anticipate there being on issue on writing HFS-formatted disks on a OS X 10.6 mac. Per Protocol's suggestion about the FUSE project, I googled around about it and came up with the solution.
First, I need to download and install FUSE for OS X: http://osxfuse.github.io/. Then, I need to run the package FuseHFS: http://namedfork.net/fusehfs.
Thanks for the direction on this - would have been completely lost without you guys!
A virtual machine running 10.5 or lower on your 10.6 host can write NDIF floppies too, as many here will know. 
Also its possible to write HFS floppies with Basilisk_II (Mac Classic emulator). Last not least 10.6 Server can create NDIF volumes with DU. Finder cant write to such image though.
All three proposals rather a long shot - just in case you should get stuck with FuseHFS.
Hi! I have a Classic II also, and gave up on floppies. I got a SCSI card for the G4 DP, and a external scsi Box, and i just plug into the G4 and save the files, and plug it into the Classic II, and everything is there...Its just the easiest way. Wish the Classic II was an SE/30 though...
Hi Everyone...So I received my Classic II in the mail today from our trusty US Postal Service. Fired her up and everything appeared to be in working order (as was promised by the seller on eBay). However, when I went to try out 5+ old Mac games that I had on floppy disks (and we are talking the official games that I bought from other sellers on eBay, nothing I tried to save to disk myself), I got the same message each time:
"This disk is unreadable by this Macintosh. Do you want to intialize the disk?"
I'm thinking since it happened with every single compatible game, it's not the floppies. A quick google search showed that maybe the drive itself needs to be cleaned? I don't know the first thing about that so please, any insight would be greatly appreciated. I hope I don't have to send the computer back to the eBay seller for selling me a dud!
Thank you so much!
What System Software version is running on your Classic II (see in Apple menu, top left corner of screen, "About This Macintosh").
Also, do you have a spare floppy disk that you can insert? Does it throw up the same message, and can you initialize it?
Thanks for the reply. It's running System Software version 7.5 and the machine has 4,096k of Built-in Memory and 10,240k of Total Memory. I tried putting in a blank floppy (Mac format, Sony brand 2HD 1.44 Mb from 1996) and it gave me the same message, and initialization failed.
That's not a good sign. You could try cleaning the heads of the floppy drive, but you might be in for a replacement drive, too.
If cleaning the floppy doesn't cure the problem, you must complain to the seller about this. The seller may have a working spare at hand and should send one to you gratis. Especially if the item being sold was claimed to be in good working order, before you decided to purchase it.
I was afraid you would say that. I'm going to give cleaning the drive a shot, as I purchased a disk drive cleaning kit off Amazon that I should have in my hands tomorrow. If that does not work, I am definitely contacting the seller.
Are you familiar with replacing floppy drives? I have never opened up a classic and have never replaced drives before. What would you say would be the level of difficulty in doing this? If it's tough, I could try a Mac repair shop.
Thanks for any additional help you and anyone else can provide!
To open the case on a Classic II you need to remove several allen-head (could be Torx-head) bolts. 2 of them require a LONG wrench; much longer than in a standard tool set.
Once you get the case open, removing the floppy drive is rather simple using a phillips screw driver.
Gary
Its not too hard to do, but you do need to crack open the case, which involves laying the Mac down onto its screen face (onto a towel or blanket on a flat surface) and removing the four torx screws from the back.
Your floppy problem might be as simple as a cable that's come loose in transit to your place, so don't give up hope just yet. But you will need to take the wee beastie apart to check the insides.
You should get the service manual and give it a thorough read. It will tell you all you need to know about your Classic II and the steps required for taking it apart, safely.
The service manual (PDF) is here (right-click link to save it to your PC)
And good luck.
Really appreciate the assistance. In that manual, it states that to remove/replace the floppy drive, one must first remove the hard drive and logic board. Any idea if that is necessary? I ask because a friend of mine who is vintage Mac-savvy said that I should not have to remove any other components. Thanks!
Your friend may not have opened every vintage Mac model out there 
No in this case you do need to remove the logic board to access where the floppy drive is attached to the bottom of the Classic II chassis. See page 52 (Floppy Drive - 23), removing the screws holding the floppy drive to the chassis, the logic board must be removed to access these screws.
Pulling the logic board out is easy, remove the memory expansion card if present, then unplug the power, SCSI and floppy cables & it will just slide out giving you good access.
All of this info is in the PDF, you just need to go over it and familiarize yourself with the various steps. Taking it apart is good thing to do as you get to inspect close up the various components and check for faults yourself, e.g. look for leaking capacitors and other nasties that can go wrong. - Also you can clean out dust from the inside while you're at it (always a good thing to do).
Thanks for the explanation. I'm hoping that the disk drive cleaner will take care of business when I get my hands on it tomorrow evening. If not, I'm not sure that I'm up to disassembling all of those parts - sounds like that CRT can pack a punch if I'm not careful and discharge it effectively!
Owning a vintage Mac in good running order is going to present you with hardware issues as time goes by. This usually involves some tinkering, screw-driving, cleaning, replacing worn components and even soldering at times. If you're not prepared to deal with issues as they arise personally, then it could become a rather costly hobby - or you have to scrap the project.
There really aren't that many parts to take apart in this Mac. You could do it if you put your mind to it. And yes, they are not the easiest of Macs to handle and there are risks if you are not dexterous. Here's a D.I.Y. CRT discharge tool and how to use it page. Very inexpensive, consists of a screwdriver, a wire and a crocodile clip. The rest of this page may come in handy too, even though its for an SE/30, all compact Macs have similar potential issues.
Personally, I never bothered with discharging the CRT unless I was going to remove the CRT from the case, or needed to adjust the yoke, etc. I simply avoided coming into contact with those areas if I was only addressing components such as the logic board or replacing HD's and floppy drives.
Do this:
Remove the case to expose whats inside. Don't do anything else. Sit the Mac upright and study its innards for a while. Compare what you see with the service manual. Form an opinion of what you see. Put the case back together. Go away and do something else for a while. See how you feel about it later, maybe for the next day or so, re: taking it apart and going in further.
thanks for the suggestions. i wound up returning the computer for a full refund. It just didn't sit well with me that it already had issues when it was said to be in full working order. i have since purchased another Classic II. hopefully will have better luck off the bat with this one! i also ordered a torx screwdriver so i will be able to open up the case on the new one if/when things need some tinkering down the road!
Fair enough, too. You should expect to receive exactly what you paid for, always. Good luck. I hope the new Classic II will meet up with your expectations.
Boy, do I have some updates for you guys...Got my *new* Classic II a few weeks back. Was enjoying it with some games and such, but I was surprised by how slow it was. Checked out "About this Macintosh" in the Finder and it said it was a Classic (not classic II) running 4MB of RAM. I opened up the case (aren't you proud of me, MikeTomTom?) and sure enough, it was a regular Classic, not a Classic II, as it had a Memory Expansion Board and the logic board revealed a 68000 processor instead of the Classic II's 68030. It was sold to me through eBay as a Classic II, and the outer casing is that of a Classic II, but inside it is very much a Classic. I'll be keeping it, but I am trying to get some money back from the seller, given that it was another misrepresentation.
I then picked up an SE/30 on Craigslist for a pretty decent price, turned it on, flashing question mark inside a floppy display...Knowing it was a bad hard disk, I opened up the case and swapped the hard drive from my Classic (ugh, not a II!) and put it in the SE/30...success! It's a 1.2 GB, too, which was a pleasant surprise when I turned on the Classic for the first time. I even added some RAM, to bump it up from 20MB to 32MB. I need to get mode32 installed, but I have bigger problems. Just when you thought everything was looking up for me, right?
The SE/30 runs flawlessly for between 2 and 15 minutes, and then randomly reboots, often hanging on reboot and giving me the reboot chime several times (note: NOT the chimes of doom, but the reboot chime).
Thinking it might be ROM or RAM connector issues, I cleaned them, and also did a little spot cleaning around the caps, but they were pretty clean and leak-free. Removed the PRAM battery, in case that was affecting things (new one is on the way).
Restarted, same issue. Works for a few minutes flawlessly, then craps out on me. It's been fun tinkering with these two machines, and I've certainly come a long way, from not wanting to open a case to swapping out parts and such, but this is getting frustrating!
Any ideas, everyone? I would love to hear what you guys think about this issue. Have not been able to find ANYTHING about it online, other than having ONE symptom of early signs of SimasiMac (the intermittent restart), but no other signs...Please help...I'm nearing the end of my rope!
Thank you!!!
About the SE/30.. there are so many sites with people reporting success on dead macs when cleaning or washing the motherboard, that i wouldn't doubt that your motherboard has been cleaned before, and therefore you wouldn't notice any leaking. Check for corrosion on the traces or the chips near the capacitors. If the capacitors have never been replaced on that motherboard, i wouldn't doubt that all your troubles are capacitor related. In my own experience there is no mac today between the SE/30 and the Quadras that have no leaking. Replacing the capacitors make wonders on those macs. I have replaced the capacitors on my three SE/30s and my macIIsi. If you don't have soldering experience i would really REALLY search for a friend that does. Never attempt this with zero soldering experience. The hard part is the desoldering. The best method i have found is a hot air gun with a tip with diameter slightly bigger than the capacitor itself, maybe it's worth mentioning. If in the rare case that your motherboard is ok, then i would blame the power supply. Those capacitors are also old, bad capacitors can produce noise that can produce reset signals on the motherboard. Check the analog board carefully for any leaking. I have a Mac Plus that used to reset itself continously and the problem was the flyback transformer. Maybe it's worth checking that too. Don't panic, owning an old mac requires certain patience and maintenance. The SE/30 it's in my opinion the best classic mac ever, amazingly expandable, and has a very decent performance, don't give up on it
@sixers105: Actually, I am very proud of you. From absolute reluctance to even contemplate taking these boxes apart, to hands-on drive and RAM swapping to ROM cleaning. Excellent!
So sorry to hear about your 2nd "Classic II". What a shocker of a tale. I'm speechless at this news and I would be demanding full compensation for such a lame dupe. Its almost a pity you didn't hang on to your original purchase so you could've used this one for a few spare parts...
The SE/30. What OS version is it running? Did this intermittent rebooting occur before you added extra RAM?
There are 2 banks of 4 RAM slots (8 RAM slots in total). Each bank must be populated with the same speed/capacity RAM, That is, no mixing of RAM types, or of RAM of the same capacity but having different speeds. What RAM did you use to get to 32MB? Are they all the same speed? Same chipset? Same voltage?
You also mention that you increased the RAM then added that you need to get Mode32? - There is no point in adding RAM until you have Mode32 installed.
My immediate suggestion is that you try to replicate the RAM setup as you when 1st got the SE/30 and let the SE/30 run for a while to see if your problem is still there.
Also, the "flashing question mark inside a floppy display...Knowing it was a bad hard disk" doesn't necessarily mean that its a bad hard drive, it just means that the Mac cannot locate a System to boot up to. The drive itself might be OK. My 1st response to this occurring would be to attempt booting up to a Disk Tools floppy (or System CD if there's a CD drive) and see if there is a simple issue to fix, before resorting to disk swapping.
Anyway, it looks as though you have made leaps and bounds of progress. So, I can only hope that there will be a happy outcome in all of this for you and soon.
@macjames, thanks for the thoughts on soldering. unfortunately, I have zero experience on this - have only used a hot glue gun back in the day as a kid for arts and crafts, and know they are completely different, ha!
@MikeTomTom, I hear you about not hanging on to my first one, oh well. In regards to the SE/30, yes, the intermittent rebooting occurred before I installed extra RAM. It is running SSW 7.1. That said, when I got the machine, it already had 20MB of RAM in it, and did the intermittent restarts then, too. At that time, it had 4 4MB modules and 4 1MB modules. It's quite possible Mode32 was on the original hard drive, but I confirmed it dead because it was not spinning at all, and even took it out and shook it around a bit (per a suggestion a read elsewhere, to try to "unstick" a drive that had been sitting around a while), but no success. That is why I swapped the 1.2GB drive from the Classic into the SE/30. The intermittent restarts still happened after cleaning the modules and connectors to the ROM and RAM and also after I removed the 4 1MB modules and put in 4 newly purchased (and brand new) 4MB modules. According to the eBay posting, they said they would work with the SE/30, and they show up successfully in the "About this Macintosh."
It was my understanding that there was no real harm in running things without Mode32, it was just that any RAM above 8MB would appear in the system but not be utilized. Has your experience proven otherwise? I am certainly up to ideas, here!
Based on what RAM I have in my possession, I could downgrade to 4MB and see if the intermittent restarts remain, I suppose.
Thanks for the suggestions, I really appreciate it!
Edit: Sorry, due to external robots changed 'xxx 7' to 'SSW 7' - IIGS User
@sixers105: There is probably no harm in having more memory than is addressable, my comment was there was little point in adding it until you are able to access it.
However. As this problem is occurring since you received this Mac, I would try running it with less RAM to begin with. For example try 4 x 1 MB in bank A, only. See if it reboots randomly again. If it does, try with 4 x 4 MB in bank A, only. See if the same symptoms persist. *Bank A on this motherboard is the 4 DRAM slots furthest away from the rear external port connectors.
Leave the case off for this exercise, as you'll be swapping SIMMs repeatedly.
How many chips on the SIMMs? Do you know the difference between composite & non-composite RAM? The RAM you use must be non-composite only and 120ns or faster.
See also: "LEM Memory upgrades for Macintosh SE/30".
and: "Important Information Regarding Composite SIMMs".
If faulty or incorrect RAM can be eliminated as the cause of your random reboots, then you'll obviously need to consider other probable causes... such as loose cabling/wiring, the hard drive failing, the PSU dying or capacitor leakages, dry solder joints, etc.
Did a bunch of different RAM configurations (it's non-composite), per your suggestions, but unfortunately had the same results. boots up and runs for a couple minutes, then endless reboots. Sometimes in the reboots it can't find a system folder. The hard drive is definitely fine, as I have tested it in the Classic and it works great.
Sounds like this is a more serious issue like leaking/leaked caps or a power supply issue or something else, like you guys have mentioned. I think I'm going to take a step back and enjoy the Classic for a bit, as at least it runs effectively and can play games, etc.
Thanks again for all of the suggestions and feedback!
Sorry to hear its not going to be an easy fix for you... Its not too unexpected tho'. Time to hone up those soldering skills? All the best.
Best of luck for your "new" bargain!
With hardware after almost forty years of service, some spare parts, service manuals, multimeter and a high end soldering station are a must, methinks.
Off: My eyes are becoming weak already and I´m missing the patience for tinkering a long time with oldies. Thats why I gave away my stuff (to Max and others). Emulators are fine for me.
Of course Mac retro computing can be a rewarding hobby, if you want to plunge into that.
