Andrew 🌻 Brandt 🐇<p>I have continued futzing around with the <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Apple" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Apple</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Macintosh" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Macintosh</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/PowerBook" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>PowerBook</span></a> 145B. My weekend project was to remove the ancient, decrepit SCSI hard drive (functional, but loud as heck) and replace it with the <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Androda" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Androda</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/BlueSCSI" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BlueSCSI</span></a>, a custom PCB with a Raspberry Pi Pico W attached to it. (The Pi Pico W also gives the PowerBook an internal WiFi connection, something the original never had.)</p><p>Fortunately I already have some experience working with .hda disk image files from last year's <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/PiSCSI" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>PiSCSI</span></a> project, so I had some ready-made virtual hard disks loaded with software I've barely touched.</p><p>Today at <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://post.lurk.org/@mediaarchaeologylab" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>mediaarchaeologylab</span></a></span> I found a floppy disk for the 1995 Norton Disk Editor, a low-level diagnostic tool that I can't imagine there was much consumer demand for. The disk editor contains some hidden gems of MacIntosh lore I was previously unaware of.</p><p>The UI says "The Disk Type bytes identify the type of Macintosh file system in use on the volume. If the bytes are $D2D7 (or 'RW' - standing for Randy Wigginton) then the volume is an MFS volume. If the Disk Type bytes are $4244 (standing for 'BD' or "Big Disk") then the volume is an HFS volume."</p><p>(Edit: I don't know if Apple had its own version of ASCII, but while in traditional ASCII hex 0x4244 = "BD," ASCII hex values for "RW" would be 0x5257, not 0xD2D7, so that's...weird)</p><p>Randy was employee number 6 at Apple, and a neighbor of Woz. Turning your initials into magic bytes buried in the filesystem you designed seems just so...early Apple.</p><p>The PowerBook is now completely silent when it runs. It doesn't have an internal fan. The hard drive motor was the only thing that made any noise (aside from the speaker, of course).</p><p>And the BlueSCSI? With a 128GB MicroSD card, it has about 1600 times as much storage as that old 80MB hard drive.</p><p><a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/RetroComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RetroComputing</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/RetroMac" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RetroMac</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/MakeShitMonday" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>MakeShitMonday</span></a></p>