How to build the ultimate BlueSCSI Compact Mac images - complete with games and apps?

[GreenBar0n]

I have no other Mac's, except (2) SE's that were given to me, and (2) SE/30's that I bought and repaired. Was a Commodore and Windows kid from long ago, so Mac is new to me.

I was able to build the OS's with BlueSCSI - 7.5.5 for the SE/30's, and 7.0.1 for the SE's - thanks to this excellent video:

I now have (4) BlueSCSI v2 desktop's and want to fill each of the OS's with games and apps, but am having trouble copying over the .SIT files from Macintosh Garden.

I was hoping to use the BlueSCSI Toolbox and Basilisk II to drag and drop the .SIT files, but I keep getting an error when I drag the .SIT files in to the emulator. I do have Stuff it Expander installed on the emulator and Mac's.

What's the best way to copy over a lot of these games and apps, with the intention of making them available on (4) BlueSCSI SD cards for the Mac's, if I only have Windows and Basilisk II?

Thanks!

 

[Mark_W]

I use minivmac if the source file is a floppy image. It emulates a black and white 68k mac (plus iirc) so not the fastest emulator to work with, but on the plus side you can accelerate it and make file operations much faster.

For sit files I use basilisk II or sheepshaver and enable the option "Enable my computer icon on your mac desktop":

it will mount a shared folder on the desktop where i put sit files to be copied over:

You can't drag and drop sit files into the emulator like vmware. Btw extract the sit file in the emulator first then copy the extracted content to your bluescsi image, you don't want to extract them on a 68k mac which could take ages..

 

[GreenBar0n]

Thanks! I was trying to drop a folder containing many games and apps in .sit form, all at once. Sounds like I need to go one at a time.

Basilisk II does recognize that I'm dragging a file in to the emu, but then tries to make a disk out of it. I'll try this all later tonight when I return.

Thanks again for the reply.

 

[GreenBar0n]

This is the step I was missing, and is exactly what I was trying to do to be able to move the entire Games folder over to Bailisk II, thanks so much for this!

I dragged the the entire Games folder from Windows 'This PC' to Bailisk, then deleted the Games folder in Basilisk - even emptied the Trash - after deciding to fix the organization; I then realized that the Games folder was moved from 'This PC', and not copied, so I deleted my entire collection of Mac games. Will have to start over, but now I know what not to do.

Thanks again!

 

[GreenBar0n]

Got the games copied over and working, I think I have a handle on the .SIT files now. Really enjoying this!

But for the Apps, I'm having a bit of difficulty with .BIN, .HQX, and image files.

I was able to get After Dark 3.0 copied over in .SIT form to the SE/30's, and it's working, but Flying Toasters Pro needs 16 colors.

It looks like After Dark 2.0 might work with B&W, but I can't figure out these Disk Copy v4.2 800K images.
https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/after-dark-20 - Downloaded #2 - after-dark-2x-1993.sit (572.37 KB)

I get them decompressed:

Double-click the .image:

Click Load image file:

Select the After Dark disk image:

Then I can't find where the install is located.

What am I doing wrong here?

Thanks!

 

[jmacz]

Try the newer Disk Copy 6.3.3. It will allow you to mount it, unlike Disk Copy 4.2. I think 6.3.3 will work under System 7.

 

[GreenBar0n]

Would never have figured that out, much thanks!

The image I had built from savagetaylor.com and Ron's Computer Videos tutorial, had both versions, Disk Copy v4.2 and 6.3.2 - threw 4.2 in the trash and 6.3.2 instantly installed the After Dark 2.0 image:

B&W flying toast ensued.

Will have all (4) Mac's flying toast at some point tomorrow.

Really appreciate the help, jmacz, thanks again!

 

[Mark_W]

Regarding other common file types:

.bin: macbinary encoded file, just use stuffit expander to extract it

.hqx: hexa- or octal-encoded file, can't remember exactly, extract with stuffit expander

.img, .dsk: floppy images (img could also be hdd or cd images, but you can tell by the size) and use diskdup or diskcopy to mount them. For b/w compact macs I usually run system 6 on them and use mountimage which is lightweight and works well with diskcopy 4.x images. Or just mount the bluescsi hdd image in minivmac and do the installation in emulator. If you're installing large software that has several installation disks, you need to mount every single disk at once and then start the installation (most installation process closes everything else and you can't swap images until it finishes).

.toast, .iso: cd images, just mount them with bluescsi or zuluscsi, change its name to CDX.iso/CDX.toast and put the file to sd card, you can even boot mac install cds from bluescsi (not sure about b/w compact macs though never tried on them). Also iirc some toast images aren't quite ISO9660 partitions but apple hfs partitions and bluescsi won't work with those. You can also put those files inside a hdd image and use toast titanium or virtualcd to mount them in the system, but i only do that on 68040 or ppc macs, it might work on b/w compact mac but would be pretty slow.

 

[GreenBar0n]

It would've taken me forever to find and understand all the different file formats available, thanks for the excellent info, Mark_W!

 

[GreenBar0n]

Took a while to get the SE's going, both now have 4Mb and have been completely recapped, floppies restored, and all of these have BlueSCSI V2 in the expansion slot.

Wasn't expecting the toast to fly faster on the SE/30's than it does on the SE's, the difference between 16Mhz and 8Mhz is twice the speed of the flying toasters on screen.

I think I like fixing and rebuilding these more than using them


Time to make the Ultimate BlueSCSI OS/Apps/Games images for these now!

 

[iantm]

I think I like fixing and rebuilding these more than using them

It is difficult not to just look for one more to fix… it is slightly more about the process than the result for me too. I'd say I want to see what collection you put together but… I kind of want to go through the process myself too, that's part of the fun!

 

[GreenBar0n]

After fighting with my first simasimac SE/30 for over a year and then finally getting it to work, I miss having that challenge waiting around to be solved, might have to find another simasimac board, or puzzle to solve.

For the Ultimate BlueSCSI image for an SE/30 with 8Gb of RAM and the stock ROM: I used System 7.5.5.

For the 4Mb SE's, I ended up leaving them 6.0.8, might try 7.0.1, but the SE's were harder to get things working for me - simple stuff for everyone else I'm sure - but I had trouble with Stuff It Expander versions and also the disk mounting versions. Getting games to work on the SE's has been difficult because of this.

For the games for these images, I'm trying to put together a list of the best, have been compiling the collection based on these videos.

 

[iantm]

It is a letdown to not have something else in the queue… I've got some soldering to do with a MacVGA converter and I jsut put together a WootSwitch, but… I'm down to the last little bits before I can set up the little Mac lab.

I'll check it out! I hope they mention some networked games. Outside of Bolo/Spectre I can't think of many. Maybe Stratego was able to play 2-player. Some kidn of strategy or puzzle game to play with phoneNet networks SEs would be grand.