Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Recovering Macintosh floppies
There is an Applesauce at the museum that may be usable for this. I can’t remember if it has a 3.5” drive that can be connected to it. If these are 1.44 MB “HD” disks, they would be easier to read — those can typically be read with even a USB floppy drive and software such as ddrescue. If not, and these are 400K/800K disks, the Applesauce with appropriate drive would be the best option. 3.5” drives compatible with the unit at the museum are the Apple 3.5” Drive (A9M0106) and the FDHD (G7287) — other drives are not compatible. An A9M0106 with an FDHD internal mechanism installed would also work. Be sure to unplug the Applesauce from USB before changing drives, and only ever connect one drive at a time. To tell the disks apart, the person can look for the HD hole as well as the HD markings on the disk itself. Considering these disks are from a Quadra, they could be either. Once the disks are imaged, I have typically used emulators such as SheepShaver to extract the data. Additionally, LibreOffice can open many legacy formats directly. David
On May 10, 2024, at 8:02 AM, Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
OK. No one answered this. Does anyone have working Quadra and is local to InfoAge?
Someone is looking to recover files from a 3.5 floppy disk. It is unknown which software it was made with.
He needs to:
- Print out the files (each is a character study of no more than 10 print pages) - Open the files and allow him to use his cell phone to capture each page to re-type on his PC - Or provide some other way of capturing the file contents so he can re-create these data on a modern computer.
Let me know if you are local and can help.
Thanks!
Jeff
On Thu, Apr 25, 2024 at 11:00 PM Jeffrey Brace <jeffrey@vcfed.org> wrote: Is there someone coming to the repair workshop that can help someone recover Macintosh files from 3.5" disks? Likely they are word processing files from a Quadra. Please let me know. Thanks! Jeff Brace
On Fri, May 10, 2024 at 8:14 AM David Ryskalczyk <d235j.1@gmail.com> wrote:
There is an Applesauce at the museum that may be usable for this. I can’t remember if it has a 3.5” drive that can be connected to it.
The Applesauce works, but there is no Apple computer working to connect to it, so it is unusable until that happens. Tony Bogan will lend us a Mac SE/30 so that I can at least read the disk and see what is on it. Then I can go from there. Thanks!
On May 10, 2024, at 8:02 AM, Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
OK. No one answered this. Does anyone have working Quadra and is local to InfoAge?
Someone is looking to recover files from a 3.5 floppy disk. It is unknown which software it was made with.
He needs to:
- Print out the files (each is a character study of no more than 10 print pages) - Open the files and allow him to use his cell phone to capture each page to re-type on his PC - Or provide some other way of capturing the file contents so he can re-create these data on a modern computer.
Let me know if you are local and can help.
Thanks!
Jeff
On Thu, Apr 25, 2024 at 11:00 PM Jeffrey Brace <jeffrey@vcfed.org> wrote: Is there someone coming to the repair workshop that can help someone recover Macintosh files from 3.5" disks? Likely they are word processing files from a Quadra. Please let me know. Thanks! Jeff Brace
There is an apple computer to connect to it- the Apple Powerbook that I donated a few years ago. It was connected to the Applesauce at one point and was used to read some floppies. The SE/30 isn't going to help if there are any issues w/ the floppy itself (high probability). The Applesauce will keep trying and recover what it can, the SE/30 will just eject the disk on the first error it encounters. So if the disks _are_ 100% perfect the SE/30 will read them. But what are you going to do then? Moving them to another more modern system won't be possible unless the SE/30 has ethernet. Then you can connect to the AppleShare server that BenK and I setup for the BBS system on that network. You will also need appropriate software apps on the SE/30 to open the documents (if you can read them, if the floppy is 100% good). The best path is to use the Applesauce to pull a flux image and then use a virtual Mac (appropriate OS version to run the right App version) with the appropriate software that can read the save documents (i.e. Word 4 perhaps). Those are my suggestions. -andy
On May 12, 2024, at 11:39 PM, Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On Fri, May 10, 2024 at 8:14 AM David Ryskalczyk <d235j.1@gmail.com> wrote:
There is an Applesauce at the museum that may be usable for this. I can’t remember if it has a 3.5” drive that can be connected to it.
The Applesauce works, but there is no Apple computer working to connect to it, so it is unusable until that happens.
Tony Bogan will lend us a Mac SE/30 so that I can at least read the disk and see what is on it. Then I can go from there. Thanks!
On May 10, 2024, at 8:02 AM, Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
OK. No one answered this. Does anyone have working Quadra and is local to InfoAge?
Someone is looking to recover files from a 3.5 floppy disk. It is unknown which software it was made with.
He needs to:
- Print out the files (each is a character study of no more than 10 print pages) - Open the files and allow him to use his cell phone to capture each page to re-type on his PC - Or provide some other way of capturing the file contents so he can re-create these data on a modern computer.
Let me know if you are local and can help.
Thanks!
Jeff
On Thu, Apr 25, 2024 at 11:00 PM Jeffrey Brace <jeffrey@vcfed.org> wrote: Is there someone coming to the repair workshop that can help someone recover Macintosh files from 3.5" disks? Likely they are word processing files from a Quadra. Please let me know. Thanks! Jeff Brace
The Applesauce is the right tool, and we should have the Mac Mini attached to the device that Tony donated, in addition to Andy's PowerBook. - Alex On Mon, May 13, 2024 at 11:12 AM Wil via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I would look into one of these https://webstore.kryoflux.com/catalog/ a kryoflux. There is also greaseweasel as an alternative. Basically it does a image at such a low level, it can copy anything, including all the best copy protection methods from back in the day for floppies. Doesn't matter what platform the disk is formated to.
I am not 100 percent sure but pretty sure you can then find tools to extract the image for use in a emulator or otherwise find tools to extract the files. This is much more likely to be easy to experiment extraction virtual or as you say mount on a Mac emulator and screen shot the files.
On May 13, 2024 10:55, Andrew Diller via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
There is an apple computer to connect to it- the Apple Powerbook that I donated a few years ago. It was connected to the Applesauce at one point and was used to read some floppies.
The SE/30 isn't going to help if there are any issues w/ the floppy itself (high probability). The Applesauce will keep trying and recover what it can, the SE/30 will just eject the disk on the first error it encounters.
So if the disks _are_ 100% perfect the SE/30 will read them. But what are you going to do then? Moving them to another more modern system won't be possible unless the SE/30 has ethernet. Then you can connect to the AppleShare server that BenK and I setup for the BBS system on that network. You will also need appropriate software apps on the SE/30 to open the documents (if you can read them, if the floppy is 100% good).
The best path is to use the Applesauce to pull a flux image and then use a virtual Mac (appropriate OS version to run the right App version) with the appropriate software that can read the save documents (i.e. Word 4 perhaps).
Those are my suggestions.
-andy
On May 12, 2024, at 11:39 PM, Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On Fri, May 10, 2024 at 8:14 AM David Ryskalczyk <d235j.1@gmail.com> wrote:
There is an Applesauce at the museum that may be usable for this. I can’t remember if it has a 3.5” drive that can be connected to it.
The Applesauce works, but there is no Apple computer working to connect to it, so it is unusable until that happens.
Tony Bogan will lend us a Mac SE/30 so that I can at least read the disk and see what is on it. Then I can go from there. Thanks!
On May 10, 2024, at 8:02 AM, Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
OK. No one answered this. Does anyone have working Quadra and is local to InfoAge?
Someone is looking to recover files from a 3.5 floppy disk. It is unknown which software it was made with.
He needs to:
- Print out the files (each is a character study of no more than 10 print pages) - Open the files and allow him to use his cell phone to capture each page to re-type on his PC - Or provide some other way of capturing the file contents so he can re-create these data on a modern computer.
Let me know if you are local and can help.
Thanks!
Jeff
On Thu, Apr 25, 2024 at 11:00 PM Jeffrey Brace <jeffrey@vcfed.org> wrote: Is there someone coming to the repair workshop that can help someone recover Macintosh files from 3.5" disks? Likely they are word processing files from a Quadra. Please let me know. Thanks! Jeff Brace
The applesauce works on the mini I donated as the docent machine. It’s been used with it before. The se/30 can also recover the disks as I have not only recovered but repaired disks from that era with utilities from that era numerous times. The se/30 won’t eject the disk if it’s loaded once repair software is running. I’ve done this many times including for people from the museum but now that we have the applesauce that’s really the easiest way for it to be done. Contact me again off list Jeff if you still want me to bring the machine if you don’t have someone that knows how to use applesauce. Tony Bogan Sent from my iPhone
On May 13, 2024, at 4:53 PM, Alexander Jacocks via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
The Applesauce is the right tool, and we should have the Mac Mini attached to the device that Tony donated, in addition to Andy's PowerBook.
- Alex
On Mon, May 13, 2024 at 11:12 AM Wil via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I would look into one of these https://webstore.kryoflux.com/catalog/ a kryoflux. There is also greaseweasel as an alternative. Basically it does a image at such a low level, it can copy anything, including all the best copy protection methods from back in the day for floppies. Doesn't matter what platform the disk is formated to.
I am not 100 percent sure but pretty sure you can then find tools to extract the image for use in a emulator or otherwise find tools to extract the files. This is much more likely to be easy to experiment extraction virtual or as you say mount on a Mac emulator and screen shot the files.
On May 13, 2024 10:55, Andrew Diller via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
There is an apple computer to connect to it- the Apple Powerbook that I donated a few years ago. It was connected to the Applesauce at one point and was used to read some floppies.
The SE/30 isn't going to help if there are any issues w/ the floppy itself (high probability). The Applesauce will keep trying and recover what it can, the SE/30 will just eject the disk on the first error it encounters.
So if the disks _are_ 100% perfect the SE/30 will read them. But what are you going to do then? Moving them to another more modern system won't be possible unless the SE/30 has ethernet. Then you can connect to the AppleShare server that BenK and I setup for the BBS system on that network. You will also need appropriate software apps on the SE/30 to open the documents (if you can read them, if the floppy is 100% good).
The best path is to use the Applesauce to pull a flux image and then use a virtual Mac (appropriate OS version to run the right App version) with the appropriate software that can read the save documents (i.e. Word 4 perhaps).
Those are my suggestions.
-andy
On May 12, 2024, at 11:39 PM, Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On Fri, May 10, 2024 at 8:14 AM David Ryskalczyk <d235j.1@gmail.com> wrote:
There is an Applesauce at the museum that may be usable for this. I can’t remember if it has a 3.5” drive that can be connected to it.
The Applesauce works, but there is no Apple computer working to connect to it, so it is unusable until that happens.
Tony Bogan will lend us a Mac SE/30 so that I can at least read the disk and see what is on it. Then I can go from there. Thanks!
On May 10, 2024, at 8:02 AM, Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
OK. No one answered this. Does anyone have working Quadra and is local to InfoAge?
Someone is looking to recover files from a 3.5 floppy disk. It is unknown which software it was made with.
He needs to:
- Print out the files (each is a character study of no more than 10 print pages) - Open the files and allow him to use his cell phone to capture each page to re-type on his PC - Or provide some other way of capturing the file contents so he can re-create these data on a modern computer.
Let me know if you are local and can help.
Thanks!
Jeff
On Thu, Apr 25, 2024 at 11:00 PM Jeffrey Brace <jeffrey@vcfed.org> wrote: Is there someone coming to the repair workshop that can help someone recover Macintosh files from 3.5" disks? Likely they are word processing files from a Quadra. Please let me know. Thanks! Jeff Brace
Yes the Mac Mini could be attached, but it has given us trouble too just operating reliably. So it was taken out of service a year ago. On 5/13/2024 4:52 PM, Alexander Jacocks via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
The Applesauce is the right tool, and we should have the Mac Mini attached to the device that Tony donated, in addition to Andy's PowerBook.
- Alex
On Mon, May 13, 2024 at 11:12 AM Wil via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I would look into one of these https://webstore.kryoflux.com/catalog/ a kryoflux. There is also greaseweasel as an alternative. Basically it does a image at such a low level, it can copy anything, including all the best copy protection methods from back in the day for floppies. Doesn't matter what platform the disk is formated to.
I am not 100 percent sure but pretty sure you can then find tools to extract the image for use in a emulator or otherwise find tools to extract the files. This is much more likely to be easy to experiment extraction virtual or as you say mount on a Mac emulator and screen shot the files.
On May 13, 2024 10:55, Andrew Diller via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
There is an apple computer to connect to it- the Apple Powerbook that I donated a few years ago. It was connected to the Applesauce at one point and was used to read some floppies.
The SE/30 isn't going to help if there are any issues w/ the floppy itself (high probability). The Applesauce will keep trying and recover what it can, the SE/30 will just eject the disk on the first error it encounters.
So if the disks _are_ 100% perfect the SE/30 will read them. But what are you going to do then? Moving them to another more modern system won't be possible unless the SE/30 has ethernet. Then you can connect to the AppleShare server that BenK and I setup for the BBS system on that network. You will also need appropriate software apps on the SE/30 to open the documents (if you can read them, if the floppy is 100% good).
The best path is to use the Applesauce to pull a flux image and then use a virtual Mac (appropriate OS version to run the right App version) with the appropriate software that can read the save documents (i.e. Word 4 perhaps).
Those are my suggestions.
-andy
On May 12, 2024, at 11:39 PM, Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On Fri, May 10, 2024 at 8:14 AM David Ryskalczyk <d235j.1@gmail.com> wrote:
There is an Applesauce at the museum that may be usable for this. I can’t remember if it has a 3.5” drive that can be connected to it.
The Applesauce works, but there is no Apple computer working to connect to it, so it is unusable until that happens.
Tony Bogan will lend us a Mac SE/30 so that I can at least read the disk and see what is on it. Then I can go from there. Thanks!
On May 10, 2024, at 8:02 AM, Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
OK. No one answered this. Does anyone have working Quadra and is local to InfoAge?
Someone is looking to recover files from a 3.5 floppy disk. It is unknown which software it was made with.
He needs to:
- Print out the files (each is a character study of no more than 10 print pages) - Open the files and allow him to use his cell phone to capture each page to re-type on his PC - Or provide some other way of capturing the file contents so he can re-create these data on a modern computer.
Let me know if you are local and can help.
Thanks!
Jeff
On Thu, Apr 25, 2024 at 11:00 PM Jeffrey Brace <jeffrey@vcfed.org> wrote: Is there someone coming to the repair workshop that can help someone recover Macintosh files from 3.5" disks? Likely they are word processing files from a Quadra. Please let me know. Thanks! Jeff Brace
-- Douglas Crawford VCF Mid-Atlantic Museum Mgr InfoAge Science & History Museums 2201 Marconi Road Wall, NJ 07719
participants (7)
-
Alexander Jacocks -
Andrew Diller -
David Ryskalczyk -
Douglas Crawford -
Jeffrey Brace -
Tony Bogan -
Wil