43 replies to this topic

[Mirage]

aftermac, on Tue Nov 10, 2009 5:26 PM, said:

Mirage1972, on Tue Nov 10, 2009 3:36 PM, said:

Z-Basic was awesome on the old Macs. I used that on my Mac 512 enhanced back in the day. I have no idea where you'd get that now. I don't recall ever seeing it lying around on the internet, and I do remember looking for it at one point.

The SE may be boring now (remember though, you're on a retro site!), but when they came out, they rocked pretty hard.

Hmm... I don't seem to have Z-BASIC (unless it's compressed in some archive whose name doesn't contain "basic"). I have it for the Apple II, but not the Mac. I might have FutureBASIC laying around somewhere, probably on floppy. It was Zedcor's successor to Z-BASIC that I used for nearly 10 years. I'm not sure that it will run on an SE though.

I do have MSQB and that WILL run on an SE.

Yeah, it could easily be hidden in some odd archive name. From what I remember, Z-Basic was fairly popular, so it's got to be out there somewhere. If someone sees this and happens to know where I could find it (preferably with a PDF or whatever of the manual), please let me know.

I have a few broken old Plus's/SE's lying around I'm going to make some sort of art with.

[aftermac]

After doing a bit a searching around, I found that FutureBASIC is now freeware. 4 & 5 are available for Mac OS X and FB2 is available for 68k Mac's. I used to use it on my IIsi, but I'm not entirely sure what the minimum requirements are.

[desiv]

Mirage1972, on Tue Nov 10, 2009 5:30 PM, said:

...I have a few broken old Plus's/SE's lying around I'm going to make some sort of art with.

Hey, if you have a broken Mac Plus you aren't going to revive, might you be willing to part with the BIOS ROMs?
I picked up an A-Max at a computer junk store a bit ago, ROMless..

I'd love to get it working on my Amy... I have a guy sending me a set of eeproms to use (apparently, the "hacked" version of the software (which worked without the ROM chips, but you couldn't use an external Mac floppy) would let you use the floppy, even if there were empty ROMs. But I'd prefer REAL roms...
I have a Mac 800k external drive on the way, so I should be able to test it all pretty soon.

It needs the really old 64k ROMs (not recommended) or the very slightly newer 128k ROMs that were in the PLUSes...
From the manual:

Quote

128K ROMs are Apple part numbers 342-0341-X and 342-0341-X where X is the revision letter. Often the set of two chips will have different revision letters but always keep the two as a set - don't try to match the revision letters.

So, if you have some you won't be using, that would be awesome... I have a Mac Classic, but its ROMs are too new.

Yes, I realize that there's no real reason to actually do this, but that's why we're here, isn't it? Well, kind of. :-)

Thanx,
desiv

[Mirage]

Well, two problems... first, the ROMs are probably shot in the Plus I have... I believe that's the issue, or one of the issues (it's beat). And second, I have no idea where they are right now, as we just moved and everything is in a huge pile in the basement and it's going to be awhile before I can get to it. You'd probably be far better off getting someone to burn new ones (if that's possible, I have no idea). The SE's are basically just shells. All of them are pretty beat... I bought them all to use them for art. I don't typically part stuff out that seems repairable.

(Sorry for the OT)

Interesting about FutureBASIC being a decendant of Z-Basic. I'll have to check into that more now, I had no idea. Z-Basic made it so easy to create menus, easier than anything else I had used at that time... really great software.

Edited by Mirage1972, Wed Nov 11, 2009 6:40 AM.

[aftermac]

Mirage1972, on Wed Nov 11, 2009 6:14 AM, said:

Interesting about FutureBASIC being a decendant of Z-Basic. I'll have to check into that more now, I had no idea. Z-Basic made it so easy to create menus, easier than anything else I had used at that time... really great software.

From what I understand Zedcor renamed Z-Basic and released FutureBASIC 1.0, then sold the rights to Staz Software who almost immediately released FutureBASIC 2.0. As far as I know it should run on most 68k Macs.

Funny you should mention the ease of creating menus... that's one of the things I really enjoyed about FutureBASIC was how easily you could create windowed applications with menus and easily work with resource files.

You can download FB 2 for 68k, and 4 or 5 for Mac OS X here:

http://www.stazsoftware.com/index.php

EDIT: When I was in high school we had LC III computers with At Ease. One of the things people complained about the most was not being able to delete files from floppy disks (before At Ease could do so). I wrote a program in FB that would allow you to delete any file on the computer... as long as it was on a disk less than 2 MB in size. The school had me install it on all 60 LC III's and they used it for 2 years for students to delete files off their own disks. They eventually upgraded to Fool Proof security on the systems.

Edited by aftermac, Wed Nov 11, 2009 8:48 AM.

[Bruce Tomlin]

Mirage1972, on Wed Nov 11, 2009 6:14 AM, said:

Well, two problems... first, the ROMs are probably shot in the Plus I have...

ROMs don't die very easily. That's why 2600 carts don't die easily.

At the very worst, they might need to be pushed back into their sockets.

[Mirage]

Bruce Tomlin, on Wed Nov 11, 2009 10:38 AM, said:

Mirage1972, on Wed Nov 11, 2009 6:14 AM, said:

Well, two problems... first, the ROMs are probably shot in the Plus I have...

ROMs don't die very easily. That's why 2600 carts don't die easily.

At the very worst, they might need to be pushed back into their sockets.

True, but I have quite a few C64's that have scrambled ROMs, and others that did have scrambled ROMs that I repaired by replacing them with new ones (from the NOS stash I found from a closed up C= repair shop). Depends on what sort of ROM they are too. At any rate, the point remains the same, I don't have time to dig them out right now, plus having the ROMs lying around whether they work or not, may keep me more legal (not sure) with emulation. I've sold a lot of C64 ROMs and IC's over the past year or so, but this one set of Plus ROMs, I think I should just keep. They may work, but judging by the scrambled screen, I believe at least one to be bad.

Edited by Mirage1972, Wed Nov 11, 2009 3:21 PM.

[desiv]

Mirage1972, on Wed Nov 11, 2009 3:18 PM, said:

At any rate, the point remains the same, I don't have time to dig them out right now, plus having the ROMs lying around whether they work or not, may keep me more legal (not sure) with emulation.

As I said, no biggie. I'll have it working without them. Just would be nice IF you had them lying around.
But as you have a need for them, definitely keep them! As long as they aren't gong to waste!!!
I'll find a set eventually, and I have my hacked emulation and my real Mac Classic to keep me going. :-)

Take it easy.

desiv

[Mirage]

To the original poster and question, here are a couple more links that may be useful for getting an SE on the internet. Some of the links within may be bad of course, but at least you'd then know what to look for:

http://myoldmac.net/...wtopic.php?t=67

http://macplus.mia.net/howto.html

[desiv]

Mirage1972, on Wed Nov 11, 2009 8:05 PM, said:

To the original poster and question, here are a couple more links that may be useful for getting an SE on the internet. Some of the links within may be bad of course, but at least you'd then know what to look for:

http://myoldmac.net/...wtopic.php?t=67

http://macplus.mia.net/howto.html

Thanx for the links! I'll check em out too..

I always liked LowEndMac.com for some good general Mac knowledge...

Changed my mind! (Well, kind of. I just don't like the layout now of their main page.)
Go here for the vintage Mac section: EarlyMacs

desiv

Edited by desiv, Wed Nov 11, 2009 8:54 PM.

[Hornpipe2]

I used Basilisk II (PC emulator) to write Mac-readable floppy disks. It took a lot of care not to get my file formats crossed, but I was able to write bootable System 7 disks using the emulator on my PC, then boot them in a Mac.

[aftermac]

Hornpipe2, on Fri Nov 13, 2009 3:36 PM, said:

I used Basilisk II (PC emulator) to write Mac-readable floppy disks. It took a lot of care not to get my file formats crossed, but I was able to write bootable System 7 disks using the emulator on my PC, then boot them in a Mac.

[desiv]

aftermac, on Fri Nov 13, 2009 4:23 PM, said:

Hornpipe2, on Fri Nov 13, 2009 3:36 PM, said:

I used Basilisk II (PC emulator) to write Mac-readable floppy disks. It took a lot of care not to get my file formats crossed, but I was able to write bootable System 7 disks using the emulator on my PC, then boot them in a Mac.

I didn't think the PC could write Mac floppies...

hmm..

You're talking high density? Not 800K disks...

desiv

[Hornpipe2]

desiv, on Fri Nov 13, 2009 5:10 PM, said:

aftermac, on Fri Nov 13, 2009 4:23 PM, said:

Hornpipe2, on Fri Nov 13, 2009 3:36 PM, said:

I used Basilisk II (PC emulator) to write Mac-readable floppy disks. It took a lot of care not to get my file formats crossed, but I was able to write bootable System 7 disks using the emulator on my PC, then boot them in a Mac.

I didn't think the PC could write Mac floppies...

hmm..

You're talking high density? Not 800K disks...

desiv

They were 800k... I found a box in a supply drawer at work and "put them to use" : )

[desiv]

Hornpipe2, on Sun Nov 15, 2009 10:13 PM, said:

They were 800k... I found a box in a supply drawer at work and "put them to use" : )

OK, I thought the PC floppy controller couldn't write multiple speeds required to read/write a Mac 800k Floppy??

???

desiv

[Mirage]

I think you may be thinking of Amiga disks?

[desiv]

Mirage1972, on Mon Nov 16, 2009 3:36 PM, said:

I think you may be thinking of Amiga disks?

From here: http://ccadams.webatu.com/se/boot.html

It says:

Quote

You can't make a boot disk for an 800k-drive Mac SE on a PC. If you don't have access to another floppy-drive Mac, you're stuck.

desiv

[Mirage]

Oh, a BOOT disk. I also forgot that some SE's came with 800k drives. Get a SuperDrive, problem solved... well, that's one solution anyway.

[Hornpipe2]

Huh, I must've gotten confused with 1.44mb floppies then.