Wow, you took the same path into computing that I did. My first computer was also a Vic-20 and then an 800XL. I remember I could never afford disc drives early on so I used a cassette player exclusively with the Vic and then a cassette with the 800XL until I could finally afford a floppy drive. I had been collecting Macs for a few years, mostly they were given to me or I found them out on trash collection days. I have a small fleet of Mac Pluses and an SE with dual floppies on the compact side of my collection. One of the Pluses I believe to be a 128 or 512 that was upgraded and one of them is a platinum case Plus. I remember well the days of transferring files via a null modem cable. It is getting hard to find null modem cables or null modem adapters anymore. I imagine there isn't much need since everything is either USB/Firewire or wireless now. Fortunately I'm a packrat who never throws anything away so I have plenty of vintage computing parts laying around "just in case". :D It sounds like you're off to a good start with Macs, but be careful. Once you get started you're going to want more and more. I have stacks of Macs here that I get nothing but grief over from "she who does not understand". Oh, and just a little advice if you're running a 68000 based Mac. Stick to System 6. You can go as far as System 7.5.5 on them but System 7 is resource heavy on a 68000 based Mac and slows everything way down. In addition to being lighter than System 7, System 6 is also written in pure assembly language instead of a higher level language so it runs faster.
On Jan 3, 11:49 pm, Anderon <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello, everyone! > > I'm a "switcher" - I started using my first Mac about 3 years ago, and > fell in love with it. > > Back when I started using computers, I was drawn into getting an a > Commodore Vic-20 (and a VicModem), and then an Atari 800XL. And then > a very long line of computers until I landed here. > > Recently, an elderly lady in my neighborhood was clearing out her > garage, and came across a Mac SE that had belonged to her husband. > She was going to throw it out, but saved it for me. I consider this a > lucky find, and being a new Mac convert, this was a way for me to > experience some of the Macintosh legacy firsthand. > > If you spot any assumptions I made that are faulty, please let me > know. > > I was very fortunate - the machine had two floppy drives, had been > upgraded to 4 megabytes of RAM, and had an external harddrive (that I > can't find the size of - the enclosure is marked "Mac Bottom", but > that doesn't mean anything to me). > > The machine also has a "Thunderworks Port Adapter" - I know this only > because I saw a Mac SE on ebay with the same plug, that plugs into one > of the SCSI ports on the back of the SE. It has a passthrough SCSI > plug, and a 9 pin serial adapter (I am assuming and hoping that is > what that is). > > The machine was hardly used - it had OS 6.0.9 on it, Aldus Pagemaker, > and Microsoft Word. I think it has Adobe Typemanager on it as well, > but that's just a guess. But no other software. > > Now, there's a lot of shareware software out there that runs on these > older machines, but this is where a common problem comes in. How to > transfer software from my Mac or my Windows box to the Mac SE? I > searched all over the web and the answer was the same - you can't do > it, unless you have a FDHD drive on the Mac. Or, you have to use a > null modem cable. Well, I've used a null modem cable many times > before for transferring software on my old Ataris. This shouldn't be > any different, right? > > Well, the first thing I had to do was find my null modem cable. It > had been some years since I used it, and it came up missing. So, I > ordered a new one, and a new serial cable. > > So here's the question of the day: > > Given that, from what I can tell, there's no software on this machine > besides the operating system and a few word processing programs, is > there any software that comes with the OS that will help me to > transfer files from my Windows machine to the Macintosh? > > If not, is there anyone on this list that I could persuade to send me > an 800K-formatted floppy with a terminal program that has Zmodem (or > some similar file transfer program?)? > > Or, failing that, how difficult is it to hook up a SCSI CD-ROM? And > can anyone point me at one that would be compatible? > > Any help would be greatly appreciated. > > David Jackson -- ----- You received this message because you are a member of the Vintage Macs group. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To leave this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/vintage-macs Support for older Macs: http://lowendmac.com/services/
