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Lots of 68K Mac software on floppy disks

PostPosted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 10:56 am
by Antz
Having a bit of a clean up

I have about 500-600 floppy disks with Mac software on if anyone is interested. Mostly system 6 and system 7 stuff, some a bit older.

Some original install disks such as Pagemaker (which ran on MacPlus), ms word 5.1, Excel, system disks, HyperCard etc. Various utilities, lots of fonts, DA's, control panel docs. There is also accounting packages, database systems, development stuff (pascal, C, macprolog, basic), educational stuff etc etc and of course a few games.

Not sure of the integrity of all the disks but I went through a couple of hundred and well over 90% of those were fine.

Ideally I would like to see a lot of this stuff loaded up to some of those sites that store the abandoned software but at the moment it is just rotting away.

Anyone that can put this to good use would have to arrange pickup from Wellington.

Re: Lots of 68K Mac software on floppy disks

PostPosted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 3:10 pm
by Gibsaw
Ooohh.... and I do have an LC4/75 with a proper 68040 in it. (Although it's focus for me is the Apple IIe card.)

Just trying to picture 600ish 3.5" FDD's. that would be quite a heavy banana box worth?

Re: Lots of 68K Mac software on floppy disks

PostPosted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 4:01 pm
by Antz
Yep thats about the size of it, thats one reason it has to go =)

Most of the software is late 80's and very early 90's vintage so targeted at the 68k and 030 machines, some of it will not work on the 040

I will be getting rid of some more Mac hardware as I go through and sort it.

Re: Lots of 68K Mac software on floppy disks

PostPosted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 4:59 pm
by acsi
If Gibsaw is keen and pickup could be done during the day I could pickup and ship them for him?

Re: Lots of 68K Mac software on floppy disks

PostPosted: Sun Aug 04, 2013 11:19 am
by gavo
Antz wrote:Having a bit of a clean up

I have about 500-600 floppy disks with Mac software on if anyone is interested. Mostly system 6 and system 7 stuff, some a bit older.
<snip>
Ideally I would like to see a lot of this stuff loaded up to some of those sites that store the abandoned software but at the moment it is just rotting away.

Anyone that can put this to good use would have to arrange pickup from Wellington.


Hey Antz,

I'm tempted but I know I wouldn't be able to get to cataloging and imaging this stuff for a while. I'd hate to see this stuff go to the tip however, so if you dont get any other offers, please let me know and I'll take them off your hands and add them to the list of things to be done (just no one mention it to my wife!).

Cheers,

Re: Lots of 68K Mac software on floppy disks

PostPosted: Sun Aug 04, 2013 2:17 pm
by tezza
gavo wrote:I'd hate to see this stuff go to the tip however, so if you dont get any other offers, please let me know and I'll take them off your hands and add them to the list of things to be done (just no one mention it to my wife!).

LOL! That would be a common refrain for quite a few of us collectors.

Good to see you're still interested in the old gear Gavin.

Cheers

Re: Lots of 68K Mac software on floppy disks

PostPosted: Sun Aug 04, 2013 5:52 pm
by Gibsaw
Well, if the private messages are anything to go by, myself and Marcus are going to handle this little trove. Marcus is organising getting it shipped.

Depending upon what exactly is meant by 600 disks... If it's 600 DD floppies, then it should be straight forward to create a DVD sized(ish) archive of 68k mac software that can be played with by hobbyists. Obviously, if there's a significant number of CD-ROM's amongst it, that's going to make it a lot bigger.

I seriously doubt it'll be small enough to be a "trivial" downloadable. I won't even get into the licensing issues, which some companies will still feel the need to "protect" even to this day.

Re: Lots of 68K Mac software on floppy disks

PostPosted: Sun Aug 04, 2013 8:14 pm
by tezza
Gibsaw wrote:Well, if the private messages are anything to go by, myself and Marcus are going to handle this little trove. Marcus is organising getting it shipped.

Depending upon what exactly is meant by 600 disks... If it's 600 DD floppies, then it should be straight forward to create a DVD sized(ish) archive of 68k mac software that can be played with by hobbyists. Obviously, if there's a significant number of CD-ROM's amongst it, that's going to make it a lot bigger.

I seriously doubt it'll be small enough to be a "trivial" downloadable. I won't even get into the licensing issues, which some companies will still feel the need to "protect" even to this day.

It's great to hear this trove might be copied and preserved.

Re: Lots of 68K Mac software on floppy disks

PostPosted: Sun Aug 04, 2013 8:39 pm
by mrad01
My intention is to "recreate" some of the workstations I remember using from the 1980s - 1990s that graphic designers and education may have used. I have put aside a couple of my Mac Pluses and SE/30s for the task.

Gibsaw and I will go though them and see whats what. Will report in!

Re: Lots of 68K Mac software on floppy disks

PostPosted: Sun Aug 04, 2013 9:15 pm
by Gibsaw
And me... When I originally had a need for something more than the Apple II, I went directly to a '286 I built myself out of second hand parts. Apart from some courses in stage I Compsci, I was never a "Mac person", so I have nothing to recreate.

It's just idle curiosity and the prospect of that enormous pile of discs going into the void, which would be lamentable.

Unlike the hardware, the software really doesn't get enough attention. We all assume that somewhere out there, someone has created this enormous archive of disk images like the Apple II has, but the truth is that most of the Apple II archives contain only the most common stuff, which probably is less than 20% of what existed.

I've come to understand that the really common stuff in the archives may not be the best. If it was really expensive, or special purpose or heavily protected, it would be someone's pride and joy (or an integral part of their business) and would be jealously guarded, and eventually go in the bin, along with the machine it ran on.

Oddly enough the worst possible destination would be one of these vintage traders who would stick them all on ebay for US$10 each and make disk images of none of them.

Re: Lots of 68K Mac software on floppy disks

PostPosted: Mon Aug 05, 2013 9:51 am
by Antz
mrad01 wrote:My intention is to "recreate" some of the workstations I remember using from the 1980s - 1990s that graphic designers and education may have used. I have put aside a couple of my Mac Pluses and SE/30s for the task.

Gibsaw and I will go though them and see whats what. Will report in!



I was given most of this by someone that was a Mac system administrator in the late 80's and early 90's (was his "personal backup") and looking through it there is some networking and system admin stuff that may be grewat for what you want.

I did also have some old photocopied documents of manuals for some of the software etc. Will try and dig that up if its still around.

I am keeping some disks at this stage that I want to image (once i get the hang of doing that) and use with mini vmac and Basilisk II (mostly games for the kids). Happy to pass these on as well when i'm finished and just keep the stuff that is really necessary to keep my old machines running.

Re: Lots of 68K Mac software on floppy disks

PostPosted: Mon Aug 05, 2013 10:03 am
by Gibsaw
Ah, so I'm guessing "at-ease" will be in there somewhere. :)

Re: Lots of 68K Mac software on floppy disks

PostPosted: Mon Aug 05, 2013 1:00 pm
by acsi
Two boxes on there way.

Re: Lots of 68K Mac software on floppy disks

PostPosted: Mon Aug 05, 2013 1:04 pm
by tezza
Gibsaw wrote:Ah, so I'm guessing "at-ease" will be in there somewhere. :)

Ahh, "At ease". The fun I had trying to get rid of that. - NOT!!