Reading various format 5.25" floppies on a PC

--- "Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" <cisin(a)xenosoft.com> wrote: The MacSE was the first to have an expansion slot that I know of. I have a graphics card and a couple of 10Base2 network cards (one from Asante, IIRC; one from Novell). It's called a "PDS" slot ("P"rocessor "D"irect "S"lot) - completely custom to whatever particular Mac it's in (with a few exceptions, like the MacIIsi and MacSE/30 sharing a slot and backplate design). *Standard* slots didn't come along until the MacII line - those are called "NuBus". Those phased out in the PowerPC days and have been supplanted with PCI slots in modern PPC Macs (for those models that have slots at all). The Mac approach is something like the Amiga approach - give little boxes a proprietary processor-specific slot (Amiga 1000, Amiga 500, Amiga 1200), and give the high-ticket boxes something standard (Amiga 2000, Amiga 3000, Amiga 4000...) The difference is that you can electrically fit an Amiga 1000 peripheral on an Amiga 500, but not a MacSE card into even something as close to an SE/30 (68000 vs 68030, so incompatible PDS slots). There are several flavors of Mac PDS slots, but one flavor of NuBus and PCI, AFAIK. I doubt they have ever been more than tolerant. There are a number of well-known 3rd-party peripheral makers, and a couple of former clone makers (Jobs hated the idea of people cutting in to his hardware business, but he wasn't always in charge). Asante, Novell and Radius are the ones that come to mind immediately, but there are others. There are probably three or four major types of Macs: enclosed models with mono screens (128K, 512K, Plus, SE, SE/30...), low-end slab-style desktops (MacLC-II, MacLC-III...), higher-end desktop and small server models with 68020 or better, and Nubus slots (MacII, IIci, IIsi, IIvx, IIfx, Quadra 700, Quadra 800, Quadra 950...), early PowerPC boxes with NuBus slots and frequently AV hardware (PowerMac 6100, 6200, 7100, 8100...) and "modern" PowerPC designs (iMac, G3, G4...) There are dozens of models that I have not mentioned, but they more-or- less resemble one of the ones that I have mentioned. Well... as I said in another message, that's a different issue that can be frequently be addressed with a bit of practice (or delegation ;-) Just this week, I was modding a spare SPARC5 (removing the upper SCA connector so I could fit a 1.6" drive inside the main case). I used a combination of a soldering iron, solder sucker, and heat gun. Indeed, but I've modded more Amigas than PCs... mostly it's not worth the hassle, in my experience, but there are times with less common hardware that you don't have many alternatives (like the time I installed a removable battery on a Mostek NVRAM from a SPARC1/1+/2. I should take pictures of it. It still works. For a long time now. Many modern PCs don't even have ISA slots any more - my high-end desktop machine has a 3-year-old motherboard in it with 5 PCI slots, and no ISA (Asus A7V). I still keep an old P-233 box around as well as a 486DX-2/66 for more down-to-earth hardware hacking. I tend to leave the top end as-is (until it's not so top-end anymore ;-) Fun in what sense? To mod the hardware? Probably not. To attach to a modern network and run a TCP/IP stack? Almost certainly. Starting with the Plus, most Macs come with SCSI (there are a very few exceptions); many come with network ports or are easy to refit with either LocalTalk or Ethernet. Most ][s were not so equipped, but for enough money, they could be so enhanced. -ethan