0
Hello,
I apologize in advance if this has been covered somewhere, but I searched the forum and couldn't find any info.
Is there any way to add a CD-Rom drive to a Mac Classic that doesn't
have a HD? I'm asking because I'm assuming that adding a CD-drive would
require to install a driver for it?
I heard that a AppleCD 300 Drive should work with a Classic. Anyone know
if the 300e Plus model will work too? Also, what other CD-rom drives
are compatible?
Thanks.
George
How to add a CD-rom drive to a Macintosh Classic?
Started by 68K-Trooper, Jan 19 2012 01:59 PM
22 replies to this topic
#2
Trash80toHP_Mini
-
- 68040
-
NIGHT STALKER
- LocationBermuda Triangle, NC, USA
Posted 19 January 2012 - 02:27 PM
You should be able to boot from an OS install CD in just about any external SCSI CD Drive, IIRC.
![[8]](How%20to%20add%20a%20CD-rom%20drive%20to%20a%20Macintosh%20Classic_files/icon_smile_8ball.gif){kind=icon}
™
#3
Byrd
-
- 68000
-
- LocationMelbourne, Australia
Posted 19 January 2012 - 03:18 PM
Trash80toHP_Mini said
You should be able to boot from an OS install CD in just about any external Apple-branded SCSI CD Drive, IIRC.
Fixed, Trash! Yes you will need an Apple-branded optical drive to boot from (so a 300e or 600e would be ideal), but with an OS loaded most generic SCSI drives will work (I recall various extensions that supported particular drives, for example CD Sunrise and Adaptec's Toast software also had better drivers).
JB
#4
protocol7
-
- 6502
- LocationIreland
Posted 19 January 2012 - 03:21 PM
If it's just for
accessing data CD Sunrise is great, free and small. With System 6 you
also need to install the Desktop Manager init to stop it from trying to
rebuild the desktop on the CD.
#5
68K-Trooper
-
- 6502
- LocationSan Diego, California
Posted 20 January 2012 - 12:14 PM
Please pardon my ignorance as I'm a bit of a vintage mac rookie.
2 Questions:
1. Are you suggesting that any compatible CD-rom drive will work plug and play without installing a driver for it? My Mac Classic doesn't have a Hard Disk Drive installed, on which I could install a driver. Say..if I purchase an AppleCD 300e plus for instance, will it work without installing any drivers?
2. The classic has OS 6.0.8 on a rom and can boot with a key command. Will that OS be sufficient in order to use a CD-rom drive or will i need a later version of the os on a disk?
3. Can anyone provide me with CD rom models (also 3rd party) which will work with a Mac Classic?
Thanks much in advance.
George
2 Questions:
1. Are you suggesting that any compatible CD-rom drive will work plug and play without installing a driver for it? My Mac Classic doesn't have a Hard Disk Drive installed, on which I could install a driver. Say..if I purchase an AppleCD 300e plus for instance, will it work without installing any drivers?
2. The classic has OS 6.0.8 on a rom and can boot with a key command. Will that OS be sufficient in order to use a CD-rom drive or will i need a later version of the os on a disk?
3. Can anyone provide me with CD rom models (also 3rd party) which will work with a Mac Classic?
Thanks much in advance.
George
#6
Trash80toHP_Mini
-
- 68040
-
NIGHT STALKER
- LocationBermuda Triangle, NC, USA
Posted 20 January 2012 - 12:35 PM
As Byrd corrected my statement, any Apple ROM CD will boot a Mac with from a CD with a bootable system on it, like my Hard Disk Toolkit and DiskWarrior CDs as well as OS Installer CDs.
With an external Apple CD it's no problem, with a n internal CD from another Mac in a second source CD Case it's no problem. Minimum config would be an external power supply of any sort and a cobbled together adapter cable.
With an external Apple CD it's no problem, with a n internal CD from another Mac in a second source CD Case it's no problem. Minimum config would be an external power supply of any sort and a cobbled together adapter cable.
#7
zuiko21
-
- 6502
- LocationAlmeria, Spain
Posted 20 January 2012 - 04:52 PM
As far as I know, bootable CDs have the SCSI driver on a hidden partition, thus you don't need to have a Hard Disk with a suitable CD driver -- but it will be needed if no disk is in the CD drive.
Upon startup, the SCSI-manager in ROM asks every device in the SCSI chain for a driver. If such thing is available, it gets loaded into RAM and full access to the device is granted -- that's the way HDs work!
That should work fine; however, some drivers may be incompatible with some computers/systems. I believe Apple's CD-ROM driver (which is the usually installed one in bootable CDs) will only work with Apple-branded drives, be them internal or external.
Upon startup, the SCSI-manager in ROM asks every device in the SCSI chain for a driver. If such thing is available, it gets loaded into RAM and full access to the device is granted -- that's the way HDs work!
That should work fine; however, some drivers may be incompatible with some computers/systems. I believe Apple's CD-ROM driver (which is the usually installed one in bootable CDs) will only work with Apple-branded drives, be them internal or external.
#8
Bunsen
-
- Administrators
-
Admin-Witchfinder-General
- LocationMelbourne, Australia
Posted 21 January 2012 - 06:40 AM
zuiko21 said
Does it now? How very interesting ...Upon startup, the SCSI-manager in ROM asks every device in the SCSI chain for a driver. If such thing is available, it gets loaded into RAM and full access to the device is granted
have you searched? Seeks: Nubus PDS DSP PB170 Newton; TRS-80 III/4; CBM BBC SX-64 CX5M Likes: 8bit luggable palmtop terminal NC tablet audio MIDI analog FM drum synth steam&dieselpunk; 1930-1980 lab/comm/mil Score! NC100 PB190 Q950 IIe-PDS
#9
68K-Trooper
-
- 6502
- LocationSan Diego, California
Posted 22 January 2012 - 10:35 PM
Understood. Thanks to all that tesponded.
Are there any 3rd party cd drives that also work with a classic?
Are there any 3rd party cd drives that also work with a classic?
#10
Concorde1993
-
- 68000
-
- LocationBrampton, Ontario, Canada
Posted 22 January 2012 - 11:30 PM
68K-Trooper said
I recently resurrected an old Pioneer DRM-602x, which is compatible with any Mac with an SCSI port. The beauty about this drive is that it has a 6-disc CD changer, which is great if you want to play multiple audio CDs, or CD-ROMs, and not have to worry about constantly swapping discs.Are there any 3rd party cd drives that also work with a classic?
I have a thread about it on the 68k forums (viewtopic.php?f=16&t=17642). I'm currently trying to get it to play audio CDs on my SE, albeit with a bit of difficulty, since the program that is used to control the tracks on audio discs is not compatible with non-Color Quickdraw Macs (it will play CD-ROMs without any problems, however). I think I may have a later version of the software driver, which could potentially be the cause of the problem, as it works perfectly on my 5215CD.
#11
Posted 23 January 2012 - 11:46 AM
zuiko21 said
As far as I know, bootable CDs have the SCSI driver on a hidden partition, thus you don't need to have a Hard Disk with a suitable CD driver -- but it will be needed if no disk is in the CD drive.
Upon startup, the SCSI-manager in ROM asks every device in the SCSI chain for a driver. If such thing is available, it gets loaded into RAM and full access to the device is granted -- that's the way HDs work!
I was curious so I looked into this a bit more, and here's what I found.
The Start Manager of IM: OS Utilities along with IM: Devices SCSI Manager section has some relevant information on this. My understanding is: when a SCSI device is detected in the SCSI chain by SCSI Manager, it issues a SCSI Read of sector 0. The first sector contains the Driver Descriptor Record, which contains sector size of the device, location & length of the device driver(s), etc. SCSI Manager loads the driver into RAM, and opens the driver. Subsequent access to the device is handled through that device's device driver. The SCSI Manager then uses the device driver to load the partition map, and adds each partition to the Drive Queue. After all slots, SCSI ID's, partitions, etc. have been enumerated, the ROM then tries to figure out what Drive (from its Drive Queue, which contains pointers back to the driver used for accessing it), first checking the floppy, checking the selected Startup Disk stored in PRAM, and eventually enumerating the drive queue looking for a valid HFS signature and valid boot blocks that point to the system file.
Multiple device drivers are allowed, as the Driver Descriptor Record can chain to multiple entries, but only one is used. Frequently disks will have both a pre-SCSI Manager 4.3 driver and a 4.3 driver. The Apple Partition Map has partition types for the drivers, but the partition map is not referenced in the discovery of the driver AFAIK since it isn't read until after the driver is loaded. The partition entries are to call out the area as used by the driver so it doesn't appear free and get overwritten, but the DDR is the authoritative location of the driver(s) from the ROM's perspective.
The Apple CD-ROM Handbook (1993) indicates this process will be followed for CD-ROMs as well. At the time that book was published, it explicitly states booting from CD-ROMs was not yet supported, but it did note that the Driver Descriptor Record along with the HFS boot blocks needed to be zeroed out because existing ROMs would attempt to honor them.
As for 3rd party CD-ROMs, I suspect 512 byte sector support might be required in order to boot from earlier ROMs. Typical CD-ROM sector size is 2352 bytes, but hard disks use 512 byte sectors, and existing ROMs only knew about hard disks.
As best I can tell, the DDR is requested regardless of the SCSI Peripheral Device Type (returned as part of an Inquiry command). I guess this would mean if you had a non-disk SCSI device (scanner, ethernet, etc.) that could return a DDR and driver through SCSI Reads, you could get a Mac ROM to load any old device driver from the device on boot. That's speculation, but if someone wanted to make random cool SCSI peripherals, it might be worth exploring further.
But, that's all for booting. Almost any CD-ROM should work for mounting discs from within the Finder, assuming proper drivers are available.
#12
Bunsen
-
- Administrators
-
Admin-Witchfinder-General
- LocationMelbourne, Australia
Posted 24 January 2012 - 03:31 AM
Thanks for following
up on that bbraun. The first thing that springs to mind, of course, is
whether this opens up a possible path towards DIY SCSI-IDE or SCSI-CF
devices.
#13
zuiko21
-
- 6502
- LocationAlmeria, Spain
Posted 25 January 2012 - 10:41 AM
This is getting interesting... 
Back to the original question, I've done some experimenting:
In my SE/30 with Apple-branded CD 300e I put any bootable CD (I used MacOS 8.6 install), wait for it to spin up, then insert a System 7.0.1 floppy (with no CD/SCSI extensions whatsoever) and power up the SE/30: the CD LED flashes for about a second (the driver is being loaded!) then the SE/30 boots from the floppy and... voilà! The CD-ROM mounts on the desktop perfectly. I can then eject it and use any other CD -- no problem.
Tried the same with System 6.0.8... more or less the same, but instead of mounting the disk, a dialog appears asking to unlock the disk because the Desktop file can't be rebuilt
Upon cancelling that, the disk is ejected...
Anyway, a non-bootable disk (standard data CD-ROM) doesn't do the trick. The LED flashing at startup is very brief, a single blink -- nothing gets actually loaded. And no CD inserted is mounted afterwards.
With non-Apple-branded drives (Yamaha 6416 & 8424) I wasn't that lucky The bootable CDs can't get the driver loaded -- I think it does load; but upon detecting a foreign drive, refuses to work. Those drives are suported by Toast CD Reader extension 4.0.2, but at a whooping 137K I don't think is the best thing to put on a System 7 floppy. Haven't tried to toast a bootable CD with that extension as the CD-ROM driver in that disk, I think it could work.
About booting from the CD: I don't have presently any CD-ROM with suitable system for the SE/30, but with the aforementioned 8.6 disk (obviously incompatible!) the Cmd-opt-shift-backspace combo tries to boot from it, although the happy Mac quickly turns into a sad one -- as expected
Once again, the non-Apple drive can't boot at all... however, I could boot Dad's PowerMac 7500 from the original 7.5.2 System disk in a Yamaha drive!
In short: get an Apple-branded CD drive, any bootable disk and your usual system floppy, and your Classic will be able to read CDs
Back to the original question, I've done some experimenting:In my SE/30 with Apple-branded CD 300e I put any bootable CD (I used MacOS 8.6 install), wait for it to spin up, then insert a System 7.0.1 floppy (with no CD/SCSI extensions whatsoever) and power up the SE/30: the CD LED flashes for about a second (the driver is being loaded!) then the SE/30 boots from the floppy and... voilà! The CD-ROM mounts on the desktop perfectly. I can then eject it and use any other CD -- no problem.
Tried the same with System 6.0.8... more or less the same, but instead of mounting the disk, a dialog appears asking to unlock the disk because the Desktop file can't be rebuilt
Upon cancelling that, the disk is ejected...Anyway, a non-bootable disk (standard data CD-ROM) doesn't do the trick. The LED flashing at startup is very brief, a single blink -- nothing gets actually loaded. And no CD inserted is mounted afterwards.
With non-Apple-branded drives (Yamaha 6416 & 8424) I wasn't that lucky
The bootable CDs can't get the driver loaded -- I think it does load; but upon detecting a foreign drive, refuses to work. Those drives are suported by Toast CD Reader extension 4.0.2, but at a whooping 137K I don't think is the best thing to put on a System 7 floppy. Haven't tried to toast a bootable CD with that extension as the CD-ROM driver in that disk, I think it could work.About booting from the CD: I don't have presently any CD-ROM with suitable system for the SE/30, but with the aforementioned 8.6 disk (obviously incompatible!) the Cmd-opt-shift-backspace combo tries to boot from it, although the happy Mac quickly turns into a sad one -- as expected
Once again, the non-Apple drive can't boot at all... however, I could boot Dad's PowerMac 7500 from the original 7.5.2 System disk in a Yamaha drive!
In short: get an Apple-branded CD drive, any bootable disk and your usual system floppy, and your Classic will be able to read CDs
#14
bbraun
-
- 6502
Posted 25 January 2012 - 11:14 AM
zuiko21 said
With non-Apple-branded drives (Yamaha 6416 & 8424) I wasn't that lucky The bootable CDs can't get the driver loaded -- I think it does load; but upon detecting a foreign drive, refuses to work. Those drives are suported by Toast CD Reader extension 4.0.2, but at a whooping 137K I don't think is the best thing to put on a System 7 floppy. Haven't tried to toast a bootable CD with that extension as the CD-ROM driver in that disk, I think it could work.
I'm not sure if it's a foreign drive problem or a 512 byte sector problem. Do you happen to have a CD-ROM drive that's capable of booting an older Sun? This is an incomplete list of known good drives for Suns. Alternatively, if this is relevant to your Yamaha 6416, it indicates there's a jumper setting to enable 512 byte sectors on that drive. Perhaps setting that jumper might work?
#15
AbelVincze
-
- 6502
- LocationBudapest, Hungary
Posted 29 December 2013 - 06:16 AM
Hi, i have an external
CD-ROM drive (Yamaha CRW8424), and i'm able to mount it, but when
copying files from a CD-ROM to the HDD, it randomly freezes the OS (7.5 -
7.6.1). Sometime, i can copy 50-100 MB from it, sometime it freezes
earlier (at boot time for example). It only "works" With Apple CD-ROM
extension 5.3.1 (with different versions, i can't mount it at all).
Anyone have an idea why it freezes? The external drive have a terminator
plugged in.
#16
Trash80toHP_Mini
-
- 68040
-
NIGHT STALKER
- LocationBermuda Triangle, NC, USA
Posted 29 December 2013 - 08:44 AM
protocol7 said
Give that driver a try, it might help because it ought to be more universal than the problematic Apple driver.If it's just for accessing data CD Sunrise is great, free and small. With System 6 you also need to install the Desktop Manager init to stop it from trying to rebuild the desktop on the CD.
#17
AbelVincze
-
- 6502
- LocationBudapest, Hungary
Posted 30 December 2013 - 08:23 AM
Thanks for the tips... i'm out of ideas.
The external CD-ROM works fine with a PowerMac 8200 running OS 8.6, ONLY with the Toast CD Reader extension 3.5.5, but it works without any issues.
On my LC III (running 7.6.1), i triead several driver, like Toast CD Reader 3.5.5, 4.1.1, CD Sunrise, Apple CD-ROM 5.1.1, 5.3.1, and with all of them i have the same issue, it freezes sometime while reading from the CD-ROM...
The external CD-ROM works fine with a PowerMac 8200 running OS 8.6, ONLY with the Toast CD Reader extension 3.5.5, but it works without any issues.
On my LC III (running 7.6.1), i triead several driver, like Toast CD Reader 3.5.5, 4.1.1, CD Sunrise, Apple CD-ROM 5.1.1, 5.3.1, and with all of them i have the same issue, it freezes sometime while reading from the CD-ROM...
#18
Trash80toHP_Mini
-
- 68040
-
NIGHT STALKER
- LocationBermuda Triangle, NC, USA
Posted 30 December 2013 - 08:57 AM
It sounds like you've covered all the bases . . . for 7.6.1 . . .
. . . I'd knock it down to 7.5.5 and give that a whirl.
I've had no problems with CD/RW under 7.5.5, but very limited experience with with anything between there and OS9.
. . . I'd knock it down to 7.5.5 and give that a whirl.
I've had no problems with CD/RW under 7.5.5, but very limited experience with with anything between there and OS9.
#19
AbelVincze
-
- 6502
- LocationBudapest, Hungary
Posted 30 December 2013 - 11:05 AM
I didn't tested all
the drivers under 7.5.5, but what i tested, was exactly the same... Now
i'm trying to find another CD-ROM drive, then another external housing.
#20
Macdrone
-
- 68000
-
- LocationRainier, Or
Posted 30 December 2013 - 12:11 PM
Yamaha had its own
extension back then when I used it with a powermac 6100 that I had. You
may want to poke around the net for a Mac extension for it. Freezing
would be extension conflict or buffer issue.
Reply to this topic
