Upgrade OS 7.5 on a Mac SE existing HD with BlueSCSI v2

[billbucks]

Hello,

I bought a BlueSCSI v2 DB25 which works fine so far: I can boot with a pre made image on the SD card (Open Retro 7.5.3), except I have extensions errors so I need to reboot with the shift key.
I'd like to update the internal Mac SE hard drive which has Mac OS 7.1 to 7.5.3
I downloaded a toast file to upgrade to 7.5.3, put in on the SD in the CD3 folder and named it CD3.toast.
When I start the Mac SE, I can see the HD partition on the SD but not the CD.

Am I missing something ?

 

[eric]

If you are starting with extensions off you are likely not loading the CD extension. For an SE I would not boot 7.5.3 - choose one of the 7.1/7.0.1/6.0.8 instead.

You may have to add the Apple CD ROM extension yourself, not all OS's back in the day came with it.

Not all toast images are really CD images - we have a list of known bootable images here (note that 7.1 was really before bootable CD's were common so not listed, you'd likely have to boot off a Drive and use the Apple Legacy Recovery CD to install)

Lastly if you put images in a folder, eg: CD3, you do not need to name the file CD3 - any files in there will be used and cycled through when ejected.

HTH

 

[billbucks]

Thanks for the info.
According to the Mac SE specs, it should support OS 7.5.1, 7.5.3, 7.5.5. I'm happy to stay with 7.1, but I wonder why 7.5.3 wouldn't work.
For the extensions or other software to install via .dsk files download from the Mac Garden or Repository, is the best practise with BlueSCSI is to copy each dsk, cdr or iso on the SD to be mounted, or could I copy these files via an emulator directly within the HD partition (.hda on the SD) ?
For CD ISO I would think that Toast software would be useful to mount them directly, but I'm not sure if it's possible with dsk files e.g. to install games, software, etc.

I've used VMac and Balistik II emulators and I find it very handy to mount dsk files, yet I'm trying to understand the easiest option when using BlueSCSI DB25 on a real Mac.

 

[billbucks]

In addition to my previous post, the Mac SE internal HD seems to have died so I'm considering running the Mac OS from the SD which may be easier.
In Balistisk, I managed to create a custom image with 7.5 on a blank image and boot it on the Mac SE.
Now I wonder if the DB25 BlueSCSI v2 is suitable to use for the main HD as it sometimes seems to be a bit slow to run. Is there a difference in speed in using the Desktop BlueSCSI ? I initially got the DB25 so I can easily load files from my PC.

 

[eric]

Oh for sure, and SE would boot 7.5.x - but it is just very slow. 7.1 will give you every capability 7.5 would, and feel faster/use less ram.

For the extensions or other software to install via .dsk files download from the Mac Garden or Repository, is the best practise with BlueSCSI is to copy each dsk, cdr or iso on the SD to be mounted, or could I copy these files via an emulator directly within the HD partition (.hda on the SD) ?

It will depend of course and there's a lot of bad rips out there.
dsk - usually a raw HFS partition of a floppy disk. Used for a floppyemu or vmac/basiliskii emulator. You could likely use Disk Jockey to convert it to a drive scsi drive.
.cdr/.iso - these would normally just work, drop as many as you want into a `CD3` folder and use the toolbox app to switch between them at will.
.toast - can be a HFS Volume (wont work as a CD) or an actual CD. Toast could mount the HFS Volume or CD

Is there a difference in speed in using the Desktop BlueSCSI ?

No, they are on the same bus, connectors don't affect speed.

I'll also note that most emulators don't actually emulate SCSI - they only look for an HFS partition at the beginning of a file, and if found use it. This means if you actually create the image from scratch in an emulator it will not work on bluescsi due to it missing the scsi driver partition.

I do have a patched vmac that will work with both BlueSCSI device images and HFS volume images here https://github.com/erichelgeson/minivmac/releases/tag/2023.09.24

 

[Volvo242GT]

Thanks for the info.
According to the Mac SE specs, it should support OS 7.5.1, 7.5.3, 7.5.5. I'm happy to stay with 7.1, but I wonder why 7.5.3 wouldn't work.
For the extensions or other software to install via .dsk files download from the Mac Garden or Repository, is the best practise with BlueSCSI is to copy each dsk, cdr or iso on the SD to be mounted, or could I copy these files via an emulator directly within the HD partition (.hda on the SD) ?
For CD ISO I would think that Toast software would be useful to mount them directly, but I'm not sure if it's possible with dsk files e.g. to install games, software, etc.

I've used VMac and Balistik II emulators and I find it very handy to mount dsk files, yet I'm trying to understand the easiest option when using BlueSCSI DB25 on a real Mac.

As @eric says, an SE can run 7.5.x, but it's too slow and uses too much RAM. I used to have an SE SuperDrive machine that dual booted into both 6.0.8 and 7.5.1. Used the 7.5.1 system folder once during the whole time I owned it. 7.0, 7.0.1, and regular System 7.1 are tolerable on an SE. But, System 7 Pro and newer, the machine barely functions. It'll boot alright, but there's very little RAM to run programs, and it takes a couple seconds for menus to appear, etc. It is possible to strip out the extra extensions and control panels that are installed with 7.5, but you might as well just stick with 7.1 and add what you need for networking, etc. Personally, I would forego running System 7 at all on it and just run 6.0.8. Actually feels useable.

 

[billbucks]

Thank you @eric for the useful information and the link to the patched vmac.

@Volvo242GT thanks for your sharing your experience. I understand the issue and will probably revert to 7.1 due to performance issues. I'll give it a go with 6.0.8

 

[Volvo242GT]

Thank you @eric for the useful information and the link to the patched vmac. It will be useful.

@Volvo242GT thanks for your sharing your experience. I understand the issue and will probably revert to 7.1 due to performance issues. I'll give it a go with 6.0.8

Sure, not a problem. If you do wind up dual booting 7.1 and 6.0.8, I would add the Desktop Manager extension to the 6.0.8 system folder. It allows System 6.0.x to use the Desktop DB and DF files that System 7 uses for storing data about custom icons, etc. Also prevents the automatic rebuilding of the desktop whenever you boot in System 7.x after using 6.

 

[Crutch]

Sure, not a problem. If you do wind up dual booting 7.1 and 6.0.8, I would add the Desktop Manager extension to the 6.0.8 system folder. It allows System 6.0.x to use the Desktop DB and DF files that System 7 uses for storing data about custom icons, etc. Also prevents the automatic rebuilding of the desktop whenever you boot in System 7.x after using 6.

I’d like to know more about the Desktop Manager …. Is it this? https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/desktop-mgr-201

System 7 desktop files aren’t all the same: for example, I always have to rebuild the desktop when switching between 7.1 and a 7.5.5. Do you know if Desktop Manager causes System 6.0.8 to use a “7.1”-style Desktop Database or a “7.5.5”-style Desktop Database?

Also curious about the release date on this, the Garden says 1988 which was 2 years before System 7 (or even System 6.0.8 for that matter!). I wonder if it’s just wrong…

 

[Crutch]

Edit: I think I must have been crazy - are the 7.1 and 7.5.5 desktop databases actually compatible? Anyway I installed Desktop Mgr (linked above) on my 6.0.8 setup and now never seem to have to rebuild the desktop file under any combination of switching between 7.5.5, 7.1, and 6.0.8. It’s awesome. Thanks!

(Note, don’t install this into the System 7 system folder … it will result in a hang when you insert a new disk.)

 

[Patrick]

you got me wondering and i started to look around. I didn't really find anything.

...

I wonder, if the desktop Mgr was created to solve for the problem of using CDROMs and network shares. The fact that it also resolves the system 7 is a side benefit ?

or maybe when designing system 7 they decided to use the same format of desktop database as what Desktop Mgr is?

This is all just wild speculation on my part. I think this topic would be a good blog. Maybe with going into depth the format of the desktop database.....

 

[Volvo242GT]

Edit: I think I must have been crazy - are the 7.1 and 7.5.5 desktop databases actually compatible? Anyway I installed Desktop Mgr (linked above) on my 6.0.8 setup and now never seem to have to rebuild the desktop file under any combination of switching between 7.5.5, 7.1, and 6.0.8. It’s awesome. Thanks!

(Note, don’t install this into the System 7 system folder … it will result in a hang when you insert a new disk.)

IIRC, all versions of Mac OS from 7.0 to 9.2.2 use the same Desktop DB and DF files.

@Patrick, I suspect you're right. After all, it's found on one of the AppleShare disks, and didn't seem to get offered alone by Apple.

 

[Volvo242GT]

Yeah, just checked my offline copy of the Apple FTP site. I do have it as a separate file, but I think I added it from the MacGUI site's server last year.

BTW: @joshc, it might be worth posting the archive.org link for the MacGUI server's files, since some of us here aren't on the 'mla.