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From: tuceryan@bombay.cps.msu.EDU (Mihran Tuceryan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: Apple File Exchange problem
Message-ID: <1990Sep20.182838.12302@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>
Date: 20 Sep 90 18:28:38 GMT
Sender: news@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu
Reply-To: tuceryan@bombay.cps.msu.EDU (Mihran Tuceryan)
Organization: PRIP Lab, Comp. Sci. Dept., MSU
Lines: 52


Last week I asked for help about reading MS-DOS files using Apple File
Exchange software. Thanks for all the replies I received which were
very helpful. Some people asked me to post a summary of the reponses I
got.

First, as I had suspected, the problem was indeed with the older
version of the Mac SE hardware that I had. There were a number of
solutions suggested:

1. Upgrade the internal floppy drive to FDHD. This requires a ROM upgrade
   as well as the disk controller chip. I asked a few places about the
   cost of this and it was > $600.00.

2. Get an external floppy drive with the ability to read high-density
   disks and MS-DOS formats. If you want one that will work without
   the ROM upgrade, it needs to have a SCSI interface. There were a
   number of names that came up often:

	Rapport Drive 2.4
	Peripheral Land, Inc. Turbo Floppy 1.4

   I called some of these places up to find out more about them and it
   turns out that some of them can only read high density or MS-DOS
   format. Apparently, they cannot handle the regular low density disks.
   Peripheral Land, Inc. is supposed to be coming out with a new drive
   called Superfloppy which can read the low density floppies as well.
   (This is the one I decided to buy for me. This way if I upgrade to
   a Mac II machine in the future, my money spent on the SE upgrade
   will not go to waste. This costs around $450.)

3. In terms of dealing MS-DOS files, someone suggested Dayna's DOS
   mounter software that lets you mount MS-DOS files directly on the
   desktop. One still needs to format the disks using the AFE.

4. I did not get any info regarding software that can read Mac format
   disks from the Sparcstation 1's internal floppy drive. This may not
   even be possible. Someone told me that one can format floppies in
   MS-DOS format using the Mac drives, but the reverse cannot be done.
   So, I think using the MS-DOS format as the intermediate medium
   seems to be a reasonable way to go. mtools software on the
   Sparcstations lets you manage the MS-DOS files without too much
   pain. 

   Some people suggested that I use modem and transfer the files over
   the phone. This is what I had been doing so far. However, this is
   such a slow process that any file more than two or three pages long
   takes forever to transfer with a 2400 baud modem.

   Other people suggested putting the Mac and the Sparc on a network
   and transfer the files over the network. This was not a solution
   for me because my Mac was not in the office.