so i was just going throug my basment and stumbled upon two ancient macintosh computers. as in the originals. i have keyboards and mice for both of them, as well as what appears to be an external hard drive module. also, one of the computers has the original dark-green apple carrying case with it. both machines seem to be working fine, as in when i plug them in and turn them on, i get a beep and then the system appears to start. well, sort of. see, on both machines all i end up with when booting is a floppy disk logo with a question mark on it. which would seem to indicate that there is a disk missing from the drive. or something like that. now seeing as how my basement is a mess, i highly doubt if i'd ever be able to find the original operating system disks for these machines. so my question is this: is there any way i could download the necessary system files and put them on a floppy to make these machines boot? i'm sort of anxious right now to make these machines work... it's not everyday that i make a discovery such as this.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
ancient discovery
- Thread starter exeterbohemian
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
http://homepage.mac.com/chinesemac/earlymacs/disk_images.html
One little problem: you'll need a drive that can write a 400K floppy
One little problem: you'll need a drive that can write a 400K floppy
What's really needed is another old Mac (or somebody who has one), preferably one of an in-between vintage that can handle both the old disks and the newer storage and networks. The newer Macs and their operating systems can't use the old 400K and 800K drives.Shamus said:Congratulations on the discovery!
i feel like there used to be an external floppy drive somewhere for these machines. i just found an 'ImageWriter II', so the discoveries keep piling up. oh and i managed to get one of the machines to start... apparently the box i found was in fact an external hard drive. i plugged it into the back of the macintosh512k and it booted perfectly. says it's running system software 7.0. now the question is: where do i find old printer paper... anyways. i'll continue updating with my progress. here are some pics. enjoy.
Attachments
looks like all of the basic apps are intact... i have macpaint working as well as quicken and a few other softwares. i've vacuumed out the keyboard and wiped all the dust off the casing. and so now i'm left with a perfectly intact and functional macintosh. any speculation as to what the resale value might be? hahaha... just kidding. i'm sure i'll find a use for it somewhere. besides, i even have the carrying case that came with it. (in all of this i'm reminded of the 1984 keynote when steve introduced the machine... oh, nostalgia).
cool discovery, but what i dont understand is how did you forget about the fact you have an old in full working order Mac sitting in your basement
HughJanus said:cool discovery, but what i dont understand is how did you forget about the fact you have an old in full working order Mac sitting in your basement
well i think it had something to do with the fact that we had assumed for years that it no longer functioned. when i was searching around for a drill earlier this evening i saw the old green mac case and thought i'd try it out to see if i could get it running... and much to my surprise, it does. the external hard drive is a 60 mb unit, and appears to have the os and other system files on it. it connects to the back of the mac through a scsi bus, which according to my father (who purchased the machine back in 1984), was installed as an upgrade later on.
so as of right now i have a macintosh512k up and running with an external hd and mouse and keyboard both functioning. still left in the basement is a macintosh plus machine, a large ball mouse, another keyboard (with numeric keypad), another (older) printer, and an external floppy drive. the macplus give me a question mark disk logo when i try to boot it, but my father says he knows where all of the old system disks are located, so with any luck i should have both systems up and running soon.