batsonaMaryland
join:2004-04-17
Ellicott City, MD Reviews:
 ·Vonage
 ·Verizon FiOS
| 800K floppy drive? I've just started messing with Basilisk, the Mac 68K emulator. I have alot of data on old 800K floppies (I'd almost forgotten how to tell the difference since it hasn't matererd in 15 years... Then I noticed that I can read 1.44, but not 800K.
MAC vs. PC - doesn't matter.. I can read Mac 1.44 disks in my PC, but I can't read 800K disks. Whats the fastest solution for this? Older 800K drives probably use the 'floppy connector', versus USB. Who out there can read 800K disks, and how are you doing it? |
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batsonaMaryland
join:2004-04-17
Ellicott City, MD Reviews:
·Vonage
·Verizon FiOS
| OK, I read a little here.. 800K floppies can only be read/written by Apple's SuperDrive, which was known for its variable-speed spindle. Question: Can I buy a SuperDrive off of Ebay, and stick it on a PC's Floppy connector?
Alot of people on the Internet are saying, "find someone with an older Mac, and pay them to copy files from 800K to 1.44". --There's no other way? |
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 CylonRedPremium,MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County | Not likely - Apple hardware is not compatible with PCs. It would have an Apple controller instead of a PC controller. Finding a controller on eBay - looks to be over $100 and would need an Apple PC. I can't find drives on eBay at all...
--
Brian
"It drops into your stomach like a Abrams's tank.... driven by Rosanne Barr..." A. Bourdain |
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batsonaMaryland
join:2004-04-17
Ellicott City, MD | That's along the lines of what I read as well. It looks like one must find a person with an older MAC, who can move the data from 800K, to 1.44.
anyone else? |
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 LazManPremium
join:2003-03-26
canada | reply to batsona
800K was an Apple standard, IIRC... Low density PC disks were 720K; so not likely any PC or PC-compatible drives that could read the 800K format.
I'm guessing that you're on the right track - a quick Google says the solution is to find an early 90's era MAC; as they were the most likely to have a drive that could read and write both 800k and 1.44M floppies...
Maybe a local vintage computer club in your area that could help you out? Just a shot in the dark... |
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| reply to batsona
I was able to read from and write to 800 kB Mac floppy disks using standard 3.5-inch floppy drives on PCs running MS-DOS, with additional hardware.
The additional hardware was an ISA card called the 'Copy2PC Option Board', sold by Central Point Software (makers of PC Tools), which was acquired by XTree, which itself was in turn acquired by Symantec. The board sits between the standard floppy drive controller and the floppy drive, and allows extremely low-level access to floppy disks. I still have the Option Board, although I haven't used it for 10 years or so.
Ah, the good old days. |
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 tobyTroy Mcclure
join:2001-11-13
Seattle, WA | reply to batsona
I thought the 1MB 3.5 DD disks were formatted on a PC as 720KB, on a mac as 800KB and on an Amiga as 880KB.
Back in the day the Amiga could read all the formats.... in the 1950's I think it was... |
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| reply to batsona
This is why i'll never own a mac. well, i like MBPs but could never buy into their desktop hardware. thank god their desktops are slowly going away. |
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