> Just acquired a Macintosh Plus. I'm very excited about it but am > having trouble getting started. I'll try to be concise but may use > incorrect jargon or otherwise blatantly flaunt my unrivaled > ignorance on this topic. Please bear with me! Welcome to the fold of Mac Plus owners! It's my favorite of the Compact Macs I own!
> It boots and runs well. I'd like to know what OS it is running, if I > need any system discs for it, and generally what programs are > compatible with it. It does not appear to have any programs except > for Finder, Scrapbook, and Calculator. I am mostly interested in > word processing, spreadsheets, basic text documents. Secondary > interests include "paint"-type programs and games (graphical and > text-based). Well, the Mac Plus doesn't have an internal hard drive (unless you found one heck of a mod job). If it's running off a floppy, then that should be all the system disk you need. Making a backup copy of it would probably be a good idea though. To figure out what OS it's running, click the Apple logo in the top right corner and select the first option... either About the Finder or About this Macintosh. As far as programs go, I use Clarisworks 2 on mine. It runs well, but you'll need an external hard drive to run it (unless you don't want spell check). It also tends to lag a bit behind the keyboard when the current page you're on is getting full. MacWrite would probably work better, but I hate the way the interface works. Clarisworks also includes a raster drawing program, a vector drawing program and a spreadsheet. I have MS Word 5.1, but I have yet to try it on the Plus. Clarisworks works so well, I probably never will. If you can't get your hands on Clarisworks, you should be able to find MacPaint around the internet for your drawing purposes. As far as games go, you can get quite a bunch from a certain garden, but the legality of that is in question. I've found that the Mac Plus is sluggish with games like Lemmings and Prince of Persia, but it plays SimCity decently enough. > Is the ImageWriter suitable for this computer? Are drivers necessary/ > available for this printer? Is ImageWriter II this compatible with > Mac Plus? Which is preferable? I use an ImageWriter II with my Plus. Drivers are necessary, but you should be able to get them for free from Apple's old software directory. Either ImageWriter should work, but make sure it has the MiniDIN-8 connector and not the DB-9 connector, or find an adaptor cable. I would say go for the II just because of the increased availability. Also, you can install a Localtalk Option Board in the ImageWriter II (not sure about the first model) that lets you use it on an appletalk network, so multiple Macs can use it at once... and if you get a localtalk to ethernet bridge (either software or hardware) and find the appropriate drivers, you can print to it from a modern computer. > I'm aware that this computer has the ability to be expanded to 4MB > RAM. Is this worth it? Is it necessary for the purposes I intend to > use it for? Well, mine has 4 MB of RAM. I should check and see how close I come to that limit. For Clarisworks 2 and a few more modern programs, they'll probably want to use all the RAM they can get. I'm pretty sure every guide I've read recommends the 4 MB upgrade. The 4MB upgrade was pretty popular. Your Plus may have 4 MB already. About the Finder or About this Macintosh tells you how much RAM you have. > I'm guessing the upgrade would be necessary for programming, in a > language such as BASIC. What software, if any, would facilitate > this? How much memory is recommended? I can't adequately answer this, as I don't have any BASIC interpreters on my Mac. Like I said though, the 4 MB upgrade is probably a very very good idea. > My final question: what is the best way to obtain such software, > drivers, or whatever is needed? I have looked around online for such > information, but was unable to find anybody offering diskettes. Are > Mac Plus programs available online to download? There's tons of sites offering Mac Plus compatible software for download. For instance: http://www.info.apple.com/support/oldersoftwarelist.html the Apple Old Software List. You can get tons of stuff from there, including the install diskette images of system 6 and 7. http://myoldmac.net/ My Old Mac has some nice rare downloads I haven't been able to find elsewhere. http://www.euronet.nl/users/mvdk/system_6_heaven.html System 6 Heaven is a great resource for information about probably the best system to run on a Plus. http://www.jagshouse.com/ Jag's House is on par with System 6 Heaven for System 6 and Mac Plus info. http://lowendmac.com/ Low End Mac, of course. If you can't find the info there, usually they have a jumpstation of links to where you can find it. And there's also the Macintosh Garden for games, but I'm not gonna give you a direct link. Google can find it easily. Now, the only problem is getting the programs onto disks. Unless it's been heavily modded, the Mac Plus can only read double density floppies. (400k or 800k). The high density floppies you can find in stores nowadays won't work in the Plus. I have heard that you can sometimes format an HD floppy as a DD floppy and attempt to use it, but it depends on the quality of the drive, and doesn't always work. If you've been using computers for a while, dig into your supply closet and see if you can find any DS DD floppies. It doesn't matter if they're PC formatted or Amiga formatted, the Mac Plus should be able to wipe them and use them. Now you need to find a USB floppy drive that can read/write to DS DD floppies. Or you can do what I do and use another Mac. I use a Color Classic, but any pre-1995-post-1988 Mac should do. As long as it can read/write to both HD and DD diskettes. Then you can transfer the files via USB floppy drive from a modern computer to the interim Mac, then from the interim Mac to the DD diskette. Now, since most of the stuff you find online is MacBined, BinHexed, stuffed, compacted, or a combination of those, you'll want to get a copy of Stuffit Expander on the interim Mac. You may also encounter floppy images, in which case you'll want Disk Copy on the interim Mac. Assuming the interim Mac is running System 7, (which it most likely will be) you can get both of those from System 7 Today's Important Updates section: http://main.system7today.com/updates.html If you don't have DS DD diskettes and can't find any in your local thrift store, ebay auction or electronics dumpster, you can at least order System 6 on DS DD (800k) diskettes from Operator Headgap (http://resale.headgap.com/ ) for around $12. There are four diskettes... it'd be possible to back up the original contents and use them for shuffling files around. If you don't have an external hard drive for your Plus, you might want to consider trawling Ebay for a nice SCSI one; they come in handy. Be careful about size, System 6 can't address more than 2 GB in a partition. Also, if you do have the interim Mac running system 7, you could consider appletalk networking the two together and using the interim Mac's hard drive as extra storage for the Plus... but of course, you can't boot off it. > If someone does not have the time to answer my questions, > redirecting me to an appropriate website would do nicely. If anybody > has the materials I need, I would be glad to pay for them. Any > information you can give me would be a great help! Hope this helps! Please feel free to ask any further questions, but of course I can only answer as far as my experience goes. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Vintage Macs group. 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