Getting files off Mac Classic HD

[DanCooper]

I have a 1991 Mac Classic, the screen on which died a decade or so ago, but which otherwise seems to boot up. I'm hoping to get files (e.g. e-mails, letters, college papers) off the hard drive and into a format that can be read by a modern computer. So far, no luck in finding someone with the right hardware to do this. The drive has what I am told is a scsi1 connection - two rows of 25 pins each. Any suggestions would be appreciated, particularly if they are within striking distance of the Cascadia (Oregon-BC) region.

Cheers!

 

[Strimkind]

There are a few ways to go about this. The best would be to find a PCI powermac for cheap, free, or borrow. These macs use the same internal SCSI bus as the classic. Just set it up as a different SCSI number and you are good to go.
From here you can use a USB stick if it has a USB card on it, burn the files to disc on a CD burner, copy to a zip drive, or even use the ethernet and network the computer to a modern machine. Someone in your area may have an older setup like this and may be able to help you without you collecting all the parts.

There are a few people on 68kmla forums who may be local to you.

 

[LimeiBook86]

What I do is use a Zip 100 drive. They can store about 100MB per disk and you can pick up the SCSI versions of the drives cheap. Getting the Zip disk driver onto the Mac Classic isn't too bad, you just need the right version for your System.

Then use a USB Zip Drive or a G3 or G4 tower (or other Mac) which has a Zip 100 drive built-in and copy the files. Thankfully a lot of the G3/G4 towers had these drives built in, or you can get an IDE one for a PowerMac. But a USB version is ideal for portability.

I have found this to be one of the easiest ways to copy files from older systems. If you have another legacy Mac you can always copy things via AppleTalk via a serial cable or a LocalTalk connection. It's slow but it works! Or if you have an Asante SCSI to Ethernet adapter you can try that, but that's a long shot.

For more info you may want to look at the 68kmla.net forums, that place is filled with vintage Mac owners that know their stuff. Good luck!

 

[David Schmidt]

There's services out there too:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/986111/#post10781261