VOGONS


First post, by King_Corduroy

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I'm not a mac user it should be said first off if that wasnt obvious already but I have a compact mac and I keep seeing floppy images but so far I've only had some luck writing .dsk files with a pc. Whats the best way to use .sit or the other formats as a pc / linux user wanting to get into mac?

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Reply 2 of 6, by King_Corduroy

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lolo799 wrote on 2025-04-27, 15:48:

Does your compact mac have stuffit expander installer?

It has system 7 on it but tbh I'm not well versed with macs. How could I go about getting that on there? I don't have other macs.

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Reply 3 of 6, by Babasha

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Best way is to install and setup Basillisk II emulator with MacOS 7 or 8 inside and StuffIt Expander

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Reply 5 of 6, by Jo22

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Hi, it's also possible to use AppleTalk networking for filetransfer..

https://lowendmac.com/network/bridge.shtml
https://lowendmac.com/2014/appletalk-localtalk-and-phonenet/

https://macgui.com/news/showcat.php?id=8&tag=7
https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/interesti … net-bridge.501/

There are different ways of connecting things.
There's even an MS-DOS solution..
https://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2020/07/appleshar … -apple.html?m=1

Though the AppleTalk DOS software on PC side also supports NE2000 cards. Just saying.
The rare ISA card isn't exactly needed, if the Macintosh uses bog standard networking (BNC or Twisted-pair).

That being said, vintage networks are fun. PhoneNet, for example, which uses RJ11 telephone cabling.

For a simple connection between two units, normal LocalTalk is okay, though.

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Apple IIGS has AppleTalk support, too. Good to know because of emulators, maybe.
The Mac emulators don't seem to support AppleTalk so far.
https://bbellina.blogspot.com/2020/05/?m=1

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The Keyspan USB adapters support RS-422, for example. Has Mac/Win drivers.
So the LocalTalk boxes or PhoneNet boxes can be used that way.

For best compatibility, the USB adapters with the TWO mini-din connectors are being recommended, though.

That's because if you're using them under Mac OS 8/9 or early OS X,
then you may need both serial printer/modem port to be available to the applications.

And if you have just one port, it might be hard-coded for one of them.
Not for AppleTalk, maybe, but other programs (terminal program etc).

Edit: This post disagrees? Hm. Strange.
https://www.emaculation.com/forum/viewtopic.p … 2faec58fc383bce

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Btw: Some RS-232 USB serial adapters have Mac OS/OS X drivers, too.
From software side, AppleTalk can be enabled here.
So two Power Macs with same adapters can talk via null-modem cable, in principle.

But real Mac serial ports use different voltage levels and baudrates..
(The RS-422 can be made to talk in RS-232 "mode", but it's a hack.)
https://allpinouts.org/pinouts/connectors/ser … -rs-422-serial/

Edit: There's an Windows utility that can mount .DSK files, HFVExplorer.
It's a bit odd to use (you can drag/drop though in a different way), but maybe useful.
https://www.emaculation.com/doku.php/hfvexplorer

Gemulator Explorer is also worth a try.
http://www.emulators.com/explorer.htm

Edkt: Sorry if it's hard to read, I can't really concentrate right now.
Just think of it as a bunch of ideas, please.

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Edit: Tipp: It's also possible to open .DSK and .IMA files in any Mac OS X.
Just rename them to *. DMG and Finder will mount them as virtual drives.

That doesn't help with StuffIt compressed images, though.
Here, an older Mac OS with older StuffIt is really helpful.

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Edit: The compressed disk images have extensions such as *.SIT or *.HQX.
You can decompress them with an older version of Stuffit, which runs on older System 7.

With an emulator, System 7/StuffIt, a HDD image and one/two emulated floppy drives,
you can then basically "unwrap" the disk image on the emulated HDD (temporary storage)
and then copy the content to a blank, uncompressed floppy image.

Then you have the program/data on a normal *.DSK file.

In a nutshell.

The reason I mentioned the networking, at all:
a) so you can work without a physical floppy, doing everything via network
b) so you can use your Mac's real, built-in floppy drive to save the program/data on a physical floppy

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Reply 6 of 6, by luRaichu

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You really should tell us which Macintosh you own. Some versions of Stuffit Expander (a.k.a. the good ones) require a 68020 processor or better.
I use SCSI disk emulators with my 68k Macs. They plug in where an internal or external hard drive would connect. BlueSCSI allows direct file download/upload from a shared folder on the FAT formatted SD Card. It and the others which sport a Raspberry Pi Pico W can emulate a DaynaPORT SCSI/Link and get your Mac on Wi-Fi.
On my Macintosh IIcx I use that and an FTP client to download software from Macintosh Garden. It's slow but it works and I can decompress the resulting archives with Stuffit.
You might be interested in the 68kMLA forum