This is fact: With 1.4 MB HD floppies, Apple agreed that fixed-speed drive was what they would use.īottom line: a generic fixed-speed external USB floppy drive will work with 1.4 MB HD floppies, yet (to the best of my knowledge, and i may be wrong) not Mac 800k or 400k floppies. It was a whole lot easier and more financially sane for Apple to go with the flow and use the same standards for 1.4 MB floppies as the Wintel world… economies of scale, dontcha know! This is all my conjecture, anyway. As the Wintel juggernaut began to steamroll them, Apple sought ways to cut costs. While there were many reasons for this, one was Apple’s penchant to innovate and improve upon the standards. One of many, many causes was the higher price of Macintosh computers. That is why Mac floppy drives make sounds of different audible pitches as they move around the disk surface: the motor speed is changing! Īs of the emergence of high-density (HD) floppies in the early 1990s, Apple was growing weary of being slammed around in the marketplace. How did Apple do this? By using a variable-speed spindle drive system instead of fixed-speed, to cram more data on the same magnetic material space. Similarly, double-side double-density (DSDD or for our purposes DS) 3.5" floppies hold 720k on a Wintel, and 800k on a Mac. You may have noticed (or not) that long ago, when floppies were common, the original 3.5" single-side double-density (SSDD or for our purposes SS) hard-case floppies held something like 270k or 360k on PC-compatible computers (if they even used those… i didn’t and don’t know) while the same floppy formatted and used on a Mac held 400k. What is Not well-known is that these drives, being more generic, lack a crucial feature of Apple-specific floppy drives: Variable Speed. All the ones i have seen connect via USB. Below are the most common scenarios: 400k and/or 800k Floppies with an External USB Floppy DriveĪs is well documented, modern Macs from this millennium (and some before) no longer come with built-in floppy drives. “Hey! I’ve got a floppy drive on my Mac, and it reads some floppies just fine, yet not others. This page attempts to address methods and workarounds for accessing data on Macintosh floppy disks (using Apple Macintosh and clone hardware) and moving the desired data to newer Mac systems. This website has no connection to the companies that created these products.Working with Macintosh Floppy Disks in the New MillenniumĪs time passes and floppy disks become relics of computing’s past (especially in the Macintosh world), folks seem to be confronting more problems accessing information stored on this older format. This website is a fansite and represents the work and opinions of a private individual. The trademarks and logos used in this web page refer to the actual computers that are represented, but neither these emulated computers nor this website should be confused the actual products. If you are the owner of any material presented in this website and you do not wish to have your material presented here, please contact me at a more in depth discussion of copyrights and legal issues and why I believe this website may constitute fair use under the U.S.
#VINTAGE MAC EMULATOR SOFTWARE#
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#VINTAGE MAC EMULATOR CODE#
This web page makes use of computer code and software which is copyrighted by their respective owners.
An ] allows your computer to simulate the operation of computers that are now obsolete, all inside your web browser!Ĭlick the “Get Started!” icon to begin, read ] or look through the site ]. Welcome to the RetroWeb Vintage Computer Museum, a web exhibit where you get to interact with and learn about personal computers and software from the early to late-eighties.
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