retrieving files from Mac IIci

[N-OS X-tasy!]

Something like this would come in handy just now:

[freeradical]

N-OS X-tasy! wrote:
Something like this would come in handy just now:

Somewhere out in my garage, I have a USB floppy drive. I wonder if 10.6.8 would recognize it...

[Will Collier]

freeradical wrote:
[quote=N-OS X-tasy!]
Something like this would come in handy just now:

Somewhere out in my garage, I have a USB floppy drive. I wonder if 10.6.8 would recognize it...

Very likely. Will OS X 10.6.x recognize a System 7 floppy? Different question.

[macbeergeek2]

As long as the Zip disc is recognized by both Macs, option 2 sounds like the simplest solution since you already have the two drives.

If you've never connected that SCSI zip drive to your mom's IIci, then it will need the Iomegaware driver software installed. It looks like Iomega still has the drivers available for download from their site:

http://www.iomega.com/support/documents/10425.html

And you may need to also install the OS X Iomegaware on the other Mac.

Good luck!

[Speedy]

N-OS X-tasy! wrote:
Do you or your mom have access to an America Online account? If so, do they still offer access via modem?

Yes, AOL still offers dial-up.

[Thais]

Fortunately, my mac is recognizing one of the Zip drives and I can see the contents of the Zip disks I have mounted using it, so I know this end is working.
The challenge will still be over at my mom's. I assumed I didn't have the driver software, so I started looking for that, and thank you to macbeergeek for the link, but once again, how will I get the software onto the computer?
You all have made so many good suggestions. I will definitely keep referring back to this page as I try to work this out.
One last attempt at an "easy" route: Do you think there's any chance that a friend with a pc/floppy drive might be able to transfer the files off of floppies onto my thumb drive and then that I'd be able to (maybe) access them?

[Mr Downtown]

Yes, files from floppies to the thumb drive would probably work. Don't be confused by the duplicate filenames: the floppies will have resource forks that you can safely ignore or copy and then ignore.

You don't specify the file format the old files are in, but chances are good that there'll be a way to extract the keystrokes and probably some formatting as well.

[macbeergeek2]

Iomega used to provide some kind of temporary driver, which usually came pre-installed on Zip disks, that allowed the Zip disk to be mounted, and let you install the full driver software right from the Zip disk. Maybe that's on one the Zip disks that you still have?

[Jimmypoo]

It wouldn’t be instant - but if you could get the files onto a floppy from the IIci, then anyone here who could boot into OS 9 with any computer could either use the USB floppy (I have a MacAlly somewhere that I know works fine, but I just moved, so I don’t know WHERE…) or anyone who still has an operating Smurf that could run Jaguar 10.2 could pop in the floppy and email the files to you.

If you can - I’d use StuffIt to compress them — because StuffIt 15.x is available for Snow+ right now.

It might take a lot less time to copy to floppy and just send a copy of the flop to someone on here, and they
email them to you, so you can get them onto the thumb drive and do whatever for a newer computer.

It might even be cheaper to look for a $20 Beige G3 running OS 7.61 through 9.21, as it has the floppy
and the zip, and ethernet, and as long as it has a lousy 64MB stuffed into it, it will boot. Same is true
with the Smurf - it’s a G3/300 (same as Beige, but Beige was underclocked to 233/266) - but added
optional VGA, ultrawide SCSI, FireWire 400, the great case improvement, and you could run both a Mac
monitor card and a VGA card at the same time (I have a few of those somewhere, but the last 4 Smurfs I
had, had to hit the dump - I ran out of room to store shiit - and had to cut it somewhere!).

No target mode - but it will see YOUR computer as target mode if it has a FW card. Otherwise a Smurf is the
same machine with easier access. Just as cheap, has zip built in to most of them-and you could either use
ethernet, USB or FireWire (no Target Mode on the first Yikes G3 Smurfs, just FW400, but it sees Target Mode
just fine — I used to link my Pismo often. My Pismo STILL works fine in Target Mode - it’s 12.5 years old,
and connects to Lion with no hassles - and I happened to have got both the Zip and the Floppy for it
for the empty battery socket where the DVD/CD-ROM goes… though it too is packed away).

CBELT has a few of these machines he’s been trying to dump on anyone close to Cleveland. Perhaps before
he donates them to a corner dumpster - contact him and see if he can get the contents of a IIci floppy
OFF and to you via another format - be it ethernet or even a burned CD.

Lots of ways around this.

Packed along with my junk is also 4 modems for my MacII and SE, a 2400 baud, a 9600 baud and a 14.4
and even a 28.8 baud… (possibly a 33.6, though I think that was built into my PowerBook 540C, which
is in storage too…) - point being, if I still have them, others will too. And you can use AppleTalk,
machine to machine, through OS 9.x to move the files at 115kbps!! (that’s 14.4 kbaud)!

Then boot that same machine into 10.2 Jag!

Getting a Sony “3.5” SuperDrive 1.44MB from eBay will cost you about 7 cents, and $5 to ship it, if
you don’t have one working on the IIci.

NO-OS-X — are those USB Floppies available / cheap? I kind of like them!

[michaelb]

Good luck with this and be sure to report back on how it goes. I remember having fun hooking up my old computers to my newer computers using ethernet. Are you sure she doesn't have ethernet? It also sounds like you don't have a laptop to work with. If she did have ethernet and if the zip doesn't work, I would grab her computer and bring the two together, and see if they could be networked.