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From: russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: PC user gets his just desserts (Fat Mac) and has lotsa questions
Message-ID: <1990Nov2.042350.28900@eng.umd.edu>
Date: 2 Nov 90 04:23:50 GMT
References: <4168@rossignol.Princeton.EDU>
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Organization: College of Engineering, Maryversity of Uniland, College Park
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In article <4168@rossignol.Princeton.EDU> hundt@samadams.princeton.edu (Tom Hundt) writes:
>Hi,
>
>Mac models: Confusion here.  "Classic" Mac seems to refer to the
>latest model! What are the important differences between:
>"original" Mac, Classic, SE, Plus, IIe, and Extra Crispy.  PC
>Warehouse refers to Mac 512KE and 512E in their catalog: is this
>what I have? (Seems to me I need a ROM upgrade.  Is this
>possible?  Where to get new ones to swap out?)

No, you have a Mac 512 (no E-- the K is irrelevant).  You probably want a
ROM upgrade to the 128K ROMS (that's the E), and a RAM upgrade to no less
than 1MB (2MB better) to do much with modern applications-- if you want to
tool around with MacPaint, MacWrite, and Microsoft Word 1.05, you can stick
with what you have.

>How to do you tell what version a System is? My Finders seem to
>be 1.1 (pretty funny, I know) and 4.1 (more reasonable).  What is
>the latest version that will run on my machine? (Seems that 6.0.7
>won't even *fit* on a 400k floppy! :-)
Finder 4.1 is reasonable-- use the appropriate system version.  I believe the
last version of the system that will run on that mac is System 4.2 (Finder 5.0)

>Adding a hard disk -- what are possibilities?  HyperDrive?  There
>is no SCSI port; can it be added? 

Yes-- I believe there are kits available with SCSI port, 128K roms, and more
memory, even.

>Can I put in an 800k floppy drive?
Yes.

>What is FDHD?  (File system format?)
1.44 MB almost-universal disk drive.  Can't add it to your mac, except as
an external from third parties (Apple's external won't work)

>Downloading: Mac seems to use a format called StuffIt and BinHex. 
>Do you need anything else (e.g., to move stuff into various forks
>of a file?) (PCs just require a file to be downloaded, then
>possibly converted from ASCII to binary, then possibly
>de-archived/uncompressed.  Is there anything special needed for
>Mac executables?) What are some standard FTP sites for Mac?

MacBinary (format on many BBSs) is handled by most communications programs.
Ascii (hqx) to Binary can be handled by Binhex or Stuffit.
Decompression is handled by Stuffit, Stuffit Classic(Deluxe), or Compactor.
(note that these may not run on your 64K ROMS)

sumex-aim.stanford.edu is the most popular of mac FTP sites.

Problem is, when you do all these upgrades, you may be paying more than
you would pay for a new mac....

--
Matthew T. Russotto	russotto@eng.umd.edu	russotto@wam.umd.edu
Tax the rich, and feed the poor -- until there are, rich no more.