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Apple HD20 and SE/30
Posted by: megabyte on 2016-02-18 01:32:55
I have an Apple HD20 which uses floppy port and want to use it with my SE/30. Is it possible? I have System 7.1 installed onto my Mac.

Posted by: Paralel on 2016-02-18 01:36:23
If a Mac has a floppy port, and enough RAM (and/or the correct driver is ROM), you can use an HD20.

Posted by: bibilit on 2016-02-18 01:50:18
yes of course you can, will probably be slow (The HD 20 is seen as a giant Floppy Disk by the system, the HD 20 SC is a different beast) and if i remember clearly, the SE/30 will not need any driver to work with it.

Posted by: Paralel on 2016-02-18 01:56:30
At least with the FloppyEMU emulating an HD20, its really not all that slow

Posted by: unity on 2016-02-18 09:05:11
I thought the IIsi was not compatible with the HD20. Just to expand on the any Mac with floppy port mention. Or is my recollection wrong?

Posted by: uniserver on 2016-02-18 10:19:48
IIsi is compatible... IIfx and SE/30 is not compatible.

you can use the HD20 with the SE/30 if you change the rom with a IIsi rom.

or if you get in contact with Dougg3 he sells rom simms that you can load up what ever rom you want.

but naturally only these machines will work with the HD20

IIci

IIsi

Classic

Classic II

any mac se 8mhz

mac portable

powerbook 100 with some cable hackage

LC 1 but only with Floppy Port B internal

Mac Plus

Mac II from internal floppy port

LC 2 with SWIM chip mod

With the IIsi rom you can use that same rom in the IIcx and the SE.30 to gain 32bit clean + hd20 support

also don't forget about BMOW's Rominator,  that you can install in the 128k and the 512k to gain native HD20 support as well...

Posted by: Paralel on 2016-02-18 15:18:53
I stand corrected. I forgot about all the extensive testing that was done on this to find the models where it doesn't work. It rings a bell now.

Posted by: BadGoldEagle on 2016-02-19 14:20:55
IIRC, you can read and write to it but you can't boot from it. Support for booting from the HD20 was removed from the SE/30's ROM.

Some people are still having problems connecting their HD20 to their SE/30, like James Wages. Some hack is required to boot from it I think.

Posted by: mc9625 on 2016-04-28 03:47:08
If I do install an IIsi rom in my SE/30, will it be able to use the HD20 images with floppy emu?

Posted by: fimbulvetr on 2016-04-28 06:58:20
My solution was to network my SE/30 to an SE with AppleTalk PhoneNet and access the HD20 attached to the SE.  

Posted by: bigmessowires on 2016-04-28 08:06:53
Yes, a IIsi or similar rom in your SE/30 will give it the ability to use an HD20 drive (or HD20 mode for Floppy Emu).

Posted by: yuhong on 2016-04-28 20:04:50
Look up the MacIIHD20 INIT.

Posted by: Mac128 on 2016-04-29 16:58:46
IIRC, you can read and write to it but you can't boot from it. Support for booting from the HD20 was removed from the SE/30's ROM.

Some people are still having problems connecting their HD20 to their SE/30, like James Wages. Some hack is required to boot from it I think.
I thought the issue was that you couldn't write to it?

As I recall, Apple had a means for reading the contents from the drive to copy your files off of it from an SE, but not to continue writing to the drive.

Posted by: tanaquil on 2016-04-30 06:23:21
I am curious, what are the benefits (and/or drawbacks) of upgrading the SE/30 ROM other than the ability to have full use of the HD20? I like to keep my machines relatively original where I can, but I also don't want to miss out on beneficial upgrades.

Posted by: bigmessowires on 2016-04-30 09:46:20
Look up the MacIIHD20 INIT.
I've heard of this, but never seen it. Do you have a link where it can be found? 

An init would be nice, but still not as good as having support in ROM, because you couldn't actually boot from the HD20 if you need to load an init from another disk first.

I would certainly believe that special disk transfer software could also allow for HD20 access from an SE/30. There's no physical incompatibility, after all, it's just lack of a suitable disk driver in ROM.

A replacement ROM would give the SE/30 built-in HD20 support, as well as make it natively 32-bit clean. And if you get the dougg3 rom simm, you can also get other goodies like a built-in bootable rom disk, custom startup chime, custom happy mac icon, skip the ram test, etc.

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