Adventures in Macintosh restoration Part VIII: Fresh Setup

In Part VII, I experimented with a variety of Mac OS system software combinations on my Power Macintosh 8600/200. Now it’s time to finish up the experiments and get this machine up and running.

One more way to transfer files

The most important job a of a bridge machine is to be able to transfer files to older machines, and as I’ve explained in the previous parts, this machine is pretty flush with methods for doing so. However, before I got all that working, one of the first recommendations I got from other vintage mac fans was to try and add USB support with a Sonnet Tango PCI card.

I found one cheap on eBay, brand new and still in the box:

It was a quick and pretty effortless install into one of the machine’s open PCI slots. While it requires Mac OS 9 to operate, and then only at USB 1.1 speeds, it has quickly become one of my favorite methods for transferring files.

Mac OS 9 can understand FAT32 filesystems, so rather than deal with floppies, burning CDs, or the relatively slow network, I’ve found that the fastest and often most convenient option is to just use a little USB drive. The biggest issue was having to reach to the back of the machine to access the ports, but thankfully the card has an “internal” port, so I was able to route a USB extension cable out front slot for the missing ZIP drive.

SCSI2SD second thoughts

It’s now, when I’m all ready to set up this machine with its “final” setup, that I start to question my use of the SCSI2SD. It’s a very useful and powerful device, but it’s also kind of expensive. Beyond being a “drop-in” replacement for a SCSI hard drive, it’s useful to be able to remove the SD card to make backups, add/remove files, etc. But this machine already has so many ways of transferring files, and having to pop open the case to remove an SD card is pretty inconvenient by comparison.

As I’ve mentioned before, my true goal is to a restore an older compact mac. This current machine is just a tool toward that end, so it seems a little wasteful to dedicate a SCSI2SD for it, if the long-term fate of this machine is to be stored away and only used when needed. Plus, any future compact mac will have probably need a hard drive replacement of its own, where the benefits of a SCSI2SD may be better appreciated.

Revisiting SCSI

So rather than plan on forking out the money for another SCSI2SD in the future, I decided to take out the one I have and re-look into my options for installing a real SCSI hard drive into this machine. In Part VI I mentioned the lack of new SCSI hard drives, and the problem with old ones is finding one that still works.

However, while SCSI ultimately failed in the consumer market, many of the newer SCSI drives that do exist are still backwards compatible with the older SCSI protocol, given an appropriate cable adapter.

So I consulted r/VintageApple for advice, and after trolling around online I ended up scoring an 18 GB SCSI hard drive for $5, with free shipping even! As for the cable adapter, a reddit user who had already done the exercise of buying every possible adapter pointed me to the only one that actually works as advertised.

Since the drive was originally intended for server racks, it’s slower, larger, and louder than comparable consumer drives, but the price simply couldn’t be beat.

It worked perfectly with a patched copy of Drive Setup, and I partitioned the drive three ways – a 11GB HFS+ primary partition for Mac OS 9.2, a 2GB HFS partition for Mac OS 7.6, and a 4GB HFS partition for miscellaneous data.

Installing Mac OS 7.6

Once the hard drive was partitioned, I went ahead and installed Mac OS 7.6 first. I didn’t screenshot the whole process, but for the benefit of any future person who’s never had to install 7.6 on a Power Mac in 2020, here’s a rough outline of what I did:

1. Boot from the 7.6.1 install CD (hold “c” if necessary)
2. Run “Install Mac OS”
   1. Skip straight to Step 4, “Install the software”
   2. Customize the install according to the suggestions here:
      1. MacOS 7.6.1 Update
      2. QuickDraw 3D
      3. MacLinkPlus
      4. English Text-To-Speech
   3. Under Options, check “Create new System Folder”
   4. Install to the 2GB partition I set up for 7.6
   5. Start!
   6. For everything else, just select “Easy Install”
3. Reboot when finished

Then, after the machine booted back up from the hard drive, it’s time to update some settings in the Control Panel:

1. Configure Energy Saver to “Shut down instead of sleeping” and set the timer to “Never”
2. Open Control Panel > TCP/IP
   1. Confirm you want to enable TCP/IP after the panel closes
   2. Connect via Ethernet
   3. Configure to use the DHCP server
   4. Exit, saving configuration
3. Open Control Panel > Control Strip
   1. Hide Control Strip
4. Open the Extensions Manager, and disable the following “Control Panels”:
   1. Control Strip
5. Again in the Extensions Manager, and disable the following “Extensions”:
   1. Color SW 1500
   2. Color SW 2500
   3. Color SW Pro
   4. Desktop Printer Extension
   5. Desktop Printer Spooler
   6. Desktop PrintMonitor
   7. ImageWriter
   8. Iomega Driver
   9. LaserWriter 300/LS
   10. LaserWriter 8
   11. Printer Share
   12. PrintingLib
   13. PrintMonitor
   14. StyleWriter 1200

Finally, I installed the 2020Patch Extension so I can set the date past 2020. And here we are, only 8.5MB used at boot:

Now, these particular settings might not be right for everyone, as they reflect my setup: I have a TCP/IP network, but no printers, and I have never been a fan of the Control Strip. Now on to the primary OS for this machine, OS 9.2.2.

Installing Mac OS 9.2.2

The road to Mac OS 9.2.2 is a little more involved, but again, here’s an outline of what I did:

1. Boot from the 9.1 install CD (hold “c” if necessary)
2. Run “Mac OS Install”
   1. Under Options, check “Perform Clean Installation”
   2. Install to the 11GB partition I set up for 9.2
   3. Start!
   4. Continue and Agree until you see another “Start” button
   5. Customize with just the following:
      1. Mac OS 9.1
      2. Internet Access (Custom)
         1. Internet Utilities
         2. Microsoft > Internet Explorer
      3. Text-to-Speech
      4. ColorSync
   6. Start!
3. Reboot when finished

After the machine reboots, complete the Setup Assistant. Then, as before, it’s time to update some settings in the Control Panel:

1. Configure Energy Saver to “Shut down instead of sleeping” and set the timer to “Never”
2. Open Control Panel > TCP/IP
   1. Confirm you want to enable TCP/IP after the panel closes
   2. Connect via Ethernet
   3. Configure to use the DHCP server
   4. Exit, saving configuration
3. Open Control Panel > Control Strip
   1. Hide Control Strip

Now we’ve got a pretty clean 9.1 install, but we want 9.2.2. To do that we’re going to need to get three things onto the machine:

1. OS 9 Helper
2. Mac OS 9.2.1 Update
3. Mac OS 9.2.2 Update

Once you have that, you’ll need to do the following:

1. Open the “Mac OS 9.2.1 Update” and mount the disk image
2. Run “OS 9 Helper 1.0.1”
   1. Select “Install Mac OS 9.2.1”
   2. Begin Installation
   3. Continue and Agree until you see another Start Button
   4. Customize with the following:
      1. Mac OS 9.2.1
      2. ColorSync
3. Start!
4. Reboot when finished

After the reboot, complete the Setup Assistant again, then:

1. Open the “Mac OS 9.2.2 Update” and mount the disk image
2. Run “OS 9 Helper 1.0.1”
   1. Select “Install Mac OS 9.2.2”
   2. Begin Installation
   3. Continue and Agree until you see another Start Button
3. Start!
4. Reboot when finished

After the reboot, complete the Setup Assistant one final time. Now we can clean up the Control Panel – I used the list here to get started:

1. Open the Extensions Manager, and disable the following “Control Panels”:
   1. Control Strip
   2. Location Manager
   3. Multiple Users
   4. Software Update
   5. USB Printer Sharing
2. Again in the Extensions Manager, and disable the following “Extensions”:
   1. Color SW 1500
   2. Color SW 2500
   3. Color SW Pro
   4. Control Strip Extension
   5. CSW 6000 Series
   6. Desktop Printer Extension
   7. Desktop Printer Spooler
   8. Desktop PrintMonitor
   9. FBC Indexing Scheduler
   10. ImageWriter
   11. Iomega Driver
   12. LaserWriter 300/LS
   13. LaserWriter 8
   14. Location Manager Extension
   15. Multi-User Startup
   16. Printer Share
   17. PrintingLib
   18. PrintMonitor
   19. USB Printer Sharing Extension

And here we are, only 16.6MB used at boot:

That’s it for today, I think I’ve got one more post left in me for this machine, so stay tuned for Part IX!

/jon

Want to read from the beginning? Start at Part I.